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I just passed my HAM Technician test!!! Now I just wait for my call sign.

Thanks! I live in a GMRS vacuum near Fall Creek Falls state park in Tennessee and I have a difficult time hitting repeaters around me. I figured I would get the RT97L to help out the park and the community.

Yes, i've used all of them. They are all great portable repeaters. IMO the new RT97L gives the best bang for your monies because of the higher power which helps make up for loss in your coax compared to the low power ones. ..and unless things have changed, the Midland is much higher priced, but does not offer much more than the Retevis models.

I can tell you that the repeater association (ham, not GMRS) I belong to had been dealing with someone transmitting music every night at the start of a pretty big daily net. Months of it happening, repeated complaints to FCC and zero action or even a response. A little harmful interference is nothing big to them. It took tracking them down and knocking on their door to ask them to stop while handing them copies of the FCC "rules" on such matters. It stopped. Not because of the FCC rules, but because they realized that you can be found.

I climb the tallest tree around before attempting to use my radio...

When I use my HT for GMRS, I make sure I have an aluminum beer can in my other hand for counterpoise. Obviously, you have to empty it till you find that perfect resonance sweet spot. Sometimes it takes multiple tries to get it right.

Fantastic, THANK YOU! I already ordered the clip and... I also ordered the pocket holder thanks for your excellent suggestions! may that good karma come right back to you!

I agree with all of your comments... Especial having it be the courteous thing to do. Some of my posts can get a bit spicy, so I feel it's important to point out that while I am having a conversation about not needing permission from a legal or regulatory standpoint, I do agree that it's someone's personal belonging, that we are using (or asking to use), and as a civilized society we should be mindful and respectful of that.

yes

I just thought I would stop by and post a quick hello since I am new to this. I got my radio all installed and got my license from the FCC. Now it time to play and have fun here in the wet western Washington (Puyallup).

*sigh* ...

I promise not to tell Randy

You forgot to mention the warning about the brake light will light up and make the brakes lock up everytime you key up the radio.

A planned road trip to Big Bend this fall led me down the GMRS path of enlightenment. I am now the proud owner of a Baofeng AR-5RM (and an AR-771C GMRS antenna) along with a Radioddity DG20-G (along with a Midland MXTA26 with a magnet mount). Already found a few active GMRS channels on the Baofeng when outdoors......need to take the DG20-G with the Midland MXTA26 outside to test it. Thanks to many on this site for the informative posts. Safe travels to all.

There are adhesive back steel plates that can be bonded to a fiberglass surface to provide a decent ground plane.

There's nothing wrong with staying at technician either. I know some that never upgraded from the old Novice license as they never use HF at all. I threw out the options with General incase you are interested. It never hurts to have more communication tools in the tool box.

There are other uses for HF than just talking to anonymous men across the country. You can use VHF and HF with Winlink to send emails. And Winlink is commonly used by emergency management agencies during natural disasters. We had a couple of club members here passing messages to people in North Carolina during Hurricane Helena recovery efforts.

I added him to my ignore list so I don’t see his posts anymore. It’s worth it.

Congratulations! Its always fun to expand the tool kit and have a good excuse to get new toys.

Hey! Watch it Buckko! There is nothing wrong with a little Youtube edutainment !

You sir, are a true pillar of your community !

You just gave me a great idea! I want to try and hook up a spark plug to my 1 KW amplifier and see if the spark plug Sparks with the amplitudes! How Wild would that be?

Not easy to find someone doing intermittent keying. But to just play music? Just sending out a beacon saying come get me.

Almost never.

Honestly if you’re going to do anything that’s more permanent than peel and stick you should really just punch a hole and install a through-hole NMO mount like @gortex2 showed.

I'm a member as well to support their efforts on protecting all amateurs but I don't participate in 99.999% of their events as I don't like contests. I work community events such as parades and bike races/rallies.

Yeah, you are exactly right! I heard that proclamation/warning and chose to ignore it. I'm not a radio purist so as long as it works reasonably well, I don't really concern myself with all the technical perfection (usually only detectable with test equipment). The photo I posted above shows the 3rd brake light mount with a dual band 2m/70cm antenna, but most of the time I use a little 6" Tram 1126-B 1/4wave antenna. I like that little Tram because it is very low profile, and most folks do not even notice that I have an antenna up there. My SWR is 1.2:1 on my Btech 20W mobile and it works great for my real-world purposes on both GMRS and 70cm. In fact, based on my experience, I might argue that for UHF, ground plane is often over-rated. I can drive in circles, presumably transitioning between lots of ground plane (to the front) and arguably zero ground plane (to the rear) and the folks I'm talking to usually can't tell the difference. That's good enough for me!

I’m an ARRL member because I want to support the one main U.S. based group that represents us hams. They are not perfect but I think having them is better than having no organization. But the only way for a group like this to succeed is for its members to participate vigorously, informing the organization how to best serve the members. Not enough people do that and to its detriment the league sometimes fails to listen.

Good one.

Gotcha. Then yeah, supporting them just provides some money to help protect amateur radio frequencies, educational and outreach programs, and other stuff. I haven't joined but I'm thinking about it.

