Soladaddy

thank godness my wife is catching the radio bug !

I have a 14 year old kid in my neighborhood that heard me on his bubble pack radio and called for me. I answered and told him about the GMRS thing. He now listens to ch15, our receive for our repeater pair, and pushes his call button on ch1 when he hears me get home. I talk to him all the time now. I told him to tell his parents what he is doing and keep them informed. He knows who I am and what I do, and has confirmed it with the deputies at his school. His parents are fine with it and he is really getting into radio because of it. I found him a scanner for next to nothing, and have cleared it with his parents to give it to him. He wants to be a police officer and really likes talking with me. I think he is even going to join my office's explorer group. All that from hearing us on a bubble pack radio. Sounds like a next generation radio guy.
 
Jerry

In my county, if you are a licensed ham, you are exempt from tower regulations up to 199 feet. They wouldn't know what type of antennas are on said tower(s). To me that alone is worth the license. Now I just need to find non-deed restricted land that I can afford. 

No on the Laird, but here's what I use and it really talks. It's almost double the gain of the one you are looking at.  I have two for my cars, one is GMRS/MURS and the other is GMRS only. 
 
http://www.dpdproductions.com/page_gmrs.html#gmrs58mobile

In my county, if you are a licensed ham, you are exempt from tower regulations up to 199 feet. They wouldn't know what type of antennas are on said tower(s). To me that alone is worth the license. Now I just need to find non-deed restricted land that I can afford. 

Logan5 Safety would be the issue unfortunately. I could put up a 20-25 foot tower but anything higher and it risks hitting hitting a house no matter the direction it falls. I also unfortunately have one of /those/ neighbors who likes to complain and call a lawyer for anything he doesn't like. I had someone show up at my door to "investigate" how dangerous the Jpole I put up was. I could only imagine what I would go through with a tower lol. We can all dream though right?
 
N4GIX, I know the range calculations and what they could be line of sight, however when your portables at 5 watts on level ground outdo the repeater running 45 watts 15' up then somethings been done wrong. This is mostly a family/local repeater so I am not expecting very long range on the unit, yet
 
Durake, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! lol, you actually gave me a straight answer lol. Now I need to find someone who can tune the duplexer. I checked with a buddy of mine who programmed the GR1225 however he does not have the equipment. He's really the only one I know that would have the equipment. Keep me posted on how your duplexer turns out, if things work out perhaps Ill send it to the same place [if they are looking for a little extra business.]
 
Also thanks for the info about the LMR400/213 issue. I thought several users mentioned using LMR400 over all else due to the price over quality of signal, then I couldn't find the posts lol [that what I get for working all night!]

 

With respect to the moderators and others here: I had this debate a while ago in a Radio Reference thread which ended up getting locked because of flames and rants. With that being said: the NPRM (which is now becoming law of the land on the 28th of this month) spoke of how the FCC realizes people are using Part 90 equipment on GMRS and that it was mostly acknowledged and ignored. While I understand the "part 90" and "part 95" rules, the actual technical certification of transceivers in both parts adhere to similar, if not exactly the same specifications. It is why the FCC hasn't intervened to slap down people using Part 90 equipment which is usually many times more expensive than "commercial offerings" from other brands. 
 
That being said, I still say "go with your gut" considering that on GMRS here we have almost all Motorola repeaters running with a absolute skew of radios. Since I also maintain an almost 30-repeater DMR network, most people use their Motorola or Hytera or other Part 90 accepted radio for DMR and have the local GMRS repeater programmed into the zone right next to the DMR and analog ham channels. 
 
I am at a crossroads for my own gear because I have a Connect Systems CS710 and CS810 in my possession for GMRS/DMR/Amateur radio/UTAC/etc use which were purchased and furnished to us by state emergency management as a tool since we maintain many of their systems - not to mention they wanted to see how they stacked up against similar offerings. While I love the radios for my truck and to throw in my work bag - for personal use I haven't adopted DMR (and in turn any UHF radios) for myself. I owned Motorola XPR gear and sold it just because of the price of the CPS and the remote head or HHCH mount for my 5550 was more than what I paid for the radio. Now I want the CS800D for my personal vehicle but have a love/hate with the one in my truck because of the small screen and tinny audio. But the remote mount was AWESOME! Simple Cat5 cable and that's it. For my handheld I want to hold out until the AnyTone dual band comes out, because I don't like how the MD-2017 is snapping SMA connectors for some people.
 
Anyway - enough ranting on about the radios. I just hope with the new rules and what I mentioned above about the FCC acknowledging Part 90 radios on GMRS people can stop tip-toeing around the issue and just use a "reputable commercial radio" for their budget and needs. I just sent my last two MTS2000 radios down to TX with my wife for flood relief with the thought that the radios might not survive the trip if they get dunked. I sent them because they ARE cheap radios... and wasn't going to send my work XTS5000s down.

Saw one where the 105 was better at receiving. Noticed that Amazon has been out of stock of the 115. Hoping its because they have stopped production to fix them.

Last year I was on the SARNet (FL statewide repeater linked network, mostly 440) during a net and was receiving from a ton of repeaters. One ham checked into the Jacksonville repeater from Ft Myers, around a 300 mile hike.

​Towers are beautiful.