amaff

To be fair: it's not just TIDradio doing this. A LOT of 'cheap chinese radio' models are set up the exact same way. The Radioddity DB20-G I have in the truck does similar nonsense. It too is unlocked. For those radios, I just program the 'rules' manually (they won't transmit on anything out of band, all the GMRS channels have their appropriate power levels and bandwidth, etc), but that's not something most people new to this are going to want / need to fool with. But it does mean I can set the thing I bought up the way I want.

The issue at I understand it isn't that it won't transmit out of band. It's that it only allows a very limited number of transmit capable GMRS channels in memory. It's not FCC regs doing it, it's lazy software. If I put GMRS 22 in memory slot 22, or 122, the radio should enforce the rules. Instead here it has the first 50-some-odd channels for GMRS (and it's pretty picky about what you put where), and the rest are receive only. It's why I have mine in "Normal". My KG-905s aren't like this. Put a GMRS channel in whatever memory slot you want and it'll enforce the rules for that frequency / pair. But, $100 radio vs $40 radio, so, you know...

I mean, it depends. All repeaters are not the same, nor are all handhelds. But: within a mile is pretty crap unless you're in a DENSELY wooded or built up area. I routinely talk through a repeater at 50 miles with a handheld. That repeater is up on top of a mountain, and I'm on a hill with nothing but valley (ie: open air) between us. I also have been able to talk nearly 5 miles on simplex from up on my hillside to another handheld down in the valley. All of this using stock antennas (often, with an H3, actually). So I'd say, short answer: no that's not correct. Long answer: ...but it could be depending on your particular circumstances.

Might not actually be on the repeater. Repeater Channel 8 (or however they want to label it) is the same receive frequency as channel 22. So, maybe there's a repeater out there that's not listed (which happens). Or maybe they were talking on simplex on 22 and you caught them.

What Is the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow?

Oh boy, now you've gone and blown up some folks' entire world view

I use either the OE antennas or Nagoya 701Gs, but I also keep a Signal Stick 440 wrapped up in my hiking backpack. 99.9% of the time, the longer SignalStick & 771 antennas (which some of my radios came with as well) just sit around because, at least out in the open here in northern Utah, I can get 50+ miles with the OEM antennas. Only reason I like the 701s is that they're even shorter than the rubber duckies so they get in the way less when out and about.

Ah, you're correct, I missed that. But I've read that several times about the 779uv variants as well, hence my question

I keep seeing people report this but I keep checking mine and it doesn't do that. Are you always using it on High output? Most of the time I run at low or at most medium (because 99% of the time it's for simplex, car-to-car type stuff) unless I'm struggling to talk to someone, and even during extended conversations it only ever just gets warm to the touch. If it got *hot* it'd probably be a problem for where I have it mounted, but I keep checking it waiting for it to happen and it just hasn't.

That's one thing I really dislike about a lot of mobile radios at the moment, is the RJ45 connector. They are terrible

Ah, I missed the 'random' part there. 31-54 are supposed to the 'DIY" GMRS frequencies.

If you're running it in GMRS mode, all you need to do is select the correct repeater channel and set the Transmit tone for the repeater and hit the PTT button. Where are you getting hung up?

Yeah mine does it too. It's the first half of the "C" in CT (for when you have a CTCSS tone enabled on that channel) when you're in single-frequency (IE: Non dual watch) mode. If you scroll back and forth through the channels you can see it flash very very briefly the full thing before blanking out that square. They're aware of it, they just haven't fixed it yet. I posted about it on the "TIDRADIO Users Support Group" on FB a little while back. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1421913055342893/posts/1499783944222470/

He's a Ham, and was likely programming it in Amateur or Normal (IE: unlocked) mode. That's fair. You can see my post above about how I have mine set up and why. But if you're new to GMRS and not comfortable manually programming in all the rules, you can leave it be and run it the way the GMRS 'programming' wants it to be and not run into any issues. Then once you've got a better grasp for it, if you want to expand its capabilities some, you always have that option. Just know that changing modes WILL blow away your entire configuration, so be prepared for that.

You can often request permission through the site (click on the repeater info and there's a Request Permission button), or, if it's open and the TX tone is published, you can key up, identify yourself and ask.

