WSAM608

Mine did not come with a programming-cable.. Scathing video review to follow..

Hmmmm..... Don't know what what I'm doing wrong..... I'm hitting 46.4 to 50.8 watts on all  high channels.... on a ground plane.... in the attic..... with LMR400 coax....  able to talk good and clear on all high channels and repeaters..... Checked two of the three GMRS-50-V2 units I have, and both get the same watts, etc! I guess I'll have to check the third mobile unit when it gets back, just to be sure..... But, so far, I think they're great.
I also have two GMRS-V2 units, and have checked them both for wattage out...... Hmmmm... both doing about  4.3 to 4.9 watts out...... Maybe...... I don't know for sure....just maybe..... all five units that I'm running are great radios that do what they say they'll do........ I'm happy with BTech GMRS-50V2  50 watt units (I have 3 units in use) and the handhelds GMRS-V2 (I have 2 units in sporatic... sometimes use).  Anyway, TMO.

50W is good, especially when you have a long-run of that leaky coax, to get more juice squirting from the antenna.
50W is also good to step on the other guy that is irritating everyone but only has 20W.. all else being equal.

Yea that is correct. It is a members only repeater.  Dues are only $35 a year. The repeater is huge.  It has coverage from barstow and Rosamond into Lucerne and Johnson valley, slash X and down to hemet parts of San Diego, Orange County and Huntington Beach.   It has loads of great guys and many events planned for later in the year.   We would love to have you.   I am in phelan, the owner and club president is in hesperia and we have many members in the HD 

I finally had one of my returns come through so I had some funds in my Amazon account.  Been going back and forth between the 805g and the 905g and it looks like the 905g won out so I'll be getting my first actual GMRS radio. I've had a lot of other radios(most returned for one reason or another)but this'll be the first one that's actually Part 95E approved.
I've already got the factory CPS installed on my Linux Box via WINE so I'll be ready to set it up when it gets here Saturday.  I'm going to test fit a Nagoya 701c antenna to see if it has a small enough O.D. to work and if it does I'll order a GMRS tuned Nagoya for it. Anyway, just wanted to share the good news. 😉
PS. Also ordered a KG-805g too.

I am curious how far people have made contacts. 
I recently received transmissions from (what seemed to me) a very long distance away.   I was on a high hill on the dunes of Lake Michigan near Muskegon, Michigan and was able to clearly listen to the Racine, Wisconsin repeater 85 miles away on the other side of the lake purely accidentally. Guys were mainly talking about fishing and the upcoming salmon and steelhead runs. I also heard traffic from Ohio and Indiana.  I was on a hand-held GMRS Pro and also used a Baofeng UV-17 Pro GPS while employing a N9TAX Labs Slim-Jim GMRS antenna.  Of course with only 5 Watts I wasn't able to make contacts, but it got me thinking.  Just how far have people actually made contacts?  I imagine mountain top to mountain top could be quite far.

So I just tested the Betec 50v2 power and SWR with a Surecom SW-102 meter and 2' RG 8x patch cable and connected to LMR 400 to my j-pole antenna. Here are my results across several channels: 
Low Power 6.4 watts
Medium Power 24.6 watts
High Power 55.7 Watts
My first test was with a 12' rg8x patch cable and the numbers were considerably lower (eg 38.4 watts high power) then I used a 2' patch cable and got the higher above numbers.

I have 2 of these, the Radioddity version. I noticed that my vehicle powers this thing at about 14.3 volts so that's what I run on my base power unit as well. At 14.3ish volts, it puts out 16.5 - 17 watts on the 467 repeater input frequencies and 17-18 watts on simplex. Both radios consistently put out that power. That's pretty decent as far as I'm concerned. 
Also, using the 136-174 and 400-470 mode is nice because you can freely enter your frequencies with no defaults added. 
Here's something I really appreciate about this radio that nobody mentions: when it receives a signal that it does not have the tone for, the little s-meter lights up, but instead of green, it lights up gray. This is a nice touch because you know there's a signal being received, but you're not hearing it because it's filtered out by tone. Most other radios just show the s-meter light up normally, but you don't hear anything. 

When the radio is set to Ham Mode, it will not transmit out of ham band.  Yes, you can put out of band frequencies into the memories, but they will be RX only.  The same is true when set for GMRS, only those frequencies will transmit.

The only setting that doesn't restrict is the full range (136-174) (400-470).  Set to that, the radio and all memories will take any frequency in those ranges and allow transmitting.

Firmware was V2.33

After watching several reviews of the Radioddity DB20-G, I stumbled across reviews of the Anytone AT-779UV.  Fundamentally, these appear to be the same radio.  Indeed, there is a European version as well under yet another manufacturer's label/brand.

Ironically, this AT-779UV was purchased with the understanding that it was a GMRS radio (according to the description).  That said, what arrived today was actually ham band. 

However...

Given the above, I am not sure this radio is considered Part 95e, so if completely legal is concerned, this might not be the radio for you and/or you can purchase the DB20-G.  I am assuming the DB20-G is in fact Part 95e certified (I don't know).  Again, the AT-779UV appears, for all purpose and functionality, to be an identical radio. 

That said, several of the videos showed an interesting (not published) feature/mod, which is reversible, to change the possible TX/RX frequencies and memory usage. 

Power off the radio, hold down the V/M button and turn on the power.  You will be presented with a menu of radio configurations, one of which is 'GMRS'.  Selecting GMRS, the radio has all of the same features (and restrictions) as the DB20-G (after reset/power cycle).  Basically it behaves as a fully legal Part 95e radio.  FWIW, I believe the aforementioned feature works on all versions of this radio, including the DB20-G.  One of the other items in the menu opens up the radio to the full TX and RX spectrum and, most importantly, allows all available memories to hold transmit frequencies which, will in fact transmit.

Again, the beauty of this mod/feature, is that it can be changed as often as you like.  The only downside is that whatever was in the memories prior to the change will be replaced by the selected band defaults upon reset.  For example, selecting GMRS, all memories are repopulated with the standard channels and the Part 95e restrictions.  Set it to ham band and 144-148 and 430-450 gets a couple of simplex frequencies in the memories and does not transmit out of band.

This radio is tiny but packs a lot for the price.  For more information on the model in general, see Randy's review of the DB20-G (see link)  Remember, the AT-779UV and the DB20-G are virtually the same radio.

Both radios retail right around $100. 

Yes, it's Chinese, but IMHO, it's still pretty cool for a 15-18ish watt mobile (not the advertised 20W).