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My MX275 radio goes between my RV, boat, and occasionally my wife's car, depending on the activity. It always has been kind of a handful of stuff. Harbor Freight had a coupon that I used a week or so ago, purchasing an inexpensive Pelican case knock off. There was room in the case for the 275, its cig plug, two UV5Gs, one "RM", three rubber duck antennas, a charging base for the UV5Gs, and the stock mag mount antenna for the 275, which I don't use, but seemed like a good thing to toss in for completeness sake. I used the lower foam layer for the Baofeng charging base, cig plug, and stock external magnetic mount antenna for the 275. The MX275 instructions are underneath it all, since you need them to translate real PL tones to the codes that Midland uses. None of this is high end stuff, but it should be relatively convenient.

I've been listening to the old dudes on the local GMRS repeater talk about french onion soup and basketball (separate conversations) for too long and decided I need different soup conversations*, so I took my technician exam today. Got 33/35. Thanks, hamstudy.org! The proctoring team told me I should study for the general while this test still fresh, so that's the next goal. I have a certification exam I need to study for at work, but... that's not as much fun. *the french onion soup conversation was the first thing I heard on the local repeater but the actual catalyst for getting an amateur radio license was I managed to catch some transmissions from the ISS a couple of nights ago. I was reading about how you could contact the ISS on 2m/70cm bands and then discovered the ISS was directly overhead. Ran outside with a HT and managed to catch what I assume were packet transmissions. Now I want to talk to a space station. 8 year old me would think it's the coolest thing ever. 42 year old me still thinks it's pretty rad. Maybe someone up there prefers broccoli cheddar soup.

I guarantee that dude has never seen real boobies in his entire life...

