nokones

If you do not have an adequate metallic surface then it is imperative that you use a non-groundplane antenna. They will perform very well if you go with a Laird or Larsen.

All three antennae shown are removable. The front two are on NMO mounts.

Here's three options for the Jeep. The lip mount on the hood is a Laird Lip-Mount and Phantom antenna, and does not need anything special. This Phantom antenna is used for UHF DMR. The mount on the driver's side near the A pillar is a Laird non- ground plane for VHF and the mount is a Rugged Radios mount. The glass-mount on the rear glass is a Larsen and used for UHF. I get great performance with the glass-mount antenna. All of these options can apply to the Gladiator. The Midland antennae are great if you are just transmitting on GMRS freqs. If you are transmitting on a mix of GMRS and Business Radio Service freqs use the Lairds and Larsen antennae, do not use any of the HAM crap stuff.

To prevent electrical noise being transferred from one system into the other system. You are drawing power from one electrical system thus you should be using only one grounding system. If you have two earth grounding points then you have two grounding systems and that will cause problems.

I guess I should at least respond to the subject title. The radios are not good for the SHTF situations. Who in the hell are you going to talk to in those situations. You'll be lucky to talk to your next door neighbor given all the channel congestion occurring.

And they may have been blondes and blue eyed!

They probably didn't know what he was doing at the time.

DPL 023 is not a CTCSS tone. CTCSS is an analog tone in hertz and DPL is a digital code. The lowest standard CTCSS freq (Continuous Tone-Coded Squelch System) is 67.0 Hertz (cycles). DPL (Digital Private Line) or DCS (Digital Coded Squelch) lowest code is 023 and the highest code is 754. DCS/DPL may be either normal (D023N) or inverted (D023I) They both function the same in protecting or keeping the receiver squelched until the tone or coded is present on the frequency/channel carrier. When the tone or code is interrupted by unkeying, the tone/code will cease thus the receiver will squelched and prevent other carriers without a tone or the incorrect code from opening up the receiver. Essentially it is a Nuisance Eliminator. Motorola trade name "Private Line" is misunderstood by many because no frequency is Private unless it is encrypted. Other radio manufacturers use a different name for their CTCSS/DCS or no name at all.

I always thought it was for impressing the chicks!

I won't wish that on anyone. Barf Wang radios need to stay in Pandaland.

GMRS freqs are not universal. GMRS freqs in one country could be used for another radio service in another country. For an example, allocated public safety freqs in the US are the same freqs used for business radio services in England. No country in there right mind will send anything that could benefit the political division or military operation of an adversary. Iran may be in the world of hurt for radio communication or they may think any civilian operation could be considered an opposition force, may take away those gifted radios. Humanitarian items of medical and food would be a more appropriate. Electronic devices would never be approved by this country, nor they should be approved. Anyways, regardless of the freqs that could be used for by citizens in Iran, do you really think they would really work? Not a chance in hell they would work with all the electronic jamming going on.

Given the present situation, I doubt that the US State Department would ever authorize any such gesture of aid to any country that is hostile to the United States or it's allies.

My repeater has a 3 second hang time. Also, I use DPL 047 in/out and the station operates narrowband.

Oh hell no. I may be an amateur in some aspects, but I will never be an Amateur Radio Operator. Although, some Hams are cool and happy dudes, I just don't want to hang or be associated with the "Sad Hams". Not my style. My ID interval could be 15 minutes. It has been quite some time since I've been in the repeater's program. Even if it is 10 minutes, I still meet the requirement and with other stations IDing on the same freq nearby, I'm sure no body listens since my ID is polite and does not transmit with the DPL code.

My repeater ID feature stays idle until there is traffic and it will ID after that every 10 minutes as long as there is traffic, and it won't interrupt or interfere with the traffic.