Duck218

Hello GMRS "gang",
After a few postings and reflection, it is clear that GMRS owners need to make an orientation video, and/or hold a group zoom for new users before allowing access. This will be my approach 100%. In this meeting or video, politely addressing operational guidelines and expectations up front would really help! Because new users have no idea what to do, and seasoned and fresh "hammy's" are already going down the wrong path, sound mentorship is the answer. Not a rigorous military drill set, but a practical and open discussion. New users WANT to know what to do, and many "hams" think they know what to do. It is an unhealthy combo for sure. It's about getting along, sharing the resource, and not making the repeater owner want to get two sticks and gouge their eardrums out...

No disagreement, just a couple things to add...
The first, the tone mode column will need to be "dtcs"  The second, same again for tone mode, and also need to set the cross mode...can use "dtcs->" for testing with no Rx tone, or "dtcs->dtcs" to use both tones.
https://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/MemoryEditorColumns

If you want to run a roger beep run it. I’ve talked for many years and don’t really notice them. I do find them useful if talking groundwave or dx on other bands. 
People that are offended by them are controlling and should worry about their own transmissions not others. 

I am trying to set up using Chirp my Baofeng UV5R's, it's going well so far. The GMRS repeaters all give a transmit and receive tone and Chirp does not have a place for this. I have researched it but have not found a definitive answer. By now most of you will realize i am fairly new to this. Thanks for anyones help.

Yesterday I had a teenager home sick from school because he had thrown up in the night and the school has a 24 hour rule.
My wife called me at work on her lunch break. "He won't answer his phone. Text or call." 
I could tell by her voice that she was already worrying. She is across town and I am in the next town.
So I say. Walk out to your car and try him on the base station.
I get a text back a few minutes later that he is fine but has lost his phone in his pig sty of a room.
Not a major emergency she can get pretty worked up worrying about her babies.
Maybe I got a couple of my radios justified with the Wife.

At our last ham club meeting we had a presentation about terrain assessment and antennas. The website https://www.heywhatsthat.com  was brought up.  You can put in your location your antenna height above ground and see how far you can "see".    Because of my location, I can hit repeaters east of me  with not much height but I found out I can put an antenna at 50 ft and still not go west.

Here is my goofy setup.  The one radio on top of the power supply is my GMRS base station radio.  The other two radios are for the GMRS repeater package.  I am using a Laird 5dB Omni antenna with an EMR Duplexer using a LMR400 coax cable with a lightning Arrestor connected to earth ground at the electrical panel.  I switched the Antenna between the Base Station Radio and the Repeater Package with an antenna switch.  I have other radios for all my vehicles.

I have the Wouxun KG1000G Plus. I really like the radio. It has a lot of features and I can store up to 999 custom channels, I like the two receiver feature and the option to switch back and forth to transmit. The software is easy to use and straight forward. I wish the radio had a feature to have zones/banks of channels, and talkaround.
I had a Midland MXT400 but, you can't program it with the software using a Windows 11 PC. I got rid of it because you only get 8 channels for custom programming. I also have a Midland MXT500 and it has the same limited number of custom channels. Although, you do get 8 additional channels with fixed repeater channels which you can change the encode/decode tones. I only use this radio when my wife and I are traveling with two cars. I put this radio in her car.

I get the appeal of being able to hide everything but the mic..it really comes down to which features are more important to you, the stealth or the ability to load the extra channels...all we can do here is suggest, and try to help you (and others) get the radio(s) that best fit your wants and needs.
On the profit thing, while the wouxun ARE made overseas, there IS definitely some profit staying stateside, with buytwowayradios (based in south carolina) ordering batches of them manufactured to spec to resell.

The best antenna for you is going to vary a bit, depending on where you are going to be using the radio and what you want to accomplish.
 
On a vehicle, a 5/8 wave antenna is going to show at least 3dB gain over a 1/4 wave, and at least 1dB of actual gain (depending on design, it can be much higher).  This antenna has the least amount of elevation tolerance.  So, if you live in a hilly/mountainous area, this may not be the best option, but it would be good in large geographically flat areas.
 
A 1/2 wave doesn't require a ground plane and has about 2.1 dB of gain over a 1/4 wave, but it has no actual gain... its straight break-even.  It also has a bit more tolerance to elevation.
 
A 1/4 wave actually has a loss of about 2/10ths of a dB.  While it doesn't provide as much range, in hilly or mountainous areas, its going to be the best choice due to the very high elevation tolerance. 
 
