WRYZ926

I've had to repair a few cold solder joints on brand new coax switches in the last 6-12 months. And they weren't the cheap MFJ junk either.

The company I worked for ran distribution centers and also made dispensing machines for pharmacies and hospitals. They did other stuff too, but I was not involved with any of that.

And yes we all know the dangers of lithium batteries and how hard they are to put out if they catch fire. But a lead acid battery can explode just as easily when abused. Most combat vehicle, AKA tanks, use a bank of 8 12v DC batteries hooked up in series/parallel for 24 volts out. And they are high AH batteries that are needed to start those big V12 diesel engines or turbo shaft engines. Most armored personnel vehicle use 6 or 8 12V batteries while most wheeled vehicles use 4 batteries. And I have seen those batteries explode when mishandled, abuse, and/or damaged. One would have to abuse either battery type to have any safety issues.

My last job was at a pharmaceutical distribution center. That company bought directly from the manufacturers and sold to the different pharmacies and hospitals. The company sold everything to the different pharmacies and hospitals for the exact same price. Yet you could go to 5 different pharmacies and there would be 5 different prices for the same thing. And it's common to be able to get medicine cheaper without using your insurance versus using insurance. The company I worked for actually took a loss per item but sold in a large enough volume to still make a profit. The pharmacies and the insurance companies have a definite effect on the prices of medicine. I was just the lowly maintenance technician so I didn't have anything to do with how the business ran.

Yes I have rucked plenty. I was both airborne and air assault qualified, assigned to airborne units. And when my assigned weapon was not the M60, then I would get assigned to carry the PRC-77 radio. So yes I know a thing or two about rucking extra weight. Now go strap on a 75-80 pound ruck sack, carry the M60 machine gun with 1000-1500 rounds of ammunition along with your main and backup parachute before you say anything else about how I supposedly don't know anything about carrying weight. I was also a combat engineer so I carried even more stuff than the average infantryman. And I have done so in combat on a few occasions. Let's break down the weight infantryman ruck -70 pounds combat engineer ruck - 75-80 pounds Main and reserve parachutes - 53 pounds. M60 machine gun unloaded - 23 pounds 500 rounds of spare ammo - 35 pounds Those weights didn't even include any explosives or mines I also had to carry. You showed your rear again by assuming that I don't have any experience rucking heavy weights. And we all know what assume actually means.

There is nothing wrong with wanting a portable GMRS setup that will put out 20-50 watts. I like using 10 AH or 12AH lipo4 batteries for 20 watt or less radios. Most 10 AH lipo4 are the same size as the batteries in computer battery backup systems. The lipo4 batteries are quite a bit lighter. I like the Redodo brand of lipo4 batteries when it comes to 50 AH or 100 AH batteries. A group 24 lipo4 batterie will be half the weight of a standard group 24 lead acid deep cycle battery. And just ignore Negative Nancy with his negative waves.

And there ya go with the negativity yet again. @WRVK513 If you want an actual Part 95 certified radio then yes the firmware will be locked. And this goes for pretty much all Part 95 certified consumer grade radios. We know plenty of people use non certified amateur band radios that have been unlocked/Mars modded on GMRS, but those radios are not Part 95 certified. And if you don't want a locked down radio then look else where.

Yes I know and that is why they advertise gain in dBi. But it would still be nice if they would list the gain in dBd.

Here is a video showing what Icom has stated on tariffs. According to the video, Icom won't start charging customers for the tariffs until May 8th. ICOM Radios SLAMMED with Tariffs! I'll let everyone watch the video and make their own decisions and opinions afterwards.

It would be nice if antenna manufacturers and retailers would list the antenna gain in dBd instead of dBi. The dBd value is more realistic and also what most coax loss calculators use. The conversion from dBi to dBd is pretty simple to remember, subtract 2.14 from the dBi value to get dBd.

@amaff beat me to it. He is correct in that it is illegal for mobiles to transmit on channels 8-14 since the only go down to 5 watts and those channels are limited to 0.5 watts max.

