WRYZ926

And there is nothing wrong with that. I am thinking about building mown CW trainer after Christmas. Sparkgap Labs has a nice kit you build yourself. Everyone learns differently. What worked well for me to pass my technician and general tests were reading the "Easy Way Ham Books" and taking online practice tests. The Easy Way books are pretty good and they break things down so that you can learn and understand how things work.

The easiest solution for a low power GMRS repeater is the Retevis RT97. Yes it will cost more that two HT's and some cables, but it will work as intended and will be a lot easier to setup with just one antenna.

I don't have any experiences with either of the radios you mentioned so won't be much help there. I do have a couple of Baofeng UV-5R GMRS radios and a couple of Wouxun radios. Yes the Wouxun are more expensive, but they are way better. My Wouxun KG-935G is an excellent GMRS only radio and I love the Wouxun KG-QQ10H quad band radio. They even outperform my Icom IC-T10.

I occasionally get a guy from Puerto Rico that comes blazing in on channel 9.

Are you wanting another HT or a mobile radio?

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

That's better than what we use to do with the crank generators out of the old telephones. If we weren't shocking fish in the pond or using it to get night crawlers, we were shocking each other with those things. Yes I am showing my age. Most people under 30 won't know what I am talking about and I bet some between 30 and 40 don't either.

Everyone learns differently. Go with the method(s) that work best for you. The computer programs and phone apps are good to help learn CW but it is also important to use an actual key to get the feel of it. I have actually been considering getting a Sparkgap Labs MCT-73 Morse Code Trainer Kit since I like to tinker and build things anyway. And I will probably use some apps/programs when I am ready to start learning CW.

Yes the squeaky wheel will get the grease. But sometimes it will just get removed/replaced with something worse. A prime example is people constantly asking the ATF if it was legal to shoulder a pistol with an arm brace attached. It seems like someone was writing a letter to the ATF about arm braces on a regular basis. The next thing we knew, the ATF came out with their arm brace/short barrel rifle rule. That rule change is still caught up in the court system. I know that we are talking about two different government agencies. The whole arm brace thing is a prime example of what can happen though. As far as the topic of rights goes. I spent many years of my life defending everyone's rights and I am still willing to defend those rights. And if I don't agree with someone, then I don't have to listen, I can walk away or block them (in cases of online forums) and they can still say what they want. I have only blocked one or two people on this forum and it was because they were being hateful towards me. I don't always agree with others and they don't always agree with me but I will still read what they post and/or skip their posts. Once they start getting hateful towards others then they get blocked. The problem now days is that some only want to hear opinions that matches their own and get rude when others state an opinion that differs from their own. As far as the FCC goes, I don't see them making any drastic changes to the amateur or GMRS bands. If anything we will have to watch so that we don't loose any bandwidth. That happened years ago when UPS wanted a portion of the 1.25m band (220 MHz). The FCC granted a portion of the band to UPS who never used it. And we will probably never get that portion of the band back. And currently there is a company wanting to take a portion of the 900 MHz band for GPS devices. If allowed, that will take away the portion of the 900 MHz band that Meshtastic devices use.

Yes it is the repeater owner's call sign.

It would take linked repeaters or the use of the HF bands to make that trip.

I have to agree with you @dosw plus you gave good visual reasons on why that would be hard to do for the OP. I was stationed at FT Irwin Ca which is about halfway between LA and Vegas. Cajon Pass by itself is high enough to cause issues for anyone living in the valley. We had to use relay stations at Ft Irwin on the live fire ranges in order to talk to main base with our radios. The relay stations/repeaters were on the highest peak of the Granite Mountains on base. So getting from Riverside, Ca to Vegas is not going to happen, especially with hand held radios. There are just too many mountains in between.

Now if you live on a mountain top and the other person or repeater is on a mountain top with wide ope spaces in between then you can talk a long way when using a good base station antenna. But a hand held with a stock rubber duck antenna will not have near the range. Getting 200 miles is the exception and not the norm for most people. Again even with ideal conditions, you are going to be hard pressed to get that kind of range from hand held radios.

