WSBZ540

I've got several of them. Absolutely love it. probably one of my favorite radios. Transmit is pretty clean in the 2m 70cm bands. Side band, fm, am, 18-600mhz, digital modes, mesh network, its pretty fun...

Are you transmitting and receiving on the same antennas? I assume you connected the yagi and tested, then connected the omni and tested. You should get considerably more distance from the yagi in most cases. I can't really recommend a commercial version because I build mine. The yagi doesnt look to be tuneable, and at $100, ide say that's not cheap either. what coax are you running this on? You may have said before but I don't recall now.

I was testing out a couple radios last night, seemed all good. This morning took off down to the river to do some pretty extreme terrain testing over 6 miles. One radio is a uv17r, and made it back to the cabin repeater fine. The other radio (uv9r) wouldn't. So I figured it's a ccr and that's that. Started to rain so I headed back. Just noticed on the 9r that the TXP is set to WIDE for every channel I programmed. Cleared the radio, reprogrammed, same thing. Did a reset on the radio, and reprogrammed. Now its all good, and transmits just as well as the other radios. Seems like a firmware bug. Anyone else come across this?

If you can tune the yagi, it might help a little to tune when it's on the mast, but it's not going to cause death an destruction if you don't. I generally side mount my yagis 16-24" away. But I also run them in some kind of pairing to keep my mast in balance.

Yea.. that's what it was a uv82. And no that by its self didn't unlock it.

I can't remember which btech radio this applied too but might try it. I sold the radio some time back. Also btech might help you out. Hold menu while powering on radio. Enter 100.1201 for frequency. Radio responds with 136-174 on display. Enter 111.1111. Radio responds with 400-512.

I put up a repeater because there are no gmrs repeaters in my area. Nearest is 80 miles south of me. I use it, neighbors use it, it's handy. If I'm within 20 miles of home and I call on my mobile I know for certain I will be heard. The only advantage you might find from a repeater over a base, is your wife could drive 15 miles south, and you 15 miles north. You are 30 miles apart, but only 15 miles from the repeater. You could still communicate at 30 miles. If you only want to communicate back to your house, then just a base with a decent antenna would do.

Ide say you're good to go. You may get some inference if using both antennas and listening on one, while transmitting on the other. Other than that, 4feet of vertical separation should be fine. My yagis are mounted slightly to the side about 12" from the mast, but that was to keep the upper antenna coax from interfering with the yagis when it came down the mast.

Unless your roger beep is the dtmf tones to 'mary had a littte lamb', its not likely going to cause problems. As a radio user (ham, gmrs, frs, muuuuuuuurs, cb), I don't like the actual tones of the boofwang radio roger beep, but I do prefer a roger beep when talking to someone, especially on simplex. On weak signals if I don't hear a beep I assume they dropped out and will come right back. If I hear the beep, I know they released the ptt. Otherwise, you just talk over them, which happens frequently on 2m simplex or repeaters. Sad hams just don't like the roger beep.

Its pretty common to run a 2m/70cm antenna and a cross repeat radio with no desensing on either band. Its one radio using the same physical antenna, listening on two bands at once, or transmitting on one band and listening on the other. Using 2 physical antennas wouldn't be much different. I run a 2m antenna on the rear passenger side, and a gmrs antenna on the rear drive side. They feed into a diplexer (instead of a switch) at the back, then feed into 1 coax going to a single radio. No desensing, interference, coupling, or other issues that I can find on an analyzer or hear in performance. You will get some desensing on uhf if the frequency separation is <1mhz. I start picking up interference at around 800khz. But the antennas are only 4feet apart.

Wouldn't you prefer a diplexer/duplexer so that there's no manual switch to operate? 2m passes on the low port, and gmrs on the high port? I've got one in my vehicle, and one on my base mast to switch between 6m, 2m, 70cm. Switches are fine too if you prefer a switch. Just throwing it out there.

I would recommend a yagi myself. GMRS being split, the yagi will probably be tuned in the center between 462mhz and 467mhz. I would retune it to the frequency of the repeater. I can easily do simplex on a yagi 40 miles if the yagi is tuned to the simplex frequency. It still works if its center tuned, but its got some static in it. If you're industrious you can build your own. Ive built quit a few I can share plans on.

Is it a slim jim, or a jpole? J pole looks like a big letter J, and the slim jim looks like a folded dipole (an extremely stretched out rectangle with a small gap on one side). Both will benefit from 5 or 6 loops of coax under it, but I build a lot of slim jim and jpole antennas and the slim jim seems to be more picky about where the coax runs after the connector. (the jpole as well but less so) Make sure it 'exits' on the stub (short side) and doesn't cross back over it any where, or it will make your swr run a little crazy.

I can reach Mexico and Columbia on 2m, but probably can't reach it with gmrs. However, I'll be listening for it!

I've tried to give radios out to my family for this purpose. They come back with the cell phone argument. @OffRoaderX just made a vid about it too. My wife and kids all have one, but my extended family just plans to use their phones, despite life experience telling me that's a bad idea.