Ian

You need to take on ECRs next: Expensive Chinese Radios. Still made in China, but repackaged with an American name and a price tag to rival that of a new Icom.
I think everybody here knows what radio I'm talking about.

But it's important to realize when it's not practical to pay for more selectivity. Good commercial handhelds have enough selectivity to allow full-duplex operation by one operator, with a few feet of antenna separation. Good mobiles do better than that. If that's not enough desense protection, there's other issues at play. There's no improvement to be made if there isn't an issue, so it's just wasted money and/or lost functionality.
 
CCRs work just fine as transceivers for 99% of the population. Yes, they don't work in the busy RF environments found at an enthusiast's base station, a command post, or when working near other operators on different in-band channels. They're cheap, show people what the hobby can offer, and include a lot of features (like FPP and ridiculous channel capacity) that new operators need to find their niche within the hobby and understand what parameters need to be configured to operate cleanly on someone else's system. And when they break (probably due to a novice operator blowing out the finals or dropping it), it's not a big investment being lost. They exist in the market for a reason: because they do work, unlike what the topic's title implies. They wouldn't sell if they didn't. It's important to understand their limitations, but they're not as severe as you're making it out to be.

Yes, I'd like to see how the tests were done. At best, it's demonstrating adjacent channel selectivity and receiver sensitivity. It's also generalizing all CCRs into the GD-77, which is quite reckless. So, we're trying to point out that these radios are junk, yet trusting the totally-not-copied-and-pasted selectivity measurements the manufacturer provided? Is repeater selectivity measured with cavity filters installed? If your noise floor is -50dBm you should be getting cooked alive.
 
One odd point to mention is that a dBu to dBm conversion isn't as straightforward as it sounds since a lot of handheld radios (especially CCRs) don't present exactly 50 ohms at the antenna.
 
I played around with a service monitor and found that my Connect Systems CS-580 had a receiver that was hotter than any of my commercial radios, and it also has a proper 12.5 kHz channel bandwidth for the narrowband setting (which doesn't really matter since I bet you're using it in wideband anyways).
 
For a well designed receiver, selectivity is a compromise with sensitivity. You can add preselectors and tracking filters, but all of those add insertion loss, which contributes to noise figure. Most CCRs run nearly naked, so the frontend-on-a-chip is exposed behind only a LNA and probably some highpass filters. They can get very sensitive, but this leaves them prone to desense from signals not necessarily near the receiver's frequency. Either way, desense is more complicated than this graph can show.

Marc, I don't necessarily agree with everything you said here. But you have obviously put a lot of thought and study into it, and I respect that.
And especially, thank you for the work you are doing in support of the Second Amendment!

Still have the RT97. Still works. Small, pre-fabbed portable repeater that I ordered pre-programmed to GMRS. Since there's no ID board (and no trivial way to attach one), it's basically a single-license (eg, family) repeater, and I use it as such. Works fine. 

Looks like a rebodied BF888.
 
Ive moved to motorola HTs mostly now and while i got my 2 MTS2000s for about this same price each (and a HT1000 for even less) the transition has been.......unpleasant lol. I still havent got it all worked out yet but i had to dig an old tower pc i had out that still has a serial port and tinker with it to be able to program.
 
Theres something to be said for a 30 dollar radio i can plug into my computer with a USB cable and program with a free easy to find and use program.
 
 
Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

Did you look at the first thread I linked above where, in response to a comment from you, n4gix wrote:
 
 
And then, all the way at the end, where bpendleton wrote:

Can't get blood from a stone.  America frequently tries, which is how you spend twenty years in jail moving from trial to trial.

For $200, I'd like to at least have a basic control head, whether it's a detachable head that mounts to the radio or a handheld control head. It's a brick without a working software environment.

De ja vu... This is an excellent point. I first got bit by the radio bug when I was a kid in the 90's. No cell phones radio was the cool thing. 2007 I started getting FCC licenses starting with my GROL. Fell out of the hobby and started up again 10 years later. When I started up I had a friend start up with some cheap Chinese mobiles from Amazon. I bought a couple Baofeng handhelds that I didn't have much issue with. He ended up dropping out due to not getting what he wanted out of the underperforming radio just like you said. We have an excellent HAM community here but I'm not much into talking to complete strangers, I wanted to communicate with friends and family. So I dropped out of radio again until this year when I decided to give GMRS a shot because one station license could be shared by my household.

