Lscott

(b) Operation of an intentional, unintentional, or incidental radiator is subject to the conditions that no harmful interference is caused and that interference must be accepted that may be caused by the operation of an authorized radio station, by another intentional or unintentional radiator, by industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) equipment, or by an incidental radiator.

It’s just unfortunate that most people assume if their cheap electronics is messing up due to interference from a “properly functioning” radio transmitter it’s their problem, not the radio operator’s. One interesting suggestion has been to put up the antenna(s) and don’t transmit for a week or two. When the neighbors notice them and come knocking because they “assume” it’s you just show them the end of the coax laying on the floor, no two-way radios in sight. When they see it can’t be you they’ll just go away and quit being a**holes.

Hope you do. If not don’t cry about it on this forum. If the AM radio falls under FCC Part 15.5 you’re likely S.O.L. The FCC will tell you to complain to the manufacturer of your AM radio. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-A/part-15

Of course if it’s next door or a few houses away I’m sure it’s going to bother you. UV-5R VHF Harmonics Test.pdf

And here’s one that isn’t. Look it up.

You would be surprised how far 50mw will go. People talk to low earth orbit satellites on just 5 watts just fine for example. There is a reason why the FCC has emission limits. It might not bug you but it will somebody else and I can assure you they won’t consider it “in significant.”

Some people do care. One major issue with the UV-5R, at least the early models, they were noted for dirty transmitters. The joke was they were multi-band radios, i.e. you could talk on several bands all at the same time! Some people quit using them specifically because of that.

There is a poster on this forum who just went through this. I hope he jumps in here and relates his experiences and some hints on saving you some frustration with the FCC.

They are, but not legal to transmit with on GMRS. Of course that hasn’t stopped people from doing so. You can program them up for Ham, GMRS and commercial frequencies all just for monitoring as a cheap scanner just fine.

And the guy sitting there with headphones on and tapping away on a telegraph key. Many people seem to think Ham radio is all about Morse code. That’s usually the first thing I get asked if somebody is interested, do they have to pass a CW test.

See attached file. EUT-INTERNAL-PHOTOS-6131155.pdf

It helps if you can read Chinese too.

You see about the same thing at this site too. On this site the faces are blotted out to protect the guilty. https://radiofreeq.wordpress.com/2016/01/19/militia-radio-frequencies/

That’s sort of useless too. The only tone that matters is the one for transmit. Myself I never use a tone on receive. All my commercial radios can be programmed that way. So, in that case I couldn’t care less what tone was used on the output.

That only works to the extent you can keep the tones secret. The weakest link in any security method are the people. Sooner or later someone is going to tell a buddy what the odd tone is so they can talk. Then you’re done.

I believe that’s patented Motorola technology. In that case you’re limited to Motorola radios. I guess if it’s just for your family it’s likely no big deal. You can program the radios for them.

That was the primary purpose the FCC had for GMRS. Simple communication for the general public.

Not really. The ideas are fairly basic if you don't jump into the theory really deep. Doing some searching on the Internet one can find some sites that do a decent job of explaining the fundamentals. If you get into building and designing antennas a bit more knowledge is required.

Good recommendation. The main issue with linked repeaters is when one is used the whole system is in use over a wide area making the additional repeaters rather useless. For example when two locals are talking, on their locally linked repeater, why would somebody 200 miles away care about their conversation when all they want is to contact their base station from across town using their locally linked repeater. With many of the Ham repeaters, particularly the digital voice mode ones, have a way to either access the repeater and keep the communications local or address a remote repeater(s) specifically for a link.

But you also see a lot of them hanging on the user's belt, in pockets and strapped to utility vests. Some even have provisions for sticking the antenna on the speaker microphone. Can't design for every usage condition.

Simple answer you can't can't. Some people have toyed with the idea of using a single frequency "trunked" repeater where every radio has to be registered with the ESN, by using the internal Electronic Serial Number, to authorized access. As far as I know there isn't a way to change the radio's ESN. The typical analog system is known as LTR, Logical Trunked Radio, and the variation using the radio's ESN called Passport. Some people have bumped into used radios with the special Passport firmware loaded. When they try to reprogram the radio using the "normal" software the display shows SJ-180 and fails to load the code plug. I even had a used Kenwood TK-3180 HT with that firmware loaded. I managed to load the normal LTR firmware so I could use the regular radio programming software. I do have a copy of the special SJ-180 programming software too. This is also fairly common on digital voice mode repeaters. The process to get a radio on one of those is a bit more complex requiring a "system key" file, licenses etc. just to program the radio. Normally with those radios you can't even read the radio without the system key file. There are hacked versions of the radio programming software out there that will read the radio and save the contents as a ".srv" service file without it. See attached screen shots of a used NXDN trunked radio I read with that software. Understanding Passport Radio Systems App Note.pdf

You hear the same crap about CW too. If you can't "beep" at 25 WPM you're not a real Ham.

I would be VERY careful taking a two-way radio to most countries. While it's "safer" to take Ham gear you can still run into issues. You get stopped for inspection the custom agent is going to ask a lot of questions about why you have it. Without proper documentation you might end up getting your radio confiscated on the spot. In some countries it's not even legal to "monitor" communications you're not licensed to use! One example is the UK. https://www.monitoringtimes.com/html/mtlaws_may04.html I wouldn't even consider taking a radio to Mexico. The police might think you're a cartel member. Any cartel member seeing your two-way radio might think you're an under cover cop or rival cartel member. Either way you could get shot.

You might want to consider up-sizing the coax to LMR-600 for that long length.

You need to stack a few Yagis up and dump that wimpy dish.