SvenMarbles

I don't really see how it would melt anything,.. Drawing a RATED current through a receptacle. And with it, it makes an actual 18-19 watts. People are mad at this radio only because they paid 3x for something else and don't even get 1.5x the results.

I use even cheaper ones that are very good. Amazon sells one called "KMR-400". Super good quality and connectors. $49 for 50ft. Pretty good for an LMR-400 facsimile.

There's hams here that are used to the normal answer, "it's complicated". It actually isn't. For a first mobile/base GMRS radio, the correct answer is the Radioddity DB-20G.

By the way, I'm not a schill for any specific brand. I use a 40 watt Retevis RA87 at the house connected to a GP-9 outside, Radioddity DB-20G's in the family cars and we use VGC N-76's as HTs on ski trips and such.. (BTW, look into the VGC N76 as a GMRS HT, bluetooth to phone and the family or group is just texting eachother reliably) Yes, brief data bursts of text messaging is legal on GMRS. If you have a wife and kids who are uninterested in radio and just prefer to text with their phones, this is the one.

If you're going to spend Midland money on a GMRS radio, tell me what the argument is for not going with Wouxun instead? This "ease of use" argument is just nonsense. ALLLLLL type-certed GMRS radios come with the baked in channels. At least with these certain models, one can choose to button press reset to get out of the GMRS jail. But,.. you never have to if you don't want, and they're RIGHT there with ease of use with Midland. And, you can say "I've never heard a complaint from Midland users",.. Yeah well that's because they're just casual people. You put a radio in their vehicle for them, told them "it was a good one" and they pressed the button, talked, and didn't think about much else. And I don't knock that btw... I'm PERFECTLY fine that most GMRS users are appliance users. So are my wife and kids.. It's actually the intended vibe of GMRS.

My personal opinion is that Midland GMRS radios are pure butt. Midland made turd CB radios sold in Walmart for decades before finding relevance as a GMRS radio maker. I'm not sure when the hell Midland became the Yaesu of GMRS. It's all marketing. You're much better off getting GMRS radios made by companies like Radioddity, Retevis, and companies like that for the same prices, and I'll challenge anyone to tell me that you don't get a better quality product for the same money spent.

The DB-20G is absolutely what I would recommend to anyone as the quintessential quality/price ratio radio. They're just,.. good radios. $99, 20 watts (real watts), plug and play. But also unlockable if you want to get out of GMRS jail and have more repeater channels and more custom channel settings. If anyone asks me "hi, new to GMRS, what radio,.. etc.." Just get a DB-20G. They're radios that radio good for $100. End of conversation.

What are you talking about?..

This is a confusing statement lol. If I'm talking on the 30 GMRS channels, wh... Well, anyway..

For anyone who may have been wondering, yes this radio is usable at GMRS frequencies. Full app control, including transmitting and receiving of audio (android only), and even text messaging from the app which makes it just as simple as texting on your phone normally.. You can actually link the radio with your phone, set the radio, and just walk around with your phone. It's also just an overall very high quality radio.

You and your wife don't need to be yelling your call sign back and forth to eachother. In fact, the frequent yelling of callsigns on GMRS is a learned dork habit of all of the ham radio people who've moved in on GMRS.

Yes I agree with that. And where have they gotten this idea?

Well,.. the whole "money back" thing is if you're foolish enough to get the second mortgage to let a company do a pro roof install. I'm not trying to replace my mains power with off-grid solar that runs the house entirely. I'm more of the mind of having some field deployable solar kit that can get set out in the yard to be a supplement, or bare bones sustenance level capability in the event it would come to it. But I'll tell you what, I've dug into this stuff enough just as a personal interest that I probably COULD extrapolate what I already know how to do and accomplish a setup robust enough to power a small home entirely.. I wouldn't need to spend 100k to do it either...

