MSnow

This makes me cringe. I worked in 12v industry for so many years and running anything beyond a phone charge out of the cig plug is questionable at best. Even Garmin's and radar detectors we would 100% of the time hardwire them into better circuits then the lighter plug. Remember your voltage effects your power output as well. My kg1000g+ puts out the full 50 at 14.4 @ 9.7 amps if i pump up the voltage to 15 it puts out 51ish watts at 8amps. Most vehicles while running will have around 13.8v to 14.4v.

I have tons of radios, when I caught the bug i started getting everything that came out and seemed awesome. Unfortunately most of that is marketing. Here is what I found. When it comes to GMRS radios none of them are as good as the Wouxon radios, for mobile the KG1000g plus. The MXTA25 is one of the best if not the best antenna you can get it really is amazing. With that said if your not mounting it with a ground plane like the middle of the roof you would be better off getting a ground independent antenna. Comet has the GI series coming out they are primarily designed for vehicles that are not made of steel, but will work well for fender mounts. The other options that are good are to get old commercial radios like Kenwood, Motorola, or iCom. Hope it helps.

Sounds like you might just be to far away. Especially on a handheld even if your in the estimated distance of the repeater you might need to walk around and see if you can find a spot. Best way you will know this is if you cannot hear people talking on the repeater then you won't be able to open it either. Find a place where the traffic is coming in perfectly clear then try again. If still no then program it on the radio and not chirp, and ensure you have the correct offset as well. Good Luck Have fun its always a learning process.

Assuming your creating a node only network and talking over DVswitch or Zello only, I would think the network admin would be able to help more then someone on here since most here is just RF related. With that said with my limited knowledge of nodes I would say it sounds like you have a config issue, that your node number is not registered or approved for the network. In which case again you would need to contact your network admin.

An alternative option would be to build a Allstar node with a RasberryPi, then connect the node to a URIxB, and then make the db25 to db25 cable to the FR4000. Make sure to push the remote button so that the green light is lit for the remote on the front of the FR4000. The node can be programmed however you want for CWID and time. This would also allow you to change to ham frequencies and link your repeater in the future if you decide to change over to ham from GMRS.

Buy an SDR, problem solved.

I have made it 460 miles with tropospheric ducting Montgomery, TX to Mobile, AL this was on may15th 2025 on 700. The whole coast line from Texas over to Alabama was white. The majority of the Gulf of America was white hot as well. You can use https://www.dxinfocentre.com/tropo.html to find out if your ever in a good opening and try for some farZ contacts.

Mine came with them in the bag. Maybe email them and let them know they were missing and see if they will send you new ones.

There are a lot of repeaters in Texas. I am assuming your asking why they are not all listed on mygmrs and I cannot tell you that answer. All I can tell you is there are plenty there, and they are all listed in different resources on the web. Here is a snip of just one website that shows some GMRS repeaters in Texas.

There should be a button to press to make it switch back to showing the ch numbers. Most HT's its labeled V/M or maybe FREQ.

You will need to join the Texas GMRS network which is free to get the info for all the repeaters. There is a Facebook group as well you can join to connect with folks. Since the repeaters have been unlinked its pretty rare to hear any activity on them. Some of the repeaters have been damaged by storms and tornados last year and not getting repaired. While others have been completely removed all together due to no use, but they still show on the website.

You can shop around for deals and many of the YT people have codes you can use for discounts. I ended up with the Comet CA-712EFC 460-470MHz 9 dBi Gain base antenna, and I used the premade Messi & Paoloni hyperflex 13 premium .500" coax w/PL259 connectors. I also had to get an N male to UHF female adapter and silicone seal shrink tube too. With all the discount codes I found, and sales they had going on I was able to get everything for less then $250 including shipping.

You need a different y adapter. the outputs on the back of the radio are one single channel each. So you can get a Y that has 2 male single channel plugs that converge into a female 3.5mm that is stereo or 3 bands. You then need a speaker that has the stereo plug on it. I pasted a picture here that has the male versions so you can see the difference. And labeled the Positive and negative parts of the jacks. So you want a y adaptor with 2x 2 pole male to 1x 3pole female, and a speaker that has a 3 pole male. You could get a y with 2 male 2 poles to 1 female 2 pole, but this would not be the best option but will work.

It tells you in the manual you cannot change the option unless you set the radio into frequency mode. Once you change it it will allow you to change it.

I got a couple of these radios when amazon had them on sale last week. I had the same issues for the most part. I like the radios but they are very different from every other GMRS radio I have owned. Yes you are correct, once you create your 30 custom channels in a group. 1. goto click the cog 2. select Channels & Groups 3. Select Import Device Channels 4. Add a title for the ch list and save it to your phone That way when you change something you can always upload it back from your phone to the radio. Its really quite useful when travelling, so you can load in channels for each city your passing through, and not have to worry about preprogramming the radio with a limited amount of channels. Another issue that stumped me for a bit was the DTC tones. I had some repeaters that used TX/RX DCS-423N but if I put that in it won't TX or RX the repeater. I had to put it as 423I which shows as 315N/423I so I am guessing the firmware has them reversed as they are listed so if you need 423I you would select 432N/315I. The Network channels are quite interesting as well, but not sure how they actually work. Seems like linked radio through the phones internet, but maybe its dead now never hear anyone talking on it.