Lscott

OK. The short answer is the Motorola radios, to mention the brand you seem to favor, are very likely to perform better. I'm partial to Kenwood, but that's just me. There was a poster on this forum who was an avid Motorola guy. I exchanged numerous PM's with him and a few others. I have to admit he made his point about how the one model, which was his favorite, was a stellar performer. The test data he supplied left little doubt. That was the XPR-7550E. Unfortunately they are no longer manufactured. If you want one then buying used is the route to go. As a general rule I would expect a commercial radio to perform better than Ham gear and better than a lot of the CCR's, Cheap Chinese Radios, for sale. The radios have to perform in hostile environments and just plain "work". That means the physical and electrical design is a step, or few, above the others, and why they tend to cost more. Now while some of the CCR's may lack in some performance areas they have more "features" you typically won't find on a commercial radio. Remember commercial radios are marketed for business and first responder use. They are a program and use scenario, not aimed at frequent reprogramming. Contrast that to Ham gear where it's expected to be reprogrammed, possibility frequently, and from the front panel while in the field. So, the trade-off is just how much do you want to spend and what features do you want, or require, in the radio. That will drive what choice you make. Some may have more than one and switch off depending on the current anticipated use. For example some people want one radio they can use as a base, mobile or as a hand portable. Others are happy to have a different radio for each. Believe it or not some also have several different mobile antennas they use when driving in the city, highway or out on the trail. If you have any specific models in mind you can ask for opinions here and get some input from others who have used it. Remember questions and answers here are free.

Radios get FCC certification under the rule parts that pertain to the radio service in question. Ham gear typically only has Part 15, which has to do with interference and the blocking of scanning/monitoring or cell phone frequencies. Since they have no certification under any section in Part 95 they can't be used "legally" for any service covered by that rule part. That includes the case when all other requirements like frequency, bandwidth and power are programmed to match. So, the point of the disclaimer was to make the record clear what your exposure to potential FCC action would be. The radios are compatible with any other radio, including Motorola, using analog FM and set for the same bandwidth. A number of the Motorola radios use a digital mode called "Mototrbo", which is their brand name for DMR. https://www.radiocoms.co.uk/what-is-mototrbo/ So long as a radio complies with the DMR standard then they should have no issue with communicating with another DMR radio. I haven't head of any issues in that area with the Anytone models. http://anytonetechzone.byethost7.com/878techmods.htm?fbclid=IwAR3ADo-LXXXiNjJh2LQjsq9E5g41FQNXRyEOAmhUIPWuSdQmuzFhIDNEU60 http://anytonetechzone.byethost7.com/578techmods.htm?fbclid=IwAR2UcyOoEyOdDFdgafJCaaiQsm6ANaHqLbqgAcBzkO1tfFX_kkXCHM-sfmo&i=1

If you're looking at doing DMR there are only a few choices. DISCLAIMER. Modifying Ham gear to operate on other services is a violation of FCC rules. What you choose to do is your choice. Back to the topic. A favorite is some of the Anytone radios. The older D868 HT and the newer D878 HT models. Example of one I have. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/270-d878uv-model-1/?context=new There is also the D578 mobile, which comes in several different models depending on options. https://www2.randl.com/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=1&keyword=d578 Most of the digital voice mode activity is typically on UHF. You can get some commercial radios, single band (VHF or UHF), that can be programed for Ham, GMRS and MURS. Again some examples that I own with analog/DMR. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/255-tk-d300e-fmdmr/?context=new https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/290-nx-1300duk5/?context=new Note some of the older commercial radios have Part 90 and 95 certification. The later is required for legal operation on GMRS. Currently the FCC seems to ignore Part 90 radios on GMRS but that is not an endorsement they won't at a later date. Also UHF radios are likely manufactured covering two or more band splits in the UHF range. For example the NX-1300 is either 400-470 MHz or 450-520 MHz. For Ham 70cm and GMRS I would recommend the 400-470 MHZ band split of course. The VHF radios almost universally seem to cover 136-174MHz, which covers Ham 2M, MURS, Railroad and NOAA weather frequencies. The digital modes you'll find for commercial radios are DMR, NXDN and P25. I have radios for each mode and band. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/249-934916052_radiocollectionjpg/?context=new The VHF version of the radios tend to sell for more than the UHF versions. The most popular mode so far is DMR, System Fusion and D-Star. The later two are strictly Ham radio modes and not found on any commercial type radio. Also P25 radios tend to be significantly more expensive than any other digital mode. You can find them at a decent price but you'll be looking for a long time before you stumble on a good deal.

Neither does GMRS but they, FCC, do nick you for some money for the license application.?

He needed the KPG-49D software for his radio. The KPG-62D was the wrong version. I sent him the right one and just got a PM saying it's installed and working now.

You can put anything you want in the first two lines. The last one has to be the serial number. I believe it's case sensitive and has to be entered in capital letters.

That's OK, but UPS, USPS, FedEx etc. will report the delivery to every three letter government agency in the Washington DC telephone book.