I picked up a Wouxun KG-UV980P, like new in box, on ebay, and thought I'd give some of my impressions now that I've used it a few days. The KG-UV980P is a quad band amateur radio, featuring 10m, 6m, 2m, and 70cm bands. It will also receive in the CB range, airband, and with proper CHIRP configuration, MURS, Marine VHF, and GMRS. The KG-UV980P is the amateur radio version of the well known (in these circles) KG-1000G GMRS radio. The KG-UV980P will transmit with 10w in the 10m and 6m bands. And it is advertised as 50w in the 2m band VHF band, and 40w in the 70cm UHF band. In testing with a dummy load, my unit comes in at a little over 10w in the 10m and 6m bands, about 46w in the 2m VHF band, and around 43-45w in the 70cm UHF band. So its marketing may be slightly overstating the VHF power, and understating the UHF power. However, it doesn't matter. For practical purposes, it's an ample mobile and base station radio in the UHF and 2m VHF bands. First obvious question: Will it work for me, a person reading posts on a GMRS website? And the answer is that through some simple configuration adjustments of the band ranges in CHIRP, yes, this will work for you. You might also ask if it will work for those people who prefer more of a Smokey and the Bandit radio band, the answer is sort of, with caveats. And some might ask if it will work for them on a band that has five VHF channels numbered 1-3,Green,Blue. The answer is somewhat, with a caveat. The caveats: On the smokey and the bandit band the radio can listen in AM mode, but I think only transmit in FM, and would need to set the power to L or M. But at "M" you're only putting out about 2.6w in the 11m band, whereas this band is FCC restricted to 4w maximum for AM and FM transmission, so you come up a little short. On the other hand, at "H" power, you're way over the limit, at 10w, so don't do that. In other words, if you're buying this for the Superbowl band, it's not ideal; only FM, and wrong power levels. As for the 5-channel VHF band starting with the letter M, there is no power setting that brings you down to compliance, as the lowest setting is a little over 5w in the 144+ VHF band, and the M band is limited to 2w. So if you're buying this for the M band you're making a mistake; it cannot meet the technical limitations required for that band. The final caveat is this radio is an amateur radio, not type approved for bands that require type approved equipment. If you have your amateur license, it's useful. If not, radios specific to your license make more sense. About our on-topic band: Low power will comply with the technical restrictions of channels 1-7 -- narrow band or wide. Medium and High power will comply with the technical restrictions of channels 15-22 and the repeater inputs -- narrow band or wide. The radio's lowest power setting in UHF is about 5w, and it's a mobile radio, so, like all mobile radios, it will not meet the restrictions for channels 8-14, which must transmit below a half watt. The radio: it's two in one. This radio has two radios inside. It has two volume knobs. Its display has a left side and a right side, each of which corresponds to one of the radios. It literally can play both sides at the same time. It can function as a full-duplex repeater, and as a full-duplex cross-band repeater. It can receive and transmit at the same time, in repeater mode. Some radios have a left and right side, but only one radio on the inside. Those radios achieve this trick by rapidly shifting the one internal radio to listen on the channel set on the left, and then on the channel set on the right. This is how the RA87 works. This is how the UV-5G or UV-5G Plus work. But the Wouxun KG-UV980P doesn't need such a trick; it has two transceivers in it. This is a really nice feature for some people. The mic: It's well balanced, and weighted. My RA87 mic feels like it's mostly air -- like a hollow chocolate bunny. The KG-UV980P mic feels like a MaBell desk phone from the 80s. It feels nice. Its keypad works well, and has all the features you would want on it (better so than the faceplate even). There is a speaker in the mic handset, and there are two speakers on the base unit. There is a volume control on the mic, a monitor button, menu button, band selection, direct frequency input, and a lot more. It's a good mic, and from what people who have heard my voice over this radio say, it sounds awesome. The speakers: With a speaker in the mic, and two speakers on the base unit, it sounds good and offers nice options for listening. There are also two external speaker outputs. Remember, it has two radios in it. And this is why. I've used the radio indoors, and in my super quiet 2014 F150. In those environments, the speakers are plenty loud. I have not tried it out in my old Bronco with a 5.8L v8, 3" exhaust, every rattle known to man, and a thin shell of a roof. I suspect that just like my RA87, which is mounted in the Bronco, its speaker will be almost adequate unless I'm at highway speeds. However, the fact that it has a mic speaker may help in noisy environments. The faceplate: The radio's faceplate is removable, and can be mounted separately from the base unit. It comes with a short connector for mounting the face plate on the base unit, and it comes with a long connecting cord, as well as a dash mount to allow the faceplate to be located a few feet away from the base unit. CHIRP: This unit can be programmed with Wouxun's kooky Windows software, or it can be programmed very easily from CHIRP. You will need to purchase a data cable, as it doesn't come with one. The cable is not expensive. With CHIRP you can program its 999 channels, set the band limits, set many other options, and even allocate channels to ten different scan groups, of user-defined size. This allows you to set it to scan only 2m repeaters, or only GMRS, or whatever other scan groups you can imagine that fall within its band capabilities. On my Linux laptop, the cable required no additional drivers; just download and install CHIRP, which I already had, plug in the cable, download the code plug from the radio, modify it, and upload it back to the radio. Modes: The "left side" radio supports AM and FM. The "right side" is FM only. Despite supporting 10m, it doesn't have SSB. It also doesn't have any digital modes. Transmit bands: 10m(&11m), 6m, 2m(+...), 70cm(65cm). Receive bands: 11m, 10m, 6m, VHF from 144-179, UHF from 420-470, plus airband (123), and 33cm. Heat: I don't talk nearly as much as I type, so I haven't really gotten it hot. It has a fan, and the fan can be set to always on, on while keyed up, or on when it reaches a certain temperature or is keyed up. Heat dissipation doesn't seem to be a problem. I keyed it up for 90 seconds into a 50w dummy load at high power, and it got warm enough to feel the warmth, but not hot. Nevertheless, dash-mounting the radio and then rag chewing in southern Arizona may not be a great plan. If you're going to dash mount it, dash mount the faceplate, and put the base unit somewhere shady in the vehicle, with sufficient ventilation. Programming: The menu is not too difficult to understand, but it's sure easier using CHIRP to get the radio configured, and then to just rely on the menu system for a little tweaking here and there. That goes for programming channels, too. Just do it in CHIRP, upload, done. Overall quality impressions: The radio is hefty, solid, has nice sound, close-enough power, good venting, great features, and great mounting options. Antenna choices: The closest I have to an antenna that will cover this radio's capabilities is a Comet CA2X4SR-NMO. I don't have a General class license, so I don't spend time in the 10m band. And nobody uses 6m in my area, from what I can tell. The CA2X4SR-NMO covers the 2m, 70cm, and closely adjacent bands nicely, so that's what I use. Odds and ends: Independently configurable Tx and Rx tones, compander, over-temp detection, high/low power input detection, scan groups, CTCSS and DCS scanning/detection, and very important to some, a roger beep. Very important to others, the roger beep can be disabled. DTMF, call groups, lots of features you'll never use. Should you consider this radio? Well, it depends. It's not cheap, at about $380-$400. There are far cheaper ham radios out there, and far cheaper GMRS radios. You might even find less expensive quad-band radios. But the build quality and sound quality are pretty darn good. If you are only GMRS licensed, get the KG-1000G Plus. It's the same radio but type approved for, and configured for GMRS. You'll be very happy with that radio. If you're a CB person, no, get a proper CB because it will have the appropriate power levels available, and will be type approved. If you're a MURS person, no, get the KG-1000M radio (which is serious overkill -- so really get an inexpensive MURS radio). If you're an amateur who operates in the SSB portions of the 10m band, get a proper HF radio so you can also enjoy 12m, 15m, 17m, 20m, and 40m. But if you're like me -- rather addicted to nice equipment, enjoying both amateur and GMRS, needing flexible installation options, and appreciating the features this radio offers, it's a pretty decent choice.