Yup, anything not getting out of the duplexer is heating the duplexer up. I suppose same with SWR, but not as dramatic. As for the tuning Marc had done for me the range didn't really increase that much but the clarity of the signal did. And the sensitivity of the repeater receiver vs being able to receive the transmitted signal on the HT was affected. The repeater could hear me but a lot of times I was just barely in range of the repeater. Whereas before I couldn't even trigger the repeater. I only moved up to a 100 watt duplexer because the transmitter pushes 71 watts at 13.8 volts and I have to reduce that to maintain below 50 watts after the duplexer. I've hear that a 50 watt duplexer does well up to about 35 watts in and after that doesn't. And I can say that a 50 watt duplexer doesn't do well with 65 watts in even though if you look at the specs it says 50-80 watts in.

Hey folks, I know many people dislike the idea of linking repeaters, seemingly (imho) due to some folks not understanding the FCC rules and the purpose of GMRS radio. That said, the Retevis RT97L is FCC type approved radio, providing RF linking of repeaters, allowing owners to create point-to-point repeater networks. I am hoping this thread doesn't devolve into yet another debate about linking, but rather just helping me with some quick feedback on the RT97L. I have a question for those of you you owned an operated a Retevis RT97L. After reading about it in another thread, I figured I would look into it as an affordable portable solution. While reading about it, I noticed that the repeater has two channels that allow simultaneous transmit and receive for RF linking (they refer to as daisy chaining). Has anyone here RF-linked 2 or more of them together? If so, what is your opinion about the efficacy of the solution? Is it a solid solution with good audio quality? I am really interested in this idea, both for GMRS and for Amateur Radio emergency operations. I worked an event this weekend where our two repeater links were not available, causing a huge hole in our coverage. It would have been great if I could have driven to a high spot in the area needing coverage, dropped a portable repeater and RF linked it to our primary repeater. Normally, RF linking repeaters nearly doubles the cost of each station. Given that Retevis sells the OTC GMRS version, and will custom configure a unit with requested frequencies for amateur radio, at about $700 each for the bundle, these seem like a really nice alternative to spending $8k-$10k on 2 repeaters and RF linking gear.

You are.. kinda.. Dual-Watch/TDR only disables the active-monitoring of both the A channel and the B channel. On most radios, when you disable Dual-Watch/TDR, the B-channel still shows, it's just silent. What you want is "Channel synchronization", which most/many radios do not have. A work around is to set A to display as "Channel" or "Name", then set B to display as "Frequency" then always keep both A and B on the same channel.

My RT97L has been working great for my ranch & firearms range since I upgraded to the better cable.

24 watts compared to 5 watts will get you a slightly better signal at greater distance than the 5 watts. The difference between 24 watts and 50 watts will be less noticeable. Yes, more power goes through foliage and walls better. But the real secret to getting farther range is to put a very good antenna up as high as you can.

There are “shack in a box” radios that include every common band from 160 meters to 70 cm.

I just recently did the sma to bnc adapter trick. Makes it a breeze to change antennas and I can hook up my radio to my 9db Yagi easily too. I wished I'd done this sooner before I bought all the sma female antennas.

I get that, but for my immediate needs, the Tech license is fine. And really, one of the main reasons I got my license, is there aren't really any GMRS repeaters in my area. But there are enough HAM ones to cover pretty much everywhere around here. For the most part GMRS would work perfectly fine for me, if it weren't for lack of coverage in my area.

Me Too!

Congratulations!

I really don't need new toys, my mobile and HT's are all unlocked. I have been thinking about getting the Comet 2x4SRNMO antenna, but for now my MXT-A26 will work fine. My main reason for wanting my HAM license is mainly for search and rescue. I am on the local SAR team, plus I go camping, hiking, fishing, off roading a lot in the mountains here in Southern Colorado. So I am very often out of cell range. I just wanted an extra tool in case of emergency. There are hardly any GMRS repeaters in my area, but several HAM repeaters.

No malls anywhere near me, but there is a Dollar General within range. They don't use radios, though; they just yell across the store.

That sounds like a problem with the radio. Can you contact customer service and maybe get a replacement?

Those are hard to tune. Patience Grasshopper. Keep trying.

You can have a custom welcome screen on the DB20G as well.

You’re right that belt clip sucks. This is one on eBay, you’ll note that it doesn’t have a hinge mechanism. I just left mine off and put it in a pocket or a holder like this.

The FCC cannot bring or prosecute any criminal action or case. If a criminal action has occurred, for example maliciously interfering with emergency services, the FCC may help locate/find the person but it is it is up the local/federal jurisdiction to prosecute the crime. and, just to be clear, using my repeater without my permission is in no way a criminal activity, no matter how big of an imagination you have.

Exactly. But I believe that getting permission is the courteous thing to do. So, to summarize, if someone uses your repeater without permission, that’s not a rule violation. Repeater owners are responsible for ensuring that people who use their repeater obey the regulations. Repeater owners must find a way to deny access to someone who violates regulations while using their repeater. Repeater owners are in a tight spot.

Yes, all you need to do is disallow them use and you are done. After that the illegality is on the person who shouldn't be using the repeater. Maybe not illegality but regulatory, less harsh a word.

The fact that the FCC has not enforced it in the last 15 years says otherwise.