There are a lot of people who are dual licensed, Ham and GMRS on this forum. I'm encouraged when I see young people at the swaps. The younger generation is more likely to want to try newer stuff.

Check your private messages for the correct software and install serial number.

Happens all the time at various flea markets where it's primarily cash and carry. https://hamvention.org/2022-hamvention-attendance-announced/ https://swling.com/blog/2019/05/2019-hamvention-photos-friday-flea-market/ https://www.make-it.ca/hamvention2023-outdoor/ https://www.make-it.ca/hamvention2023-indoor/

I’ve read stories about serious injuries being near a tree when struck by lightning. The heat generated by the current flow through the sap flashed it to steam. That resulted in the tree trunk exploding like a bomb. People ended up looking a voodoo doll from all of the wood shards sticking out of them.

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It’s not legal on GMRS anyway so no practical application on the service. From a purely academic perspective it’s an interesting topic. Might be the subject for another thread.

If it was me a vaporized antenna would be considered damage. ?

Unfortunately people treat FRS radios as a toy. When you can buy a bubble pack of two for $29.95 at the local discount store nobody gives a crap and reads beyond how to turn them on and where the batteries go. They give them to their kids and off they go. A 5 yo has no idea what frequency sharing means. I’ve had some local kids playing on the local repeater’s output channel for an hour or two at times. And unfortunately they happened to be close by so the higher power repeater signal had trouble swapping out the FRS signal.

By transmitting on the repeater output frequencies. If they’re near by your location they can jam the frequency.

One other thing I forgot to mention. That's the cycle life of the switch. There is usually a max number of switch cycles the device is rated for. After that you can get mechanical failures. Some of those used switches might be near the end of their cycle life and were pulled out of active service and replace with new ones. It might work for a while then fail later. Hopefully the switch wasn't abused by switching under power. That would likely burn the contacts. You don't want to buy somebody's else's problem.

Before spending your money try to track down the data sheet for the switch. Many times you can find it on line. In other cases sending a friendly email off to the company's sales or tech support department might work. The other thing to look at is the power handling capacity of the switch. A switch you're interested in might be cheap because it won't do more than maybe a few watts.

Nice history/background info.

I would very seriously consider getting your Ham license too if you don't have one already. The Tech class exam is easy. The point about getting your Ham license is due to more available repeaters to use and more people you can chat with while travailing around the country. The most popular bands are the VHF 2 meter band and the UHF 70 cm band. GMRS is on UHF a bit above the Ham 70 cm band. There are radios available that will do the Ham 70 cm band and GMRS with some "creative" programming. If you want to stay legal some of the older commercial radios have Part 95 certification and are completely legal to use on GMRS and Ham frequencies. If you stay with just UHF you could find a single radio that will do both. As far as antennas go there is a wide band mobile antenna that would work over the Ham and GMRS bands so you could get away with just one. Some people have had good luck using this one on GMRS. I think there are some other antennas that work over a wide band too others have mentioned in other threads. https://cometantenna.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/CA-2x4SR.pdf GMRS only. https://dpdproductions.com/products/gmrs-double-5-8-wave-mobile-antenna?_pos=2&_sid=bf9d19c6a&_ss=r GMRS and MURS. Note that MURS is a license free VHF band with a limit of two watts of power. https://dpdproductions.com/products/dual-band-gmrs-murs-mobile-antenna?_pos=1&_sid=bf9d19c6a&_ss=r Some even use a different antenna depending on the location. A tall high gain antenna works well on flat/level ground. A short 1/4 wave would likely work better in very hilly or mountainous terrain. https://www.americanradiosupply.com/laird-1-4-wave-nmo-mobile-radio-antenna-stainless-black/ https://dpdproductions.com/products/custom-1-4-wave-mobile-antenna As far as mounting the antenna that depends if you want to drill holes in the body etc. There are a lot of options/ideas in this area to choose from.

This is an off beat subject. I've researched this on different occasions and can't find and real data. Apparently there are several different modes in use in the EU, European Union, for their FRS like service, PMR446. There is narrow band FM, Tier 1 DMR and dPMR which is very similar to NXDN. What I was trying to find out which one seems to be the more popular digital mode in use. These modes also appear to be used for commercial radio service as well at higher power. I'm not aware of any dPMR mode radios being used in the US for commercial applications. PMR446 White Paper.pdf

The problem is so many people come here trying to drum up support for their favorite channel/frequency. All that does is confuse the crap out of people new to GMRS.There are endless threads on this topic. Just some samples below. https://forums.mygmrs.com/topic/3516-officialunofficial-gmrs-roadtravel-channel/ https://www.notarubicon.com/gmrs-road-travel-channel/ https://www.fordtremor.com/threads/gmrs-travel-channel.13437/ There is just one major complication with some of the proposals. The below appears on your license. The listed frequency pairs are for channels 19 and 21. For some people, like me living in the Detroit Mi area, Line A reaches well past some major metro areas making any proposal to use channel 19 useless. FRS-GMRS combined channel chart.pdf

You can "stack" them for more power gain too. Using two will give you another 3db.