Ian

I have. They're ... adequate. When I have coverage, it'll take the radio from one end of the island to the other, where simplex is completely out of the question.

I'd like to be able to see the map with __all__ coverage circles __at the same time.__ Should make it much easier to tell where repeater coverage is required!

Retevis RT76 is as close to that as you're going to get. You'll have to do all the programming up front (BaoFeng cable) but after that, it's just a knob with thirty channels, the last eight of which are repeater inputs.

That's deeply rude to the people who weren't involved. … Especially to other fans of the MicroMobile series. Love that handheld control head.

Technically, Ventennas are another option that would fit your HOA needs. https://www.ventenna.com/ Still, unless you need more bands, you're in fine shape, and I've never heard ill spoken of the Ed Fong antennas, so...

Welcome to the forum, and the community! We're here for you when you want to nerd out, but for now, congratulations on solving practical problems via use of RF.

Ham tech study guides go into this. VHF is worse than UHF; the 30-300 MHz region is more strongly absorbed by meat than UHF. Put it dead center on your car roof, or up on your house roof, or god help us a tower, and your exposure plummets. Don't do the silly and use a 25 watt handheld, and you're probably capable of ignoring RF hazards unless you try to lick a transmit antenna, the power levels we operate at. You don't have to get your ham ticket, but they've got some really good study guides that answer this question. Edit: Barney Fife is smarter than he sounds, he's just shrill and annoying. Listen for his literary references, he's quite well read. High INT, medium-low WIS, lower CHA.

"Breaker one-niner!" But yeah, when I'm between cities, I do 20-22 as well. ORI where I can find it, and I welcome the chatter.

I'm honestly a little annoyed you deleted the first post, because we're still having a discussion, and I missed the beginning. CB is useless and nobody operates (here) any more, ham has told me to get new friends with ham licenses, and all I wanted was a way to keep in touch with my nerd friends at ren faires with no cell coverage. My weirdest requests here have been in service to this singular goal, too. I just want to solve a boring practical problem. What the heck is this about dodging bullets and out of lives? Be courteous and don't redact our history, please.

Because idiots and interoperability. People who know what's going on will just avoid the interstitials if they're dealing with inter-service stuff, but if you have to talk to someone with no idea about the technical details, it'd be nice in a pinch. I'd almost settle for Midlands being RX only on the interstitials, but ... almost.

What the heck happened to this thread? Lots of zero-text posts now, and I'm deeply confused.

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.