WRYZ926

I highly recommend the Wouxun Kg-1000g Plus and the Wouxun KG-XS20G Plus for a bae/mobile GMRS radios. The 1000G Plus is 50 watts while the XS20G Plus is 20 watts. The Wouxun GMRS mobile radios are better than any Baofeng/B-Tech or Midland radio. I run a 1000G Plus as my base and in my vehicle while the XS20G Plus is mounted in my SxS. The Midland MXT500 is sitting in a box simply because it is not as good as the Wouxun radios. Where a 50 watt radio will benefit is if you have trees and/or other obstacles to push the signal through. The local GMRS repeater is 21.5 miles from me and I can talk to others on it just fine even with my 5 watt Wouxun KG935G HT (hand held). I used my XS20G with my roof mounted antenna and was able to talk to the repeater sight on simples just fine. When it comes to dual band 2m/70cm radios, I have had good luck with the TYT TH-7800 as a base and in my vehicle. You can get them for around $239. There is also nothing wrong with Yaesu or Icom mobile radios. Though those start around $300 and up. If money is a bit tight then look at the TYT TH-7800.

The TYT TH-9800 is FCC certified for 10m, 2m, 6m, and 70cm. They re not certified for use on GMRS or CB bands. And there is enough difference between a 10m antenna and a CB (11m) antenna that one will not work well for both bands. And trying to use a 10m or CB antenna for GMRS will not work very well either. Now some dual band 2m/70cm antennas do have good SWR reading in the GMRS band and will work for all three. The Comet GP9 and Comet 2x4SR will work for 2m, 70cm, and GMRS. The TH-9800 will work fine with a good quad band antenna that covers 10m, 2m, 6m and 70cm but there is no guarantee that a quad band antenna for those bands will work for GMRS. And none of them will work well for 11m.

I have no experience with the TYT TH-9800 but the TYT TH-7800 has been working good for me.I run one as a base station and another in my vehicle.

Let me grab some for this one.

"Privacy tones" are anything BUT private. As others have said, it is real easy to scan for the input and output tones of repeaters while they are in use.

One problem with solar panels at tower sites is that you have to keep them far enough away from the tower so that ice won't fall and break the solar panels. Now if you live in an area that stays above freezing and/or low winter precipitation then solar panels close to a tower is fine. We have a shed at the tower site for all of our repeaters and we had to build a cage above it to keep ice from falling off the tower and caving the roof in.

I retired from the Army and can tell you that there is absolutely no piece of equipment that is GI Proof. GI's will mess up a steel ball inside a padded room with a rubber mallet. And remember that Mil Spec is a minimum set of standards that equipment has to meet which is usually produced by the lowest bidder.

That was one of the arguments we used when talking our club into adding a GMRS repeater to the tower where our 2m and 70cm repeaters are. We have a backup generator on site and are adding a battery backup system too. We are still in the testing phase with the GMRS repeater but we are averaging 20-25 mile radius. Which is not bad considering the forested rolling hills of central Missouri. The other main selling point we used when pitching the idea was that we could always use another tool in the tool box for emergencies. And we will be adding a GMRS radio to our emergency coms trailer. So far we have all of the HF, VHF, and UHF bands covered in the trailer. No repeater will be online in an emergency without some type of backup power supply. We will be able to run up to 2 days on the new battery backup system plus we will be keeping the generator in place.

I'll second the Comet CA-712EFC, it is an excellent antenna. I am using a 35 foot run of LMR400 to connect the CA-712 to my radio and SWR is 1.0 to 1.3 throughout the band. The 1.3 SWR was on the repeater channels while the SWR on channels 1-22 was flat at 1.0 to 1.1. And yes using a mobile antenna without a proper ground plane is part of your problem. Antennas need some type of ground plane. Base antennas have short ground plane rods at the bottom for this reason. I also highly suggest that both of you get better coax designed for UHF frequencies. LMR400 is what you want to use.

One thing I have not seen mentioned yet is what type of coax cable the OP or his brother is using. I also haven't seen what the length of coax each is using. Using a longer run of the wrong type of coax will definitely effect things.

OffRoaderX is correct in that you have to link repeaters through the internet. Linking GMRS repeaters is just like linking HAM repeaters. Ham uses AllStar while GMRS uses GMRS Live. Here is a good link to check out for more informations: https://www.gmrslive.com And here is a good video showing how to set everything up using GMRS Live to link GMRS repeaters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2b3kQUo5yY

That would be nice if that would happen. As it is, there are plenty of people who have both licenses that are unlocking/modifying their radios to work on amateur and GMRS bands.

TSQL is for setting both TX and RX tones. Or at least that how it works in CHIRP I find it easier to just use the Wouxun KG935G software downloaded from Buy Two Radios to program all of my Wouxun radios.

From the looks of things in the photo, you could remove the dish and then slide the pole up to get some more height. You can try reusing the existing cable with adaptors. But definitely check the SWR with a NanoVNA or other antenna analyzer. Worst case would be to run a better coax cable such as LMR400 to a GMRS tuned antenna.

You will be fine with that. My Comet CA-712EFC which is a dedicated GMRS antenna gets 1.2 on channels 1-7, 1.1 on channels 8-14 and 1.6 on channels 15-22. My Comet 2X4SR (dual band) gets 1.5, 1.2, and 1.8. A SWR of 2 or lower is fine. I wouldn't sweat about the 2.02 SWR reading.

Merry Christmas to all.

The red Wouxun programming cable uses the Silicon Labs chip. The com port comes up as the Silicon Labs CP2010X USB to UART Bridge.on my 64bit Windows 10, Windows 11, and my Mac. I haven't had any issues with it on my Mac mini, Windows 10 tower and Windows 11 laptop with ADM CPU or my Windows 11 laptop with an Intel CPU.

Yes I sure did. Autocorrect got me and I did not proofread before posting. I fixed my earlier reply. Thanks for letting me know.

WOW!!!! $165 for what looks just like the cheap blister pack FRS radios you can buy at Walmart. Thanks but no thanks. I bought my Wouxun KG-935G Plus for less than that (on sale).

Radioddity is usually pretty good when it comes to customer service even when yo go through Amazon to contact them about any issue. I had bought my Baofeng GT-5R through the Radioddity Amazon store and it was missing the ear bud that was supposed to be included. hen I reached out to Radioddity through Amazon, they refunded my money and told me to keep the radio. I definitely can't complain about that.

That is how we would say it in the military. Niner is the NATO phonetic way to say 9

I never said they did. I just said that the XS20G Plus is capable of transmitting on channels 8-14. Do so at your own risk.

The one mobile radio that I know will transmit on channels 8-14 is a type accepted GMRS mobile radio. The Wouxun KG-XS20G definitely will transmit on channels 8-14 if you set them to low power (5 watts) and also set them to narrow band.

GMRS mobiles radios only go down to 5 watts so they aren't allowed on channels 8-14. That being said, I do know of at least one mobile radio that will transmit on those channels. Not like I would do that though.

The Comet CA-712EFC is definitely a good antenna. Though my Comet GP9 dual band antenna also works well for GMRS.