*Shakes fist in the air

As if Randy needs an evil alternate account. As much as I love Randy and sometimes making him reply on YT videos by making absolutely ridiculous statements (it's a hobby), he certainly doesn't need an evil alt. Randy is just evil enough to get by.

Thanks for this! I am sure a lot of people considering one of these will find it helpful.

I figured I would let everyone know, I updated Chirp tonight and saw the Radioddity DB20G is now on the supported radios list. Which Im sure means the other brands of this same radio likely work with it as well. Consider this a friendly heads up. I think we all prefer Chirp over most all oem software.

You definitely got lied to. Every channel is free to use. No one owns a channel or has a channel allocated to them. Law enforcement almost never uses these channels for official business and when they do, you still have as much right to use the frequency as they do. Most of the time, when FRS/GMRS is used by the government, it's not police. Its typically a civilian liaison acting as a go-between for U/SAR volunteers or volunteers working in support of some type of remote response to things like mass casualty incidents. I'm pretty sure you would know if there was a mass casualty incident close enough that you can hear another user directly.

What you did wrong was believing some clown on a GMRS radio that was claiming to be the local police.. TL;dr .. he lied to you..

This is true. It is also true you have the on-line personality of soiled bedpan.

I think it just comes out the other way. But full disclosure — I am a member of RR. What I really refer to is the people on there who see a forum post marked HALP MEH! and they chime in with "do your own research" instead of just helping a new amateur. It's like with Linux forums... mostly unhelpful jerks who pretend that they were born with what they know so others shouldn't ask for help if they weren't

His stupidity and the stupid shit he says far outweighs the tiny nuggets of correctness that he randomly shits out.. and he has never said anything that 100 others here in the forum could not also tell you. ...just sayin...

I thought we were friends but now I see that you hate me.

You should make a step-by-step How-To for blocking/ignoring someone.. with screenshots and arrows and everything.. That way we can all link to it whenever necessary. In the screenshots be sure to use an appropriate user as the example.

What I don't get from SoCal is, he either says or has strongly implied that pretty much none of us know what we are talking about, always wrong, and a bunch of NotARubicon nut huggers (sorry, Randy. You know I love you).... and, he seems like he's always mad at us. So why the heck is he wasting his time and talent on this forum? I've asked him... but no response. Maybe it's like watching a car crash. Its so horrific that you can't look away. Anyway Guest PG3, just ignore the stupid stuff he says and try to pull something useful out of it. Honestly, recording the experience if it continues to happen and then filing a police report with local PD isn't a terrible idea. You just need some proof it's happening and you may get some traction.

