Ian

I'm not sure, really the only thing that would need much changing is control logic. Sure, you'd be limited to the power your final amp is good for, but you could get some nice quality-of-life features like two repeaters on one frequency, at least without soldering (if they picked capable enough microcontrollers, at least).

Easily disabled in firmware. Got potential.

We'd have to rename it something like "guaranteed minimum radio service." :-P I've had the same fantasy, but I'm not going to get emotionally involved without a path to agitating for the cause. Edit: Anonymous delivers, and so do I: https://www.retevis.com/handheld-gmrs-two-way-radio-rt76

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32969333677.html Bingo.

Well, they're lying to someone, at this point.

If they're 900 MHz, I'm all over them.

Update 1: This thing does't seem to have a scan function.

More's the pity, it's a good looking radio. Reminds me pleasantly of the Xiaomi Mijia handies.

Just got mine due to the plague. (It's not a long story, but...) First impression: I like it. The orange accents are happy looking, ad the PTT is pleasantly tactile and clicky. The rubber over the headset jack isn't silicone, and won't last forever, but it's held on by a screw and won't be hard to replace... if there are spare parts in ten years. Body is cast aluminum inside. Not very heavy, feels cheap... and then you realize it's got no chassis flex, and it just feels light. But mostly? This thing's a chonker. Front to back, this is almost 50% thicker than a GD77s. Could be close to an inch and a half thick, but thankfully the edges are rounded. Flashed a codeplug with some local repeaters, and sensible tone codes on the simplex channels, and I'll play with it in a while, but the human factors are fine so far.

Scientists Create Quantum Sensor That Covers Entire Radio Frequency Spectrum Rydberg Matter on Wikipedia You heard it here first, folks. (Maybe!). True DC-to-daylight performance is available for the first time in history. The prototype has been tested from 0 - 10^12 Hz.

Actually, this is relevant here. https://www.retevis.com/shop/Mobile-GMRS-repeater-RT97-Handheld-GMR-Radio-RT76/ Throw that on a hill with a solar panel, battery, and antenna, and you're in business.

https://www.retevis.com/shop/Mobile-GMRS-repeater-RT97-Handheld-GMR-Radio-RT76/ Two handhelds and a repeater for $457. Be still my heart! I think I could use like four of these things, including one for the truck.

Regarding rooftop antennae? www.ventenna.com

Truth be told, in my initial imagination of something that worked for me, that was the use case I had envisioned. That was when I didn't have any handheld GMRS radios, or rather, enough to go around, and was heavily dependent on some old Motorola Spirit business radios running MURS 4&5.

My personal use-case is mostly caravanning, much like what CB would be used for in decades past. Just this last weekend, I had an hour-long conversation while driving on 22-22 (channel 22, 141.3) I also plug radios into my hearing protection when doing something loud ever since a couple hurricanes ago (chainsaws are loud!). But generally, lately, I favor FRS radios for the occasional around-the-house or around-the-store thing now, because they're smaller and easier to carry than GMRS or MURS radios I own. One of these days, I'm putting up a Ventenna and setting up a home base radio doing 40-50 watts and/or a garage repeater, but that's pretty niche utility for me; scanning on handhelds produces basically no traffic around here, and I'm not super hopeful of reaching my neighbors.

Not yet. Enjoying my MXT-275 in spite of that, though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDBrXb44fBc Trying for an install like this. Edit: Already bought the parts, just holding out for an antenna I like. The original plan for a fender-mounted Sti-Co covert antenna is on hold pending saving up about $400, and an RF safety evaluation because being in the same plane with 50 watts and a high-gain antenna gives me pause. Yes, the 275 only does 15 watts, but I'm not willing to limit myself to 15 watts in the long term. Now I'm looking at a Meso Customs brake light with NMO mount. Better visibility, AND no new holes in the hullmetal! Downside is it costs $290. Upside is that it frees me from spending $317 for the covert antenna, or that I could save that for a CB mount at some point in the future. Edit: Hm. A $290 mount and antenna cost about the same as the $317 Sti-Co antenna, come to think of it.

I was sort of imagining a civilianized version of the military radios that share a common backplane a while ago -- something that'd fit in a double-DIN stereo slot, with separate radios, and a shared screen and mic. Seems like it has potential to work really well with an auto-voting mic like you're imagining.

I wonder if you bolted the Baofeng to the dash, while using a battery eliminator…. Or better, bolted the battery eliminator to the dash. Also, it looks like every Midland except the 105 has channel buttons on the mic. That means every current-production meant-for-GMRS radio that's repeater capable falls afoul of this law.

