Lscott

You'll find affordable models used. New will likely exceed your budget. I would look for Kenwood radios. Personally I've had far better luck finding programming software and support for many Kenwood models. I've hard much harder time finding stuff for Motorola. Some here might have have better luck with Motorola than I've had, might know where to get the software etc. If you're looking for a Motorola radio I do own a few of these. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/261-motorola-xpr6550jpeg/?context=new A number of the older Kenwood radios had FCC Part 95 certification so they are legal on GMRS, so long as they are properly programmed. The one I usually carry around is the TK-3170. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/417-tk-2180jpg/?context=new https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/263-tk-3170jpg/?context=new If you don't care about FCC certification this one is a nice radio. It's currently manufactured and available new, but it's going to cost you a lot more than the other ones. Even used they're not exactly cheap. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/290-nx-1300duk5/?context=new

@marcspaz has already mentioned using a portable mast system. Here is one I've used. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/257-portable-mast-antenna-system/ For portable power this is one of several solar power systems I have. This particular one all you need is a lead acid battery. It does use one of those cheapo PWM charge controllers. Personally I would use an MPPT, but I got this at a swap really cheap. I was mainly interested in the panels. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/562-dokio-100-watt-panel/ I tend to use LFP, LiFePO4, type batteries now. They last much longer and weight significantly less. To get the most out of a solar panel I recommend a good MPPT charge controller. The one in the photo I got used for $40, including shipping and sales tax. Normally they're around $100+ new. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/569-gv-10-lead-acid-mppt-charge-controller/

This could be a good solution. It's a non ground plane type so you don't have that worry. It's also a fold over type so you can lay it down when parking in the garage. https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-018761 There is also a Ham band version of this antenna if you have the license.

I typically go from the radio connector to BNC. Usually you can find an adapter for some weird antenna port type to BNC so I use it as a common interconnect type. I have a lot of RG-58 patch cables. You'll also end up with a collection of adapters after a while too. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/427-adapters-connectorsjpeg/?context=new Here is an example of the Icom specific radio port type and the adapter to BNC I got for it to use external antennas. I had to order this special since it's not very common. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/500-ic-f3162dt-front-and-back-sidepng/?context=new

People buy these cheap Chinese notch-duplexers to use for home brew repeaters. This is the data sheet I found for one and some real world test data. SGQ-450D-N.pdf Chinese Mobile Duplexer Measurements.pdf

https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/any-at-d578uviii

Since many of the favorite radios people use are of Chinese manufacturer those are likely to see a big spike in price when the tariffs kick in. And I would guess everything else that goes with them, battery packs, antennas, microphones etc.

Where is DOGE when you need them? Government waste at it's best.

Now you get to go hiking too. Make sure you bring along some conformable shoes/boots and a backpack with some food and water bottles.

I've spotted a radio or two over the years on eBay where the serial number was very obviously cut out. Not interested in those no matter how good the price looked. I'm also suspicious when the seller doesn't show the serial number, even when asked in a private message for it.

Or Detroit, or Chicago or ....

Yeah, I’ve seen them at swaps a few times. One had a price tag of $1500. Nice radio. Wait a few more years for one of those zeros to drop off the price and I might be interested then.

The point was GMRS is a shared resource. If those that use it don’t respect that point it’s easy to ruin it for the rest of us. For example I went to the local community center gym jogging track to walk for an hour or so after work today. As usual I had my HT with me to monitor local radio traffic while there. I don’t know if it was intentional or not but I got to “enjoy” several lengthy periods of country-western music playing on the local wide area coverage repeater. Of course nobody else could use it during the multi “broadcast” events. With a coverage radius of 15 to 20 miles that inconvenienced a lot of people, and it only took ONE idiot.

Sort of reminds me of this topic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

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.