Based on this, I actually carry a 5/8 wave antenna that is about 32" tall and about 6dB gain, and a 1/4 wave antenna.  Then I just swap them on and off the vehicle depending on the terrain I am in and the range needed.

If you go to their submission for change on 6-21-21, the C2PC letter asking to go to 16kc from the 11kc, the documents very specifically say that no hardware changes were made to the transmit and receiver. It's not the full 20kc, it's 16kc by software. It could only go to 16kc and still remain in compliance. 

Thanks for the replies.  I'm leaning towards the 575 to help get through trees.  Just wish for the price it had more channel storage options and listening for more frequencies.

Newer MXT275 units with the USB-C port now come with wide band for the repeater channels, although some leftovers are still coming with narrow band.  If a USB-C 275 has narrow band, you can mail it in and have them convert it to wide band.  I did so and it works fine.  If it's an older 275 without the USB-C port then it'll be narrow band only.
(And I wish companies would change model numbers when they change major features.)
The 50-watt 575 may be of some use if you have to push the transmission through a lot of trees or buildings, but you still cannot receive any better than the 275 with the same antenna.  My 15-watt 275 hits a repeater 30 miles away through suburbia using a 6" quarter wave on the hood.  The 575 may have a few more features such as wide/narrow selection.
A 15-watt radio with a good antenna is much better than a 50-watt radio with a lousy antenna.

And, while I doubt the following may be possible (for I am a real no0b), it would be a neat deal *if* one could via external programming software program their own "beep" and to transmit at a subtle volume so as not to aggrieve those bluetooth headset users alluded to earlier in this thread. 
I like the old-school, analog, true "beep", like one we might hear from the Mercury capsule days of the early 1960s... and just above barely audible at the end of one's tx...
 
/ponder

Then why not post a link to said discussion (or discussions)?
Many new members and GMRS new users every six months, yours truly included. Thanks for your help. 

This video purportedly show a Ukrainian drone picking up a Russian handheld that was dropped.  Personally I have my doubts, only because with all the Russians who have been killed in Ukraine, the Ukrainians probably don’t need to do this, but I don’t really know. It’s fun to think that this might have happened, anyway. 
Steve
 

Inspired by https://www.scadacor...-line-of-sight/, I decided to run another test quickly. Grabbed a ladder and climbed up into the attic crawl space. Sent a GMRS check to my wife.
 
In the past, it did not even rise above her squelch level, but this time she at least got a staticky signal.
 
Hoping the improved antenna will clean that up further so that simplex comms are workable.
 
Plus, having the antenna better placed, I'm hoping for more hobby time on a couple repeaters in my area.
 
Cheers,
 
Ken

I heard a rumor that this video was made specifically to disprove comments that a few "experts" in this very forum seem to regurgitate on almost a daily basis.
But, probably just a rumor..

"never" means "never" .. I reiterate what Mr Spaz says about speaking in absolutes.. This is one of the reasons why many people dont trust "online experts".. or, make fun of them.

I have to 100% disagree with almost all of this. LoL 
There is no rule, exception or most. There is only science and fact. The fact of the science is, this is a UHF line of sight service of which range is strictly limited to line of sight and RF interference or lack Thereof.  
 
When someone speaks in absolutes with words like "always" or "never", and someone provides and examples of how their statement is incorrect, it's somewhat disingenuous to move the goalpost by throwing the "exception" flag.
 
What is the exception for someone who lives in the city is the norm for someone who lives in the mountains. 

Thats not the real-world that I live in, so i'm glad to see that for everyone like me not in an RF-heavy urban environment, the radios dont "suck" .. Because at first, based on your statement, us non-techy people might have misunderstood you to be saying "they suck", which it seems is not the always case, so thanks for clarifying.

This is what I set it to.  It seems to work better than the standard settings.  I may tweek them more later on.

A little googling and I answered my own question.
 
Thx

How effective are antennas in attics. Using 50w Wouxun 1000g. Antenna cable is approx. 30' long. At present it is reaching a repeater around 30 miles.(straight shot)condo restrictions require antenna to be hidden.

We have two repeaters that cover virtually all of Southern California and the use of roger-beeps is very strongly encouraged.. This discourages "some people" from using the repeaters making for a more pleasant repeater experience for everyone.   One of the repeaters also has it's own roger-beep.