Racer math says if you otherwise like them but you want repeater capability, you could keep these to hand to friends and family when you're out and about doing stuff and just need to talk amongst yourselves, and get a repeater capable radio for yourself in addition. Is repeater capability a big deal? That's pretty much up to the individual. It does open up a lot more range (if you have repeaters in your area). Some people use them all the time. You're a lot more likely to find a random person to talk to on the repeater if that's what you're looking for. But if you just need radios to talk radio to radio among a small group, there's no reason these couldn't be part of the arsenal.

"RTFM" is a really common answer but when you're NEW new, a lot of it is just gibberish until you learn the 'language' of radio jargon it's written in. So, don't feel too bad about that one. Is this a "you can hear them, they can't hear you" situation? When you say "22-2" that implies channel 22 with "privacy tone 2". Those privacy tone charts aren't standard across the industry, so knowing what actual frequency that tone is could be helpful. Have you tried setting the TX Code (looks like menu 2) on your radio to the 2nd option? Tho, what the 2nd option is might vary. With no tones set on your radio, you should be able to hear them without issue, but they won't hear you (as their radios are listening for the correct tone in order to actually play a transmission on that channel through to the speaker). Your radio doesn't appear to have tone scanning, which will make this harder, but if you can get with one of your club members and sit down with your radio and theirs, and then scrolling through your first handful of transmit tones until their radio wakes up when you key up yours, you should be able to sort it out.

I like my DB20-G. The software to program it is a little clunky and the manual is *thin*, but there's plenty of user support out there (there's a few good thread on here regarding the DB20-G and the other Anytone 779uv clones). It's a bit restrictive in how it wants you to program it in GMRS mode but if your needs are for something a bit more open, it's easily unlockable if you're comfortable programming in the GMRS rules yourself. (EDIT: Note that there are versions that do and versions that don't come with the programming cable. The DB20 did. I believe the Retevis did not. Just keep an eye on the listing to make sure it includes the cable) I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT recommend the BTech GMRS 20v2. The interface is a mess, changing the volume involves hitting the MONI button and then tapping down the volume while listening to the speaker scream from static, and the speaker sucks so it had to be near full volume for me constantly. That was before it just stopped working after a couple weeks. So...that one went back to the rain forest from whence it came.

Amateur Motorsport comms, and now lots of other Activity Comms. Hiking or road tripping with the family. Talking to my kid on the pit-wall (or talking trash to another buddy on track). Talking to friends or family on a road trip in the other vehicle. I'm fortunate to be somewhere fairly repeater heavy, so it's also nice to have as a backup when hiking in case someone gets hurt where there's no cell service but I can probably hit 1 of the repeaters on a mountain top, which is nice. And sometimes I go overlanding. I'm new to it though, and I doing this right?

I guess if the only thing you use GMRS for is the repeaters, sure. I'd been using GMRS for a while before I ever spoke through a repeater. And even now, for me it's mostly for emergencies (if I get hurt out hiking without cell service, etc). Almost everything I use my gear for more regularly is simplex.

I say "collapsed" because I'm honestly not convinced that's actually what happened. The hard "BY TONIGHT" deadline, and asking for call signs, smells of something else. Maybe one day the owner speaks up, or the 'FCC agent'. Maybe he was clever enough to spoof an e-mail from his 'FCC buddy' to get a bunch of people off of his gear for whatever reason. Who knows. Maybe I'm wrong and a whole bunch of GMRS repeater networks get shuttered in the coming weeks. But the whole thing just smells off.

What the world really needs right now is more threads about this

Supposedly this was a pre-warning warning, and, apparently, the owner collapsed like a house of cards. Under what seems to be, basically, zero pressure. So who knows what the story actually is there. The more stuff comes out about that, the more questions I have.

Short answer: yes, you're wrong. Longer, more nuanced answer: It depends on where you are and how comfortable you are being solely reliant on cell service if something goes wrong. I spent most of last week in areas with at best spotty (but usually no) cell coverage running GMRS radios for car-to-car and hiker-to-hiker comms. Worked great. FRS radios would work for most of that, but there are places without cell coverage where I can talk through some of our mountain-top repeaters that, were I or someone I was with to get hurt, we could call for help even without cell service. That's an edge case of an edge case, mind, but it's nice to have as a backup.