… Those exist?

Since siting is so important to performance, this is the most exciting newbie repeater project I've seen so far.

So much for my MXT275.

Super cool, thanks! Actually, only one GD-77s. The other is either a Midland MXT275, or an Anytone TERMN-8R. Perhaps they're covering up for the weakness of the GD-77s' front-end filtering with clean output into a low-noise area? I know I don't have any repeaters nearby, the only thing I can hear from here is, occasionally from a hilltop, a Jacksonville repeater automatically ID'ing, so I suspect I'm in an unexpectedly favorable RF environment. Terrain is Florida, so flat as a pancake. I have a few repeaters handy when I go to the beach, but the middle of the state is a dead zone. Also, I'm the only one who ever uses those repeaters in Cocoa Beach, as far as I can tell; I like to monitor them and SARnet when I'm beaching it up. This place is just a dead zone, for the most part. Every third time I drive by a park, I hear DMR on channel 16. Occasionally a kid with a walkie-talkie after Christmases. But for all I scan, I don't hear much at all. Edit: Nah, you were right. I just checked the maps, and it's closer to 1.7 miles to the grocery store.

Are you thinking of the Dakota Alert gear? I’ve got four of the handies, three bases, and two antennas for them, and I can’t say anything unkind about them other than there should be screwhead-mounting-keyholes on the base for wall mount, and the handies don’t feel super sturdy. They take AA batteries, rechargeable, and are clearly designed for low lifetime cost of operation (you can use Eneloops, and only replace the one bad cell at a time). Proprietary antennas, sadly, but they’re replaceable. No scan function. No big deal. They’re serviceable workaday radios that don’t break the bank designed for rural living, not industrial abuse. I’m tempted to buy a few of their sensors, and build a perimeter around my house, but I know that’s silly and excessive, and it’s an expensive project that’s just for fun. It’ll wait until I have more hobby budget, though. On that topic, I’m pretty sure my mystery MURS message (there’s a Morse ID somewhere in those recordings...) is farm telemetry. Smack in the middle of Wedgefield Florida, with three big radio towers in view, is some kind of automated telemetry. Either a farmer’s, related to that tower, or maybe beamed down the high-voltage powerlines I’m about to drive under, it really seems like some kind of low-bandwidth M2M machine-to-machine telemetry.

I’m in the market for another MXT275 in the next several months. Glad I can support the forum while I’m at it.

Look, I know it’s an objectively bad radio, but it sat at the intersection of a Venn diagram that makes it uniquely compelling to me. Grocery store’s about five miles, and all I’ve known up to this point is bubblepack junk, a couple very nice Radio Shack FRS units, sadly underused, and now with PTT keys gone crunchy and disintegrated disabling otherwise sweet hardware, and Motorola Spirit SV-22 MURS units. Those are my favorite, but they’re heavy and can barely make it to the gas station, because VHF. I’m not saying that they’re good at receive desnsing, but if you want bad bad, you should look at the Retevis RT-22 and its clones. I’ve never gotten the GD-77 to desense, but those do it at the drop of a hat. I’m not hugely demanding of simplex comms. If I could find decent FRS, I’d be happy with that… except I have, in the form of the Motorola Sport 7. At this age, only about half of the ones on eBay work, and I’ve bought every one available, and I have two. They’re fantastic. Those Radio Shack ones are smaller, but they use AAAs (though they’ll charge them if you have a 9v adapter) and lack CTCSS, but can be set to any one of 22 channels with the DIP switches, whereas the Motorolas can only do seven channels, (1, 4, 8, 11…) and seven codes chosen more or less at random (set with a dial designed to be wrenched on with a quarter behind the battery compartment). As for the GD-77, I’ve bowed to interoperability and run it narrowbanded, since most of my fleet is narrowband-only, and only the Talkabout Distances do wideband. Ultimately, the project for which it was bought was to figure out who the heck was running DMR on channel 16 at the local park. Sadly, either the traffic’s encrypted, or setting up DMR is simply beyond me (for now…). Still, if I’m carrying only one radio, there’s a good chance that’s the one. After I lost one of my Anytones to a drop, I’m leery about carrying irreplaceable hardware into the field (even if it’s just Home Depot) without careful consideration. Commercial-grade Motos (into which I place even the Sport 7) are reassuring, as is “not irreplaceable”. I have a wealth of good radios to pick from as my needs evolve, and I thank you for your advice on them. CCRs have their place… which is “close to whoever you need to talk to.”