WRYZ926

We look forward to your results. It can be very rewarding or very frustrating when making your own antennas.

We do a net on our GMRS repeater. We use to do it every Tuesday night right after our 2m net but have since cut the GMRS net back to once a month. We decided right away not to link our GMRS repeater at all. We do have an Allstar node on our 2m repeater that gets used occasionally. The rule clarifications on linking GMRS repeaters shouldn't have much of an impact on actual nets in my opinion. I participate in several 2m nets every week. It is nice to know which repeaters I can reach and to know how far I can get out on the simplex nets. It's a good way to test your equipment. And for those that don't care for nets, they can always change the channel/frequency. As others have said, there is enough different things one can do with GMRS and amateur radio that there is something for everyone.

Are those guys even on the same level as Mo, Larry and Curly? Just kidding guys.

I have to agree that just sticking with the basics is best when starting out. I still have not gotten into DMR, Yaesu Fusion, Icom D-Star, etc. due to the added complexity and steeper learning curve. And none of those digital modes are compatible. Yaesu uses Fusion while Icom uses D-Star. Most others use DMR. I wanted something simple when I replaced my TYT TH7800 in the shack. I was looking at the Icom IC-2730 and ID-5100. I went with the IC-2730 since I didn't want to mess with D-Star at all. In hind sight I should have started out with the Icom IC-2730 instead of the TYT TH7800. The Yaesu FTM-500 will serve @PuddlePirate quite well even if he never dips his toes into digital. He has already dipped his toes into radio by having his GMRS license.

That was the exact advice that the head VE gave me when I went to my first meeting. There is nothing wrong with wanting a nice radio. I usually suggest a cheap hand held for new people just getting started. Sometimes they realize that amateur radio is not for them. And one can never have too many hand held radios.

That happens a lot on many of the forums I am on. SteveShannon did a good job and all any of us can do is point people in the right direction. Like the old saying goes, You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink the water.

I'm glad I added that person to my ignore list.

Sorry about that. I would hate to ruin your reputation And I try not to assume anything because we all know what assume means.

WOW, I spent most of the day at my local VA hospital to come home to all of this. I'll keep my inter-service rivalry comments to myself (for now). And it looks like I can add another to my ignore list too. @OffRoaderX, @marcspaz, @SteveShannon and others are very intelligent and do their research. I might not always agree with them but I do always take into account what they have to say.

I will make a suggestion that once you pass the Tech practice tests with at least a 92% score every time then you are ready for the real test. Another suggestion is once you start getting a 92% or higher each time on the Tech test, go ahead and start studying for the General test too. There isn't much difference in the two. General does go into more technical details but it is pretty easy. Tech is limited to a small portion of the 10m band only. General opens up all of the HF bands. Like @kidphc said, there are bad apples in every bunch. Just ignore those type of people and you will be fine. Most guys will be helpful when they find out you are new to amateur radio. Don't hesitate to find an Elmer (long time amateur radio operator) in your are that will be more than happy to help you study and answer questions. There are some curmudgeons even on GMRS in my area. I ignore the curmudgeons no matter what band or frequency they are on.

I will give an example using our GMRS repeater. We use repeater channel 17. The makes the repeater output frequency the same as the simple channel 17 which is 462.600 MHz. We have tones set on the repeater for both TX and RX so it is in T-SQL mode. Some guys only run their radios in Tone mode with just their TX tones set while others have T-SQL set for both TX and RX. The people that only have tone set can hear any and all traffic on the simplex channel 17 while those of us with T-SQL set do not hear anything other than traffic coming through the repeater. Anyone can hear the repeater transmit by listening on simplex channel 17 or repeater channel 17 if they do not have any RX tones set at all. In fact that is how a few people have found the repeater while traveling through the area. Now they will have to set TX tones to talk to others through the repeater. As you can see tones act as a filter to keep you from hearing all transmissions on that channel. Tones work the exact same way on simplex too. The term 'privacy tones" is an oxymoron, there is nothing private about it. Channel 17 (simplex) is pretty popular in my area and sees lots of traffic. If we did not have our repeater and radios set for T-SQL, then we would hear constant traffic no matter if it was on simplex or going through the repeater. We had one guy complaining about hearing kids on the air constantly. He did not have his RX tones set. once he set his radios to T-SQL, he no longer heard the kids or any other traffic without tones.