Our club charges $15 to test. Of course our head VE is old fashion and snail mails everything in after one passes their test. There was no FCC fee when upgrading from Technician to General. I can't give any suggestions on learning CW since I haven't even started learning it myself.

Some Midland radios can be programmed with a computer. But pretty much all of them that has everything built into the hand mic cannot be programmed with a computer. The MXT500 and MXT575 are prime examples. The 500 can be programmed with a computer while the 575 cannot be programmed with a computer.

They were correct if you are going to use the M&P Ultraflex 7 for the HF bands.

@Whiskey363 you are correct in that the offset should be right if using a repeater channel, RPT21 in your case. Make sure that you have your TX tone set to match the repeater. And yes a 50 watt radio is more than enough to reach a repeater that close with a clear line of sight. While M&P Ultraflex 7 is good coax, it is not the best for UHF/GMRS frequencies. It will have a higher loss than LMR400 cox. But you can make up some of the loss with your 6 dBd antenna. You should not have any issues getting into the repeater even with the higher loss coax at 14 miles.

Several of us in my local radio club have had the Midland GMRS mobiles and have since replaced them with the Wouxun mobile radios. They are close to the same price and are a better radio compared to the Midland radios. And before Negative Nancy has a chance to comment. We don't care that you get 200 miles from your el cheapo radios. Most of us will never get that kind of coverage.

Just be aware that the Midland models with everything in the hand mic can only be programmed through the radio. There is no provisions to program them using a computer nor to update the firmware. Midland radios are made in China too.

I guess that I am more use to dealing with military and government regulations than some. And I won't argue that it would be nice if regulations were written so that the average lay person could understand. But that is not how the government works. This subject ranks right up there with topics like linking and the use of Roger Beeps.

Things sure did get over complicated and for no real good reason. It's simple to understand. Don't broadcast, don't transmit on a band/service you are not licensed for, and don't cross band repeat from one service to another service.

I will give two examples. One is legal and the other is not. Remember I am licensed for amateur and GMRS. First example - legal Three way conversation between myself, an amateur station (station A) and a GMRS station (Station B). I am talking to station A on 2m and am asked to relay a message to station B on GMRS. Or visa versa. This is 100% legal for me to do since I am having two way communication between myself and Station A. I then pass the message to Station B on my GMRS radio, again two communication. This is 100% legal between Station A and myself since we are both licensed for amateur bands. Again 100% legal between Station B and myself since we are both licensed for GMRS. Second example - illegal Two way conversation between Station A with only an amateur license and Station B with only a GMRS license. Neither one can transmit on the other band since they do not hold the correct license. Both would be having a one way conversation as far as the bands they are authorized to use. This is one type of broadcasting. And we all know that cross band repeating from one service to another service is illegal no matter if you hold a license for both. And yes it can be done with an unlocked radio for emergency situations ONLY.

I figured I would put out the warning for you and any other people that are thinking about using LIPO4 batteries. I've seen too many of those get ruined by using the wrong charger.

Use what works best for your situation. I prefer 50 watt mobiles with removable faces since I have limited room in my vehicle. The main unit for both radios are under my seat and the heads are on a Lido seat bolt mount. I did have to go with external speakers for both since I couldn't hear either radio with them under the seat. Now if I was still driving a vehicle from the 70's or earlier, then yes there would be plenty of room to mount all kinds of radios under the dash. But that isn't the case with new vehicles.

I am going to suggest getting the correct charger for LIPO4 batteries. A charger for lead acid and AGM batteries can actually damage a LIPO4 battery. I don't know if a bench top power supply will cause any damage or not. I have a 50 AH LIPO4 battery in the shack and it does pretty good. I have only used it a couple of times during power outages while participating in a Sky Warn net. I am using the Redodo brand batteries and a Redodo charger.