amaff

Y'all got hard copies of your GMRS license? That's a thing?

Not a question, but a hack I tried that has worked really well. The absolute worst part of my DB20-G is the mic hanger. It's probably 100% user error, but I could never get the mic re-seated without taking my eyes off the road and sometimes using both hands. It's just a cheap, flimsy design. I saw a family member using an inexpensive mag-mount for their cell phone a few months ago, and figured, no harm in trying on an inexpensive radio with an even more inexpensive handset. I took the mic apart (4 small screws) and removed the male 'bobbin' (or whatever it's actually called) part of the mic that slots into the stamped sheet-steel hanger. I was surprised to find a chunk of metal embedded in the back of the mic. It already feels pretty light and flimsy...I imagine it would feel even worse without it. I trimmed and bent the flat metal piece that mounts to the device (super hack job, but hey it works) and stuck it to the back of the mic. The only real issue was that the adhesive they come with is pretty terrible and fell off in the heat of the car, so I slapped it back on with some super glue and it's been stuck on since. The only thing I'd do differently is probably use one of the smaller round plates instead of hacking 1 of the bigger rectangles, but I'm not taking this apart to 'correct' that since I can't see it, and it doesn't affect the thing *at all*. This thing works *great*, holds the mic super securely (it's way lighter than a modern "Plus" sized cell phone), and you just need to get it close for it to snap into place. If you, like me, hate the mic hangers these cheap radios come with, this may work for you.

Awesome, glad that's all it was

I think they woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

Yeah, it's showing correctly there

Doesn't look like it. I can add a Ham callsign, but if there's a spot to edit my GMRS callsign it's not obvious

Appreciate it. It's obviously not a massive issue. It's just an odd thing I noticed, and wasn't sure if it was just me.

I was poking around in my profile trying to find some settings to mess with and noticed this: Except that's not my callsign. The website shows it Correctly: Given, near as I can tell, they're the same account (I didn't have to do another registration for the forum, I just had to use my myGMRS login to log in to the forum....wtf? Doesn't look like I can edit it even if I wanted to, to correct it.

Looks to be Menu 6 on the radio:

I think you're looking at Channel Spacing (which is, for whatever reason, bandwidth). 12.5 is narrow, 25K is wide. Step size I think can go down to 2.5K.

Try lowering the step size.

Clearly that's how it should be. But with the way this thing's set up...

Odd. I'm not seeing that on any of mine (FW 240401). Haven't heard of this being an issue on them either

in before someone runs down that FCC ID to make sure it's legit

No worries, just sharing what was shared with me that worked. But it'd be nice if it was in the original post instead of having the next person have to stumble across it buried in the thread

100% that. That's why I'm curious if it'll let him transmit on the interstitials if he puts them somewhere other than those 8-14 memory slots.

It's not the same type of cable as the DB20-G. That's an RJ-45 connector. This one is a DIN connector of some flavor. The CPS for the DB20 is a little clunky. The main 'trick' is to use the ">>" buttons for practically everything instead of trying to do it in the spreadsheet, IMO

I don't know if this changed in later versions (I bought mine this year, so it's bee a few years now), or maybe it's something specific on the Radioddity DB20-G I have (tho these are supposedly fairly identical) but there's a step missing here you may want to consider updating for other johnny come lately noobs like me, since the "manual" gives F-all direction on how you should expect to do this. If you are programming in a channel in VFO mode on the radio, once you get to this step, using the Up and Down buttons won't do *anything* until you press the MON button. And thanks to the legend on the FB Anytone 779UV group that got me pointed in the right direction. The MON button will cycle through what type of tones you want (CTS / Custom CTS / DCS). And then once you're in the list you want to use, you can use the Up / Down buttons to cycle through the various tones / options (or presumably do a non-standard one if you need to, but I haven't played with that at all). But if you try and do this without that step, you'll just keep getting the "F-U" tone

I feel like we're talking past each other. A mobile GMRS radio should never transmit on the interstitial frequencies, *no matter what memory slot they're in*. They can (and should) comply with that by enforcing the rules on those frequencies no matter where in the radio's memory they are. You can 100% comply with the FCC's rules while not arbitrarily blocking out those memory slots. Lots of radios do it.

You can have a radio that works right out of the box (like the aforementioned 905G), but that also allows you to do more or less what you want while following the rules. Just for fun, and to illustrate: I have a repeater channel in memory slot 9, a low power channel in memory slot 11, and a normal 5W GMRS channel in 11. Given Sven's experience, it'd be interesting to know if it allows transmitting on those frequencies, so long as they're not in one of the magical memory spots. Probably not. But it'd be funny

You can transmit on those channels with a handheld, but there are restrictions on power level and bandwidth. The radio doesn't care what memory slot I put those frequencies into, it'll obey the rules. And if I put a frequency that allows 5 watts in memory slot, say, 8, it uses high power. Like Sven said, it's arbitrarily blocking off *memory slots* 8-14, no matter what's actually in those memory slots. You definitely can't transmit on 467.5625 / Ch8 on a GMRS Mobile. But you can't transmit on that frequency whether or not you put it in memory channel 1 or 499. There's not something magical about *memory slots* 8-14. It's the actual frequencies that matter. If wants to put a repeater frequency in one of those memory slots, it not allowing transmit because "it's 8-14" is lazy programming.

Yeah I get that. Radioddity and Wouxun's software is the same. Super annoying. Once it's done, it's done. And it's still easier than doing it all by hand on the face of the radio. But it could so easily be so much better.

Like I said, lazy programming. But yeah if you can just skip memory slots 8-14 and do whatever you want (within The Rules) on the rest of them, seems like it's fairly easily ignorable

better than you'd get from most other 'cheap chinese radio' places. So there's that.

A whole lot of GMRS radios are *extremely* lazily programmed, and heavy-handed in how they allow you to customize them. Other than a couple Wouxun KG-905Gs (which allowed me to program them however I wanted, but enforce the rules on what frequencies can get what power / bandwidth), all my other stuff is unlocked, and I manually program them to the rules so that all my stuff matches and is, technically, more or less, compliant. Even my mobile (DB20-G)... It shouldn't care what frequency you put in a particular memory slot (IE: If you want to program a repeater on memory slot 8, then you should be able to). But plenty of radios really don't like those first 22 (or 30) slots being messed with. The RT95 (Anytone 778) and DB20G (Anytone 779) can, but a quick google unfortunately doesn't come up with much for unlocking or jailbreaking the RA87. And those are 'only' 25 and 20 watt radios, respectively.