amaff

Wouldn't be the first time that a "private" repeater's tones were readily available. If it's not really explicit that it's an open system and go ahead and use it, it's good etiquette to at least ask (even if that's keying up, identifying yourself, and saying you're looking for permission to use it and, if the owner's not on, if anyone could put you in touch.

Because oftentimes, this is where repeaters are located: And this is where you and your friends are located Ok, I don't actually know that, but...repeaters are often powerful radios with big antennas located somewhere high up. You're holding a handset on whatever ground you're standing on. I can reach a repeater on a mountain 50 miles from my house, but if I'm hiking in a canyon, I'll be lucky to get half a mile depending on where the other radio is

It is. Ensign Peak's less than 5 miles from the airport, and far and away the closest mountain-top.

Yeah, the channel programming is SUPER restrictive in GMRS mode. But it's also really easy to program in the GMRS rules once it's opened up. I also really like that it has a "TX OFF" function for each memory channel that you can set from the face of the radio, if you want to program in, say, ham frequencies that you don't usually have permissions to transmit on.

Similar thing with a GMRS repeater that has incredible coverage of the Salt Lake valley (colloquially named the Capitol Repeater as it sits on a mountain overlooking the State Capitol building) Anecdotally, the owner passed away years ago. The equipment and site are still active. It's on a site with, IIRC, FAA radio gear, as it's near the SLC airport. No one seems to know why or how it got there, it's just 'always been there' for most of us, and a ton of folks use it. Some of the more stalwart members of the GMRS community in northern Utah have tried making contact with the family to see what it would take for someone to take over stewardship of that repeater, but so far, to my knowledge, haven't gotten very far.

Menu 25 (SFT-D, ie: Offset) does have an "OFF" setting, but I'm pretty sure that just means no offset. I don't believe it has the same effect as setting the Duplex to Off through Chirp. Might have to play with that some tomorrow.

As a work around, you could program the radio with an offset to "nothing" (or at least, nothing super critical). Make sure you're not stepping on other allocations, set the transmit power to low, no tones, and it would have a similar effect. It, at a minimum, wouldn't be stepping on the frequency they're listening in on. Depending on the frequency space you're in, it may or may not be viable, but I'm just spitballing. Chirp is the right answer because you can disable it there, but if that's not an option, maybe this is the next best thing. Accidentally keying up once in the wrong place (...so long as it's not, like, a public safety frequency) isn't really the end of the world. So long as they don't make a habit of it, it would be fine regardless.

Yeah, probably a little of column A (it's a $35 radio), and a little of column B (slightly off frequency in your direction, and / or more bandwidth than it should use). It would be interesting to see if a radio with a more selective filter had the same issue.

Or the opposite. My house is at 5000'. All of our repeaters in the area are on even higher mountain tops, with not much more than open valley with some rolling hills in between. 50 miles to a repeater on an HT easily. But, that's obviously not the norm. If you get into the wrong parts of the back country, yeah, you'll be lucky to get a mile in the canyons

Velcro. Literally velcro. In my defense, this vehicle is going away before too long so I didn't want to do too much work to permanently install it to just have to take it back out. But being between the console and seat, it works really well and hasn't moved. The OE microphone clip was also awful, so I used a cheap magnetic phone mount thing from The Rainforest for the mic. It works SO well.

The 5RM is a ham radio and, from the factory, locked out of transmitting on GMRS frequencies. The 5G+ is a GMRS radio, and from the factory, locked out of transmitting on ham frequencies. You'll probably need to unlock at least 1 of these to get them to talk on the same frequency. Both should be able to *hear* the other (ie: they shouldn't be locked out of receiving on the other band, just transmitting), but they won't be able to transmit on the same frequency.

You kinda buried the lede there. I'm gonna say his arrest was <1% to do with telling you to go "F" yourself, and >99% to do with what he was doing on those public safety frequencies. So, again, ain't no one going to prison for linking GMRS repeaters. "My neighbor who never cut his grass against city code? They put him in prison for that! They arrested him after he set fire to a fire station"

I'd be more worried about any vibration causing the thing to hit the floor (...and end up wedged under my brake pedal, knowing my luck) For my money, velcro and a radio box or pouch is the move. https://shop.sidebysidefury.com/products/rbox-xl https://a.co/d/j6uq8bc https://a.co/d/5kK3JM0 Well, really the move is an inexpensive mobile setup semi-permanently mounted in the truck. But barring that...

not all homes are built the same.

By having an antenna outside. The problem isn't so much the handheld or its antenna. It's the house. Standing at a window helps. Standing outside helps more.

My DB-20G is also unlocked, as well as several GMRS Baofengs (I actually forgot I had those sitting on the shelf) and my GMRS TD-H3s

That wouldn't be a terrible idea for a resource to have out in the world. You'd know better than I would, obviously. I didn't think the ratio was that high.

*stares at 5 of my 7 GMRS radios that are unlocked* Uh huh.

In crayon, likely.

You CAN. But unless you'll never use the cigarette lighter plug, it might make sense to pick up a socket adapter and wire that to the Anderson connector so you can preserve the stock wiring. If you never use and never plan to use the "damn" cigarette plug, then yeah go nuts.

On a scale of "it is so over" to "we are so back," how back are we?

778UV 779UV / DB-20

Don't confuse the 778UV and the 779UV. This is a clone of the 779UV, which, near as I can tell, isn't on Chirp.

Especially when you add the Anytone, Retevis and Radioddity units together.