WRDJ205

As someone said, welcome to the rabbit hole…there are so many options it can be a little bit overwhelming. I would suggest starting with some handhelds (let us know what you have coming) and maybe buy a mag base antenna. This would let you see what your “farz” might be and then build on that. There are many great options for mobile units (that can also be used as a base unit). I would walk into it and figure out what would work best for your situation. Good luck and believe me when I say that there are lots of good people ready and willing to help.

Unfortunately they are all different and not all on chirp.

I have 3 radios with 3 different softwares. I was trying to simplify the channel programming and make them all similar. Initially I was hopeful that since they all looked similar (like a spreadsheet), I would be able to copy lines. It turns out that it was just easier to program each like in each software individually. I was able to keep the channels similar but it was more of a manual entry than I had hoped.

I had trouble copying from Chirp to Wouxun software and Radioodity software.

Trying to teach my son, we used Unit 1 and Unit 2. Think next time I’ll go with base and mobile. It really doesn’t matter as many people have said.

Just give it a try and ask questions as they come up. Pretty hard to mess up too badly. Good Luck !

I haven't tried one of those jump packs for starting a vehicle but they have a large amount of stored power. I have used a Ryobi battery converted to power up a 20w mobile device (need to find that thread from last month).

LOUISIANA NEEDS GMRS/HAM users.. Yes

I agree with that comment. Lots of good info on this forum. Would recommend one that you could program to give you a chance to dive down that hole.

Perfect. I was in the same boat last month but didn’t wait. I got the Wouxun KG-20XS and am very happy. Good luck!!

I should add, we have good coverage with no repeater with both the Midlands and the Baofengs. We’re in a pretty heavily wooded area with rolling hills.

I hear that you want to buy once, but at 20 acres you should be able to get coverage across the entire property with a pretty simple set up. We started with a couple of the Midland upper tier bubble pack GMRS radios on a larger property. We’re still just using some Baoefeng GM-15PRO and getting excellent results.

Start by just adding the input tone for the repeater you’re using on the frequency of the repeater (ie channel 20, 21, 22,…). Don’t change anything else.

Great “price” for some decent radios to learn on. Gives you a chance to listen and learn repeaters and programming (if you want to go that way).

This… I have to say that I’m pretty happy with the ability to have the whole family able to access the airwaves.

You are still limited to the GMRS frequencies for TX. You can add a different tone to get into a repeater. If you have more than one repeater (in say a different location) you could put that into the DIY section (above channel 31).

Does this help?

Above 30 are the DIY channels. You can set them up to TX to a repeater but they will still only go to the same GMRS frequencies. You can also set up some of those empty “channels” to RX in the VHF and ham UHF bands. I left a gap and started at 101 and put in several VHF and UHF frequencies to RX only. Comes in handy when scanning channels (instead of entire frequency spectrum).

I might have a Baofeng for you to drop off... at the factory.

Here is a screen shot of the RM-30 program...

Do you think that you could do a reset and start over? It seems like something is different in the settings. Could it be something that was inadvertently changed in the previous troubleshooting?

I see a lot of positive results with the Comet CA-712EFC for GMRS. If one were thinking about getting into non-sad HAM in the future is there an antenna that might be “good enough” for both (realizing there will be compromises)?