Thanks for your reply. Turns out the jumper cable has an intermittent short. And I bought that cable custom made to length using Times low loss cable from a company called ShowMeCables.com. So that will be returned to them. I located another jumper cable in my "junk box" of radio stuff and all is working perfectly now.

Maybe i am a wierdo... but i purchased a used anytone off ebay a few months back, and it had a calk sign programmed into it for the boot screen, i looked it up and the gentleman had passed away early this year, and he had a lot of similarities in life to myself and my wife..... i kept that call sign programmed in, in memorium of him. I never met the guy but i can tell you if i id did, we would likely have been great friends... i like to think he might be watching over me as sort of a "silent Elmer"... Like i said.... maybe i am a wierdo....

Would this work?

You shouldn't post his callsign because now people can very easily go to this link: FCC License Lookup and find his full name and address via the publicly available FCC license information. But he probably doesn't mind if everyone looks up his full legal name and address because we know he read all the rules and regulations before he signed up for his license - because that's the number-one stupid thing he obsessively repeats in his posts to other people. So he obviously knows all of his information is free for anyone to look up.

My wife and I are making an interstate move and it was great to have a radio in a Penske truck and one of our cars. In addition, we have two handheld radios. That made backing up the truck with a car carrier so much easier! She could direct me when I backed out of our original home. Along the way, she could pull behind me and let me know if there were any trailer stability issues at higher speeds. After a few hours, I had my wife drive the speed limit while I drove at a slower rate (trailer limit). We had some awesome range in Eastern Oregon. We had great range as she pulled away. Our radios have repeater capabilities but we kept them on a simplex channel. We said our goodbyes as she pulled away from the line of site. A few hours later, I caught up at the hotel. We have been long users of GMRS, and the service was awesome for the move. we hope that others get great use out of GMRS.

Not to mention that a H.A.M.s radios that has been unlocked to transmit on GMRS does not make it a "GMRS radio" .. You will have to do everything - ALL the programming, EVERYTHING manually, yourself.. For many people this is no big deal.. For many others, it is a dealbreaker.. With a real "GMRS Radio", you take it out of the box, turn it on, pick a channel and talk.. not so with a H.A.M.s radios that is made to transmit on GMRS frequencies..

Thanks to @OffRoaderX for the suggestion! Here are the steps necessary to add a user to your “ignored users” list. First, click your screen name in the upper right hand corner. A drop down dialogue appears. Right next to the bottom it says “Ignored Users”. Click on “Ignored Users”. You’ll see a dialogue asking you to enter a member’s name to your ignore list. Start typing the screen name they use. You’ll see a listing of usernames that match what you’ve typed. Select the name from the list for the user you wish to ignore. Select the check boxes that define what you wish to ignore. If you never want to see their posts, check “posts”. If you want to block messages from them check “messages”. If you don’t want to be notified when they mention you, check “mentions”. And finally, if you just don’t want to see their signature at the bottom of every one of their posts, check signature. For example it makes sense to check signature but not posts if their signature bugs you for some reason. It really doesn’t make sense to select signature when you’re going to be blocking their posts, but that’s the default. Then click the blue button that says “Add User”: You’ll get a quick confirmation message saying you added the user to your ignore list: It’s that easy.

Done

Can you let us know what tone you use so we can all avoid you? Of course you may not use a tone, since your tone here is negative, and there are no negative tones for radios.

These are both wrong. REACT stopped monitoring 9 in the very early '90s. State troopers haven't had a tunable HF radio since Smoky and The Bandit was in theaters.

Guess what ?? 6 meters was open yesterday and Today !! I made 11 new contacts on usb , and 4 on fm @ 50 watts !

Generally speaking, if a repeater accepts a tone of 141.3 MHz, it's considered an open repeater. It was the "travel tone" Popular Wireless and the Personal Radio Association came up with when they came up with the idea of the Open Repeater Initiative (ORI). It was originally repeater channel 20 with 141.3 for the tone.

One of the best manuals is the one that comes with Midland radios. Here is an example of just how up to date an informative Midland's manuals are.