The problem is that I believe that a lot of people genuinely believe that the principal mission of GMRS is to get on and socialize with the traffic that they hear. They probably legitimately don't know better because there IS this pervasive thing happening on the band. It's clear to see just by the way people discuss it on THIS forum.. Here's a litmus test... Did you buy 1 GMRS radio, or did you buy 2 or more?... If you bought only 1, you're probably a perpetrator.. lol

It's illogical to say that you doubt what I'm telling you my experiences are. I'm pretty sure that we do not live in the same places. Do you suppose it's possible that what you experience in your location could vary from what I experience in my location? It is in fact what is prevalent here. And it isn't just that it's inappropriate to ask about equipment, It's inappropriate to make the unwelcome contact to begin with. When someone hears chatter on the GMRS, maybe listen to it. If it sounds like a couple of people just exchanging mundane information between eachother, use your non-autistic brain to recognize that it's not a CQ call... This only sounds alarming and insulting if you frame all-things-radio with a Ham radio mind. And therein lies the issue.. Hi, not ham radio...

Nah, not on the GMRS. The problem is that the radio nerds moved into GMRS as a novelty, not appreciating that is was for the casual appliance user. It became so prevalent they started to make themselves at home here. When they hear traffic, they get on to let us know they're monitoring . Moral of the story,... I want the wives and kids to be able to grab a radio that we set up, key up, and call eachother. Callsign is label maker printed on each mic, but frankly, do we need to even be about that? If my son raises me on the radio for some minutia communication, and rando Dave jumps in to ask for a callsign ID, am I wrong for feeling like that guy can kind of F off? We've got our call and IMO that's between us and the FCC.. I AM a radio nerd. I'd equate myself to a highly informed and motivated Tech class (despite not being one). But I understand and appreciate that the fam (and fams in the plural sense at large) aren't going to be. And we should be ABLE to set the radios up within our circles and do the GMRS thing without the ham types getting mixed into our practical comms type situations..

She didn't know about what kind of antenna she had and how much gain it had...

The whole reason why I'm even on this crusade is because of some goof getting on the radio and making my shy wife uncomfortable while we were trying to use GMRS correctly... Since then I've just been willing to let let people know where 70cm's is...

Has anyone else here found solar power to be a pretty fun "hobby"?... Am I a weirdo?... There's just something sort of gratifying from harvesting some completely free electricity. Even if it's just on 100 watts worth of panels into a power bank. It's fun knowing that you can harvest and store a functional amount of electricity completely non-reliant on any sort of subscriber infrastructure. Can keep some phones, handheld radios, a laptop, flashlights, and the bare essentials charged if the power were to not be available. I used to be a generator nerd lol. I still have my big 9500 watt generator, but all that those do is convert a stored energy source into another... Gotta have gas, and you're essentially just using jugs of gas as batteries, and the conversion method is a loud mechanical nightmare. So what's better than just harvesting LIGHT and storing that as electricity? The sun will always be around, and if not, we've got bigger problems anyway..

Are you sure that the people on that repeater WANT to hear you? Not all traffic on the GMRS is an invitation for a "chime in".

It’s absolutely the correct use. It’s not a coincidence that GMRS is Family Radio Service adjacent, and that a license is good “for a family”.

Not meant to be a divisive or abrasive topic. It's laid out pretty clearly what the spirit of GMRS is. Not 70cm lite.. Less for "rag chews" and "making contacts" and more for having radios in the family cars to home. Or a group or family on a ski trip, event, or off roading keeping track of eachother... Repeaters meant to be more local to get up over a hill... Not for yelling "WHISKEY SIERRA ALFA TANGO 423 Monitoring!". For people with some other stated goal and using radio as an aid, and not just "being on the radio". Functional use..

This is the entirety of what I can do radio stuff with… The good news is that it allows for short coax runs (I run them outside through the dryer vent cutout in the wall) and my mast pole setup is right there..

I'd do something like that if I had a bit better of a space circumstance. My radio desk situation is relegated to the downstairs laundry room lol. When the real estate/mortgage rate situation improves we'll definitely be getting a bigger house and maybe I can have a proper room office and have the ability of set up auxilary computers and stuff like that to host online SDRs.

No, having my own local outgoing scanner feed isn't going to do me any good. Are there such things as controllable scanner feeds? I've only ever heard one ones that are parked on set frequencies and just stream police, fire, or whatever.. I'd love to find a kiwisdr style thing for VHF/UHF, if such a thing exists I'd be very interested..