Lscott

I've been on some other forums and I've read about issues like yours. In a few cases the radios got bricked. The Windows VM's seem to have some issues with serial port and USB port pass through at times. Have it mess up while programming a radio, or worse updating the firmware, could make for a very bad experience. I've had a mixed bag of luck using Chirp. Some radios it seems to do OK. Others it screws up good. Remember the guys who do the programming for the various radio models Chirp claims to support is done by reverse engineering the communications to the radio and figuring out how the code plug is "structured" internally. They don't always get it right, and if the manufacture changes somethings it can hose your radio. My general recommendation is to use the manufacturers official programming software where possible on the supported platform.

If they can interface a cell phone to the screen in most new cars you would figure the radio manufactures would figure out a way to remote the front panel of a two way radio the same way. Then you can stuff the radio body out of the way, wherever it fits, and not have to run cables all over the place and find a spot to mount a remote head.

One reason why I , almost, never use a receive tone, just a transmit one when operating through a repeater. That way I don't have to fuss with even pressing a "monitor" button.

Not that shocking a result. At the frequencies used by GMRS,UHF band, the usual quarter wave rubber duck antenna is only about 6 inches long. A median sized HT's body is about that size and would provide a reasonably good ground plane, needs to be about a quarter wave in size, for the quarter wave rubber duck antenna typically used. On VHF I would expect to see some measurable improvement.

You would be surprised how many people get this point all wrong, repeater ID'ing. Where the mistake is usually made is in reading the rules and missing the two usage cases, the first where only users all operating under the repeater's owner's license, closed, and the second where the repeater is "open" for use by any licensed GMRS user. The first case is only users operating under the owner's license, and the only users allowed on it, closed, when they ID it is sufficient to ID the repeater. No self ID is required. The second requires the repeater to self ID using some kind of automated control using the repeater owner's id, either by voice using English, or by Morse code, at the intervals specified by the rules. It's not unusual to find general use, open, repeaters that fail to ID. Those are bad examples of what NOT to do, and are not operating per the FCC rules.

You shouldn't be. That's one of the points of this forum, to ask questions.

Don't worry. They're like rabbits. Before you know it there will be a lot more. Trust me. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/249-my-radio-collection/?context=new I just got my new arrival at the work office today. A new open box Kenwood TK-5230 UHF P25 radio. Do I need another one, no, but its fun to collect them, HT's. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/254-tk-5320-1jpg/?context=new

I assume that will all be on licensed commercial frequencies the club members have permission to use? If so that's not a bad way to go. You would also be allowed to use encryption I believe for more private communications.

The best radio, for your use, is the one you can afford. There are people on this forum who spent 4 figures on a hand held radio because it had the features they needed.

Not really, particularly on simplex. I have, and programmed, radios for dPMR, DMR, D-Star, NXDN and P25 Phase 1. I don’t currently have a radio for System Fusion yet so I can’t speak about that mode. You want simple stick with FM, trust me on that.

If anyone other than a family member operating under the repeater owners license the repeater must self ID using the repeater’s owners call sign.

I have this printed out as an “E” size mechanical engineering drawing and stuck to the wall in my office at work.

Learned something new today. Didn’t know such groups existed. Sounds interesting.

International Coverage of your GMRS Repeater This isn't going to happen simply due to the fact that the frequencies used by the GMRS service is specific to the USA only. Even the Canadians don't have access to repeaters, much less to the frequencies they use. Other areas of the world are covered by PMR446 or the various flavors of dPMR446. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMR446 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_private_mobile_radio And for places that doesn't apply you'll find things like UHF CB radio. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UHF_CB There are a bunch of lesser known licensed/unlicensed radio service in other areas. For example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDR_444 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freenet_(radio)

No, but telling everyone you found a $100 bill under the driver's seat should motivate the minimum wage employees to do a better job of cleaning out the interior of the cars as an extra service.