I have been scratching my head over this for a long time now. I understand being cautious about the security of your home, but do you all (those that have this issue with the address on the FCC database) live in an extremely high crime neighborhood? Are you all filthy rich, prominent, and in the newspapers front and center? I have had a Ham license starting off in 1996 with several different addresses over the years and now have GMRS and Ham with my address on there. I know hundreds of Hams out there that have their address on their license and don't know of anyone who has been harmed or robbed. Could it happen? Absolutely. But ask the many radio operators out there. How many have had their house broken into and been robbed or half beaten to death? I think the key thing is to NOT display your equipment online in either a list or pictures. Even then, who is coming to steal it? Probably only another radio operator. I remember when I got one of my licenses recently, someone sent me a message warning me that my address was online. Yep, it was, just like it had always been. And if people did further searching, you would find that a hundred other sites had my address and probably every address I ever lived at, including every phone number I have ever had. The FCC website is the least of your worries. Try fast people search, been verified, and hundreds of other data mining sites that collect every bit of information on you, place it in a blender, and whip up a mess of info on you that can sometimes make you look really sketchy. Unless you paid a lot of money to the right people to have all of your information scrubbed from the internet, something about you or related to your address is going to pop up. To want to give up on having a radio because you think that someone is going to break into your house just because the FCC has your address up for all to see, is crazy. Best bet is to get a P.O. Box so that your address wont pop up. The issue is that other websites will still have your address. If you own your own home and I find your name on the FCC website, I can then take that name and then enter into the tax assessors database for your town and find your address that way. Too much is public knowledge these days. It is almost impossible to hide. My thought is that criminals looking to steal to make a quick buck are going to break into your house just because. I highly doubt they will get sophisticated enough to monitor radio traffic to see when you are not around. The best thing is to maybe get cameras installed on your house. Put up signs stating that the property is monitored by camera surveillance.

For what its worth, with both VHF and UHF, you can greatly extend communications well beyond the traditional LOS on the regular bases with the two stations involved being a bit 'over the top' for a typical Amateur or GMRS user. For example, if you have a 9 element or 11 element high-gain yagi on a 50' tower at both stations, you can reliably communicate 100+ miles with a 50w radio on VHF, and 60+ miles with a 50w radio on UHF / GMRS. If you happen to have your antenna somewhere comfortably above the average terrain, your station can talk even further. This is because the additional height above ground extends the LOS range a bit, but the magic is in the yagi antenna. Not only is the high-gain antenna able to pull more scattered energy out of the sky with greater efficiency, the fact that the beam is focused in a specific direction reduces the amount of random noise it pulls from the atmosphere. This allows the antenna to perform significantly better compared to a vertical antenna with the same gain as the yagi, for example. By reducing the total number of photons the antenna reacts to, you essentially improve the Part Per Million ratio in favor of the signal you are receiving. My radio club used this principle in combination with a propagation method called Sporadic-E (reflecting a signal off the E Layer) to talk over 1,500 miles on VHF, from Virginia to Texas. Our club had a stacked beam array and a 1,500w amplifier located on a mountain ridge in VA at 4,400+ feet and the Texas station had a similar setup in the western part of Texas, on a ridge line at about 6,000 feet. We were also running a UHF station with a similar configuration that same week. We contacted a station over 450 miles away. Though I don't remember the specifics of where the other station was for the UHF contact. Anyway, I guess the moral of the story is, while refraction off the ionosphere isn't an option for mid to upper VHF or UHF... if we get creative with location, antenna and available forecasts of atmospheric conditions, we can bend or even break the commonly accepted LOS rules with our base stations, control stations and fixed stations. We just need to leverage physics a little better.

if your HT can't get 200 miles right out of the box it should go directly into the garbage can. Source: Rheet-hard

I just got my RepeaterID for the RT97L and they even emailed me the file I sent them for the announcement for free. https://www.repeaterid.com/store/p16/RepeaterID_RT97L.html# I got it in 3 days and very easy to use. It works great!