We are talking about the government here. They can't do anything simple. The only exception that I ever saw was while I was in the military. Military manuals are about the only government printed documents that are easy to understand (for the most part). I have no skin in this game since we don't plan on ever linking our GMRS repeater.

That is why I wrote the following: The FCC isn't changing the regulations, they are clarifying them. Whether people like it or not, the FCC is making the rules/regulations a little easier to understand. Which is rare for any federal agency.

I have seen this happen all too often with firearms owners contacting the ATF all of the time. That is part of why the ATF went after pistol braces like they did. But the courts smacked that rule change down since the ATF was trying to change the rules without following proper procedures. I was never a fan of linking repeaters no matter what service they are for. Yes linking does have its place.

Let's see if the FCC goes through the proper procedures on actually changing the rules. Though in my opinion, the FCC is not actually changing the rules, just trying to clarify them instead. Again just my opinion since I am not a lawyer nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn.

Okay so we all missed that one about what antennas he is using. I am leaning towards the cheap Amazon coax being an issue then.

You can overcome cable loss with a good antenna with enough gain. I also use the coax loss calculator that @piggin linked to. It is a very helpful tool to have. We will have to wait for @adicrosta to let us know what antenna he is using. I see that the coax cable he is using comes from Amazon which could be part of the problem he is having.

I did program all of my Baofeng radios using CHIRP-next on my Mac mini. I usually keep CHIRP-next updated. I just don't remember which version I was using at the time. I have also used CHIRP-next on my Windows 11 computer without issues when making additional changes to my radios.

I have to agree with them. If two radios are working fine with the repeater then you might not have gotten the offset programmed correctly on the third radio. And the offset is easy to overlook when programming multiple radios and/or multiple repeater channels at the same time. I always triple check my settings when making changes on the computer before writing to the radio for this reason.

I have gotten around that but it's kind of a convoluted method. First thing is to save the factory configurations to your computer. Example UV5R-1 and UV5R-2 I will read from the first radio, make all of my changes and then save everything to the computer. For example, I will save the changes as UV5R-1A for the first radio. I leave that window open after writing to the first radio. Then I will save it as UV5R-2A. Disconnect radio 1 and then connect radio 2 After connecting the second radio to the computer and read from it. Again save the factory settings if you haven't already done it. You can then go back to the changed file that you renamed UV5R-2A and write that to the second radio. When you are finished programming both radios you should have a total of 4 configuration files saved to your computer; UV5R-1, UV5R-1A, UV5R-2, and UV5R-2A. You can name the saved files what you want. I just used -1 and -2 as examples. This method has worked for me with the UV-5R GMRS radios I have. It may or may not work for others. It has been a while since I programmed my UV-5R GMRS radios so don'r remember what version of CHIRP I used.

Nicely done Steve. Hopefully people will actually read this thread and find it helpful.

We ignore an occasional kerchunk as it really doesn't hurt anything. But when we have a person(s) repeatedly kerchunking one or more repeaters over and over, then it becomes an issue to be dealt with. For the OP, it doesn't hurt one bit to state his call sign and testing. If someone does come back then he knows 100% that everything is working correctly. And if he doesn't want to get into a long conversation then all he has to to is say so and thank the other person for coming back to him.

I am going to second the use of extra T connectors or power pole connectors and the use of a BNC adaptor right at the radio if using a hand held. Yes that would mean using two adaptors; a SMA to BNC and a BNC to SO239. BNC connectors are way better than SMA in this situation.

We had this discussion a few times while getting our club interested in a GMRS repeater and while we were in the testing phase. Opinions varied with club members about the same as it does here. And the conversation got heated at times too. We even had one guy say "GMRS would cover the entire state of Arkansas" Here is just my humble opinion, which very well could be wrong. Immediate family means just that and doesn't include one's 2nd, 3rd, 4th cousins etc, etc. It's also my opinion that giving mom or grandma a radio when they live in a different state is not right either. Now handing out a bunch of radios at a family gathering would be perfectly fine. Again all of this is just my opinion, right or wrong. Remember everyone is entitled to their own opinion. as long as they don't try to force others to fell the same way.

Another good antenna is the Comet CA-712EFC. You won't go wrong with Comet or Tram antennas. As far as radios go, there are plenty of good choices from very simple to full of bells and whistles. Midland radios are good for being simple and easy to use. I personally like the Wouxun radios.