Soladaddy

I've used it for camping it past 12 years. Before that we used it at theme parks where GMRS/FRS was insanely overloaded. Can hear Walmart, Lowes and a couple of construction crews using MURS, but its mostly quiet and the wife likes her radios that way.

that's a good idea. Agree with Logan, work on your antennas first. More power will allow you to transmit further, but better antennas with low loss coax will allow you to transmit further AND hear better.

Nice. I wouldn't move either. VHF can bend over a ridge and 6m can do it more than 2m. In the 6m band SSB mode is a bit more popular than FM and that can be used to local comms as well as skipping a few states over. For UHF, its a bit different and repeaters will be a bit more appealing to use. Might need a small beam to access repeaters with a good signal.

This is the Kenwood section on Chirp's site: Kenwood TH-D7, TH-D7GTH-D72TH-F6TH-F7TH-G71TH-K2TK-260/270/272/278TK-260G/270G/272G/278GTK-360/370/372/378TK-360G/370G/372G/378G/388GTK-760/762/768TK-760G/762G/768GTK-860/862/868TK-860G/862G/868GTK-7102/8102/7108/8108TK-2180/3180/7180/8180TM-271TM-281TM-471TM-D700TM-D710, TM-D710GTM-G707TM-V7TM-V71TS-480HX/SATTS-590S/SGTS-850TS-2000https://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/Home Maybe they a newer additions?

Well its sure does. I have 1.2:1 SWR on 462 and 467.

Just got one so I need some useage to make an informed opinion. The programming software was easy to use and I was able to add about 10 repeater pairs into memory. It has 128 memory slots so it should be enough for most users.

Thanks. Still kicking this one around. Saw the 8180 can be programmed with Chirp and that got my attention.

GMRS - mainly talking to people you know within a limited distance - 2 - 50 miles. (unless you are in N GA). Mostly utilitarian communications. ham - mainly talking to people you don't know (unless local repeaters and simplex VHF/UHF). Mostly experimental communications. Last weekend I talked 250 miles on VHF with an omni-directional antenna. That same evening some people with beams were getting 800 miles. All done via FM mode.

Wait, what? the X200a tunes up on GMRS? I'm move my coax right now.

lol, I know the feeling. Being in IT I like to focus on analog radio to get away from computers.

Means he has some very, very nice antennas for sale.

Well Ft. Lauderdale is flat as a pancake so 55ft HAAT is above the tree line and over most anything in a residential 'hood. If I could get 50ft up I'd be over the same obstacles as I'm in Florida as well. That said my lil mast is at 25 ft and VHF has much better range than UHF. Just need an extra 25ft that the HOA won't see.

What's the range needed and budget? MURS will give greater range than GMRS HT-to-HT. MURS allows mobile and base antennas which can yield several miles of coverage. The downsides are a 2 watt limit, no repeaters and no real mobile rigs on the market.

I'm swimming around in the sea of mobiles, tossing to and fro between the CCRs, the new part 95ers and the old commercial stuff. I like the CCRs for the ease of PC programming but the performance I've witnessed isn't all that great. I have 20+ year old Kenwood TK-2100s that runs circles around the new btech MURS and that has me thinking about using older commercial gear but am not sure what are good models for GMRS, what to avoid, what's good for programming, what do the model numbers/letters mean? I'm leaning 880 for price, 256 channels and I think the ability to go into the 70cm band (I'm a ham) How does the 880 differ from a 880-1 V2.0? How does the 880 differ from a 863G? 8302U? I see a front speaker What does the G mean? I think a H suffix mean high power. Thanks

That is a nice app. Congrats, you have the radio bug. With most systems, the antenna and feedline are to most important and even more so with UHF. This makes me want to buy some LRM400.