I think the stuff that he gets right is either because he got lucky and said the right thing by mistake, or he researched the hell out of it and somewhat properly regurgitate what he read, but doesn't actually "know" what he is talking about. I think this, because right after he says something correct, he will follow-up with an explanation of why he right, but that explanation defies physics. Imagine if I said that during certain conditions, if we shoot a GMRS single dang near straight up in the air, it comes back to earth and covers hundreds of miles in every direction. But then, instead of saying that it happens because signals can bounce off of planes, meteor showers, the moon or (more often than not) random weather anomalies... I say it's because the radio signal is so heavy, it's like launching a watermelon out of a giant slingshot. Its kind of like that.

excellent idea! will do, thank you

Wrong on both counts. GMRS is for whatever you want it to be used for. HAM is for whatever you want it to be used for. There are plenty of HAM's who use HAM while off-roading or hiking.There are plenty of GMRS users "making contacts" especially through repeaters. Who cares what they use it for. It's there to be used, for whatever someone wants to use it for. If someone wants to use a log book regardless of service, why would you even care?!

sounds like somthing that SOCAL guy would do

The question was never “what do you want us to do?” The question is “How can we simplify the regulations or get rid of unnecessary regulations.” Almost all of the suggestions in this thread actually increase the complexity of the regulations.

NO, it means Normal, as opposed to inverted which would be "i" "code" and "tone" are the same thing, but you are probably looking in the CTCSS section.. Check the DTC/DCS section of the chart to find 053 It's on the chart (probably) but if not, you do not need it.. the RECEIVE tone is 100% optional, so forget about it for now. The TX (Transmit) tone is the only one you really need to care about These are very nice, easy to use GMRS radios, although they are limited in what they can do (like most Midland radios), but having actually used them, I can confirm that they are good radios that perform 100% as well as any other GMRS radio. And, just like all GMRS radios they are 100% compatible with all other GMRS radios, FRS radios, and even the Motorola XTL5000 radios in both of my Jeeps and my handheld Motorola XTS5000 radios. Anyone here claiming otherwise has 1) never used or tested one, and 2) is just trying to get attention to make up for the attention that their mother never gave them... Those people should be ignored.

Thank you for taking the time to do a review. I'm sure it will be helpful for those considering the KG-U980P I have only used Wouxun GMRS certified mobile radios and they work well and are easy to program. I do have the quad band KG-Q10H hand held that covers 2m, 1.25m, 70cm, 6m out of the box. It is unlock able to work on MURS and GMRS. It works well and is the hand held I use most.

Using HTs, there will be no discernable difference in range for GMRS or amateur frequencies. "

Don't forget that he has 1998 reasons why Midland and Wouxun radios are total junk. Or are we up to 4995 reasons now.

I just recently purchase the KG-1000G+ and today we had our repeater net. After it was over I tasked the net master with some questions about performance of the radio. I did a 5, 20, 50 watt check into the repeater 21 miles out. He said R9 on all three. I assume that because I swapped from a 7.2dBi to a 9.8dBi antenna and swapped out some M&P hyperflex13 to 1/2" Heliax hardline. I always had a hard time getting into the repeater using 5 watts on the old setup. And then I asked about the microphone. I did a check basically kissing the mic, 6-8" away and 12-14" away. He said when I was at a foot he noticed the modulation tapering off. That 6-8" seemed best. With the KG XS20G+ I have to kiss the mic to get a good modulation out of it. My TD H3 has a far better modulation profile than the 20G. It also has an adjustable mic gain.

Antennas typically consist of reactive elements and radiating elements. The reactive elements are used to match the impedance of the radio and feedline which is usually 50 ohms. The radiating element is one or more metal wires or rods that convert the signal into RF. It’s usually the most visible part of the antenna.

some 30 odd years ago i mounted a NMO UHF antenna in the center of a MasterCool Swamp Cooler sitting on top of a 3 story building... Worked good and the antenna is still mounted where i left it when i left that job.

You will get a baker's dozen if you can get all the radio manufacturers to start using N Type connectors on all HVF/UHF/GMRS radios.

I have multiple repeaters. None are listed. I dont need or want them listed. Why should others list my repeater ?

I'll give you TWO tips! always back-up your channel set before doing a factory reset dont run with scissors