WashingtonMatt

50W is good, especially when you have a long-run of that leaky coax, to get more juice squirting from the antenna.
50W is also good to step on the other guy that is irritating everyone but only has 20W.. all else being equal.

Putting an antenna on everyone's roof is going to be the best bang for the buck.  In the UHF radio band, height is might. The higher in the air the better.
I would also recommend getting a radio that is at least 15 watts with no more than 50 feet of LMR400 cable, which will give you about 11 usable watts at the antenna.  A 25w radio with no more than 100 feet of LM400 will give you about 12w of usable power at the antenna.  A 50w radio and 100 feet or less of LMR400 will give you the best advantage with 26w or more at the antenna.
I wouldn't worry about the HOA with an outside antenna. A half-wave antenna is only about 12 inches high, and a quarter-wave antenna is about 6 to 7 inches tall when you include the ground plain.  If you get a black or silver metal whip antenna, unless they happen to be on the roof doing an inspection, I highly doubt anyone would notice.

Which is why I carry One Radio to Rule Them All 🤠

You yelled for help on the radio to see what you'd get back? lol Alright then..
 
I guess every area of the country might not resemble the rest, but I can tell you for sure that GMRS far more active where I am. There's still plenty of 440 and 2meter stuff, but all of those guys are just also on GMRS. Not sure why so many hams do that, but it seems to be a thing.. The GMRS repeaters out here get way more traffic than the club ham repeaters..
But as for what's a better SHTF radio. Technically anything that works to reach your intended party is a good one. I will say this though. GMRS is SUPPOSED to be more for the family units to be able to carry on with more "familiar talk" with husband/wife/kids etc. Somehow though I think if it got used that way hams on the channel might actually accuse you of being in the wrong place, and that you're interrupting the "rag chew".. The irony.. Ham radio on the other hand is explicitly hobby radio. You're not supposed to use it for practical or "familiar comms". You're just supposed to go on there and talk to other radio guys about radio stuff. 
But I digress.. If i'm choosing the most appropriate line-of-sight band for what my idea of SHTF backup comms is, I'm choosing the one I get to have all of my people setup with, and not the one that is only supposed to be for hobby purposes.. Colostomy bag Larry ain't showing up with food and blankets for you..
 
 

Got me some Broncos. Have CB in the old and GMRS in the new. Doesn't seem to matter as no one else seems to ever have anything that works 😆. At least with GMRS you can toss 'em a walkie.
As for channels, CB4(4x4) is usually what I run, however technically you're supposed to run whatever is posted on the logging roads, which was big part of my hesitation to switch to GMRS. 

Even if they cannot access your repeater, someone on the same frequency will disrupt your communications if their signal is stronger than others.

Wide/Narrow has nothing to do with it because that would not prevent them from transmitting/hearing each other.
The issue is he is trying to transmit in frequency/VFO mode, which you cannot do on UV-5G radios.. Assuming there are no incorrect tones, putting the radio in channel/MR mode and set the correct GMRS "channel" should make everything work.

There is no standard that I'm aware of. Generally when you enter an active logging area you'll see a channel painted on a rock or tree or something. Sometimes it corresponds to a road number. I think whatever outfit is running the job picks a channel. I generally don't bother unless I know there is active logging going on.
I think it's pretty unlikely they will ever switch to GMRS since they are often working with independent drivers and whatnot. It would have to be the whole industry making the move. Then there's the licensing issue. CB really isn't a bad option in that environment. 

Got me some Broncos. Have CB in the old and GMRS in the new. Doesn't seem to matter as no one else seems to ever have anything that works 😆. At least with GMRS you can toss 'em a walkie.
As for channels, CB4(4x4) is usually what I run, however technically you're supposed to run whatever is posted on the logging roads, which was big part of my hesitation to switch to GMRS. 

There is no standard that I'm aware of. Generally when you enter an active logging area you'll see a channel painted on a rock or tree or something. Sometimes it corresponds to a road number. I think whatever outfit is running the job picks a channel. I generally don't bother unless I know there is active logging going on.
I think it's pretty unlikely they will ever switch to GMRS since they are often working with independent drivers and whatnot. It would have to be the whole industry making the move. Then there's the licensing issue. CB really isn't a bad option in that environment. 

There is no standard that I'm aware of. Generally when you enter an active logging area you'll see a channel painted on a rock or tree or something. Sometimes it corresponds to a road number. I think whatever outfit is running the job picks a channel. I generally don't bother unless I know there is active logging going on.
I think it's pretty unlikely they will ever switch to GMRS since they are often working with independent drivers and whatnot. It would have to be the whole industry making the move. Then there's the licensing issue. CB really isn't a bad option in that environment. 

Got me some Broncos. Have CB in the old and GMRS in the new. Doesn't seem to matter as no one else seems to ever have anything that works 😆. At least with GMRS you can toss 'em a walkie.
As for channels, CB4(4x4) is usually what I run, however technically you're supposed to run whatever is posted on the logging roads, which was big part of my hesitation to switch to GMRS. 

My primary radio makes 18w at the output.  It works fantastic in my area. We have about 300 feet of elevation variation for about 100 miles in any direction. I get 25 to 35 miles from any given repeater with 80%+ reliability. Once I stretch past 35 miles, going to 48 watts is very helpful in many cases, but doesn't even come close to punching through "every time" I drop out with the 18w.  
 
Long story short, I think 15w is great for many applications. 

For sure. Our case is a good example. The repeater owner linked to his webpage with information on his repeaters. He provided a RF propagation map that seems pretty accurate. The Cascade and Olympic mountains create a pretty hard cutoff, so the the coverage "circle" is anything but. I live at the north end of this map and can say the repeater is very strong much further north of the coverage circle. The primary users of the repeater seem to be around the south end.
 

Impressive. You're in the RF holy grail of height and water. Would be curious if you can hit the repeater back. 

Just idle curiosity... What is the longest range repeater in your area?
As a relatively new GMRS user primarily for four wheeling use, I've been checking the repeater map in the places I'm likely to travel and I've come to realize that I'm extremely lucky to have a couple really nice repeaters in my area, and around the state. In particular the Tiger Mountain Oly-Comm3 is a monster and lists 90 mile range. It covers all the major metro areas of Western Washington and well beyond. I can hit it from my house 55 miles away on HT. Most surprisingly, it's quiet most of the time, but always has folks listening.
I do understand our unique geography is a major contributor to the great coverage. It's just really cool that I can drive 3 hours down the interstate and still talk to the mothership.

Our Delta repeater in Southern California easily gets farz of 60+ miles, with the record so far being 120 miles from its location near Mt. Baldy California to Chiriaco Summit east of Palm Springs.

There are 2 repeaters around here that have solid, uninterrupted coverage for a 30 miles radius and the scattered covered (50% to 70% covered) for a 90 mile radius.
 
Keep in mind that repeaters like this have the coverage they do because they are going to be up on a hill or mountain with an elevation advantage of over 1,000 feet compared to the coverage area.  When an antenna is only 30 to 50 feet off the ground in a relatively flat area, you are only going to get about 5 to 8 miles.  Moving up to 300 feet might bump it to 25 or 30 miles, depending on the rest of the terrain. 

Those boneheads should be more worried about some of the Chinese apps they put on their smartphones.

Welcome! You’re pretty fired up over a two year old post. You’ll fit right in here. ?