Ian

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.

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?