Yes the C does designate commercial which means that the antenna will work in the 2m business/MURS portion and the UHF business and GMRS. That being said, a lot of times, but not always, the GP-9 and GP-9N amateur band antennas will also work for GMRS. The only way to know is to test the SWR.

Again, you live in an area that allows that. Most people will never see those kinds of ranges. Your range of 200+ miles in very unrealistic for the majority of people.

The GP-9 (PL259) doesn't say it covers GMRS in the paperwork either. But the SWR is 1.8 or less across all GMRS channels, 2m and 70cm. Others have tested their GP-9 antennas and the SWR was above 2.0 on GMRS. So each antenna does need to be checked.

I would love to find a Motorola repeater for less than half the price of the Retevis repeaters. I know what a good used Motorola Quantar costs since we just bought one 5-6 months ago. We paid $1000 for the 2m Quantar 125. I'm sure you could find older Motorola repeaters for less. While using two mobile radios connected together as a repeater works, they will never be as good as an actual purpose built repeater such as the ones from Motorola. @WRTM295 The Retevis should work well for you as a temporary setup. And you can always keep it for an emergency portable repeater once you get a better repeater.

A friend would scramble everyone's TVs on the block when he would fire up his CB and amp in his truck when we were in high school. The neighbors loved him for that I live in a small rural town of 1100 people ( I think they counted chickens and cows to get to 1100) with several of us having our amateur licenses. We try not to use any amps when working HF so we don't overload everyone else's radios. One is 500 yards away from me and two are 300 yards away. I had to get on one of them when he decided to run a 165 watt VHF amp during a net. He was overloading my Icom dual band radio all across the 2m band.

He is that weird cousin that everyone shuns at all family reunions. I'm seriously thinking he was dropped on his head too many times as a baby. And if that isn't the case then when brains were being passed out, he thought they were passing out trains and said no thanks he would take the bus. And he is the poster child for the type of people that would most definitely get multiple blanket parties in the military.

Or they want to compare GMRS to how bad CB has become.

Or if the name has "Peoples Republic" I know the reason for Baofeng releasing the GT-5R was to clean up the SE on the earlier UV-5R radios. The UV-5R radios prior to the release of the GT-5R were pretty dirty. Though the front end was not improved on the GT-5R, it is still susceptible to front end overload. I have both radios and the GT-5R does a better job overall and is clean.

Yeah Negative Nancy is being real helpful again isn't he.

I have to agree with what @BoxCar, @SteveShannon, and @AdmiralCochrane said. My local club is quite friendly to GMRS users. We have our GMRS repeater setup at the same site as our 2m repeater and main 70cm repeater. We also encourage GMRS users that are not club members to use the repeater. We had a few naysayers when we started discussing GMRS. We sold the idea to them by letting them know that GMRS is another tool in the toolbox for emergency communications if/when needed. The other main reason we used is that GMRS is an easy way to get into two communications and some GMRS users might use it as a stepping stone to get their amateur license. And we don't have any problem if people that have their GMRS license never get their amateur license. A lot of the naysayers ended up getting their GMRS licenses after we put the GMRS repeater on the air. And they enjoy and use the GMRS repeater on a regular basis.

I've looked in the ID-5100 basic and full manual and didn't see anything mentioned about split DTCS tones. Maybe there was a change in a firmware update. Sometimes Icon will release a short amended/add on manual just for new changes. But I have not found one for the ID-5100. I know there is an extra EXMENU manual for the IC-2730 that covers things not found in the basic or full manuals. My brother runs a MARS modded ID-5100 but none of the repeaters in our area use DTCS tones.

I can usually pickup two different NOAA weather stations at home. There is one in St Louis and one in Jefferson City that I can hear well.

Resonant antennas are always going to be more efficient and work better. The G90 can easily tune all kinds of metal objects such as shopping carts, metal bleachers, chainlink fence, etc. But I would rather not have to even use the tuner if I don't have to. Using resonant and efficient antennas are more important when running QRP at 5 to 10 watts and is a big help even when running 20 watts. I have worked stations with my G90 and a resonant antenna where others using 100 watts and an external tuner could not.