WRXB215

@WSEW953 In the end, you will just have to do some practical testing in your area of operation. There are just too many variable for anyone to predict for sure what your propagation will be like. @dosw idea of starting off inexpensive is not a bad idea. You will learn a lot in the process and be in a better position to make a good decision on a more expensive radio. If the vast majority of your coms will be between some point and your house, you could set up a decent mast and antenna with a base station and possibly achieve what you are looking for without use of any repeater.

Also, be aware that repeaters have a 467.### input and a 462.### output. The repeater output frequency matches up with a simplex frequency. As a result, you can here repeater traffic on certain simplex channels. Don't try to program a simplex channel (1-22) to access a repeater. It must be the appropriate repeater channel (23+) which will have the appropriate +5 offset.

To add to what @marcspaz said, you may want to think about how family members sound on the radio. My father has passed away but while he was alive, he and I sounded exactly the same on the radio, phone, intercom etc. The same was true with my mom and my sisters. The additional unit number or whatever you want to use can be helpful in cases like that.

No.

Seems like people could at least read: § 97.403 Safety of life and protection of property. No provision of these rules prevents the use by an amateur station of any means of radiocommunication at its disposal to provide essential communication needs in connection with the immediate safety of human life and immediate protection of property when normal communication systems are not available.

@WSFA358 for liking a comment, just hover over the circle with a heart in it and it will display the different "reactions" to choose from. For repeaters, do a search, there is already a lot of info. After that, if you still have trouble, then ask a specific question and you will get plenty of help.

Some think it tilts the steering wheel up and down.

Yes, 2m has both positive and negative and I have only ever seen 600kHz instead of 5MHz.

GMRS is intended for families and other small groups. As such, the technology is very limited. If you are looking to do other "interesting" things with two-way radios, you may need to look into ham.

@900kilo welcome to GMRS.

@WSEY982 Welcome to GMRS.

@desertbird to answer your actual question, the Retevis RA87 is a 40 watt that is CHIRP compatible. There are others, 40 and 50 watt. Just do a google search.

I've used a UV-5R GMRS on wide band with an MP31 and they worked just fine together.

That ↑↑↑↑

We just went through a hurricane and could only communicate via ham and GMRS and my wife still isn't interested.

I need to get my extra license but keep putting it off. Maybe if we have a race it will get me off my keister and doing some regular study.

Did it ask for a password or does your account simply need admin privileges?

I hate it when programs are written like that. You should be able to work local without being connected to the internet. Especially with radio CPS.

I suppose the speaker itself could be part of the problem. You never know.

Aluminum is fine for a ground plane. It's the lip mount that may be problem. If that is how you are going to keep the antenna mounted, you may want to try an antenna that doesn't need a ground plane. @SteveShannon beat me to the punch but I'm posting anyway.

It can sometimes take a few days for the data to update from the FCC database to the myGMRS.com database.

It can be a little confusing at first but here is the documentation on the columns.

I took my UV-5R8W and stuck the antenna up my right nostril, pushed the PTT button, and blew my brains out my left ear. I got better. @USNCB Welcome to myGMRS.com. You are going to love it here.

As long as channel 45 on your radio is not a repeater channel you can use it for simplex. At least that is what I assume you mean when you say "just for my family." You will have to check with your local emcom groups to see it they use GMRS, what channel(s) they use and what tones they my be using. As far as off-roading, use whatever channel or channels your group wants to use. It's always a good idea to make sure you aren't stepping on any conversations already in progress.

I hope they don't explode.