We're looking at this from a different perspective.  Hoping to do a blended-function setup with analog voice and SMS via GMRS from a single, non-repeater mobile station to a set of HT receivers in the field within a 1 km radius.  Still catching up on the learning curve on this.

That FCC publication strongly implies that part 90 radios may be used on part 95 without specific certification; it also implies that 90/95 dual service certification will continue to be available.
 
The way I see it, the golden radio is something like the GD-77s -- part 90 certified ham radios.  They'll tune the whole 70cm band, and the 90 cert implies it may be used on GMRS, per that publication.

That FCC publication strongly implies that part 90 radios may be used on part 95 without specific certification; it also implies that 90/95 dual service certification will continue to be available.
 
The way I see it, the golden radio is something like the GD-77s -- part 90 certified ham radios.  They'll tune the whole 70cm band, and the 90 cert implies it may be used on GMRS, per that publication.

2) repeater. I thought duplex repeaters were only for HAM licenses? I really hate the thought of that 90 sec transmission fiasco with using a simplex repeater, but what other duplexer unit can a GMRS licensee (me) use?
Repeaters are permitted on eight channel pairs in the GMRS allocation. They have up to 50watt output, and their antennas must not be higher than 20' above their mounting structure (building, tower, etc.)...
 
If you truly want something portable, you might consider the new Retevis RT-97 portable repeater. Despite some confusing language, they are in fact able to program them for the correct repeater +5MHz split, 467.xxx receive and 462.xxx transmit.
 
A pair of hams in England* did a range test with the repeater running off a parked car's battery and using the antenna on the car. They easily got 7 miles range from their hand held radios. More range of course could be achieved by hoisting an antenna into a tree.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZEAo_HkLv8
 
The RT-97 is not simply "two portables in a box" but instead is a properly designed transmitter and receiver in a custom aluminum housing providing very robust shielding between them.
 
https://www.retevis.com/rt97-portable-repeater-power-amplifier-uhf?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9pKL_ffB5AIVhp-fCh2GQAfNEAQYASABEgIJwvD_BwE

I can't stress this enough... Radio is not something to do (generally speaking).  Radio is a tool you integrate into other aspects of your life to either make those other activities easier, more entertaining or safer.  If you are buying a radio as a source of entertainment, you are likely going to be very disappointed unless you're a ham and can find people to chat with around the world.
 
As far as picking a base or a mobile, there are some serious restraints for UHF (GMRS/FRS/70cm Ham/etc.).  One is, its a line-of-sight application.  If you don't have an antenna that is at least 50 feet higher than the terrain around you... your not talking very far.  100+ would be better.  Trees, buildings, hills, etc all cause interference.  At ground level, you will get to the horizon line, which is about 3 or 4 miles depending on how tall you are (and what's between you and the other station).  As you get higher in elevation, the better your coverage will be. If you're mobile, you can drive to an area where you can get better performance.
 
Some examples would be, at 1200 feet I got a solid 50 miles on GMRS mobile with 40 watts, mobile to mobile.  At the same elevation I can also talk to a repeater in northern Virginia with an antenna at ~980 feet, while I am in central Pennsylvania with my 40 watt mobile.  Same 40 watt GMRS mobile, but on the blind side of a commercial building, I experience high static mobile to mobile.  Normally I can only talk about 2.5 to 5 miles car to car. 
 
Just some food for thought.  I love GMRS and really enjoy having radio comms as part of my life.  I wouldn't discourage anyone from getting into the hobby.  You just need to be realistic about expectations.

I've got several 70-1336b units, and you don't need to do any major mods to them to get them on 2 Meters. You just need to re-tweak the RX and TX VCO trimmers until they go into PLL lock, and they work great.
 
Just program a low frequency into RX and TX on one channel, such as 144.300, then reset the radio.  It might RX just fine, and if so, then OK.  If it beeps and shows Error 3 on the display, then adjust the RX VCO until it quits beeping.  Next, hold down on the transmit button, (make sure to have a dummy load connected). You will get the beeping and Error 3 again. While holding down the transmit button, adjust the TX VCO until it quits beeping, and starts transmitting. 
 
Now, go back and program your favorite 2 Meter repeaters and simplex frequencies into the 8 channels. (If you have hacked software, you can actually put up to 24 channels in some of newer models of these radios, and most all of them will hold at least 10 channels.) That is all the mods needed to get a 1336b on 2 Meters.

That isn't the stated purpose of the radio service, but I think it's a better use of the band too.  I've reached out to random contacts, but usually they just stop transmitting.  D:
 
I wasn't doing anybody any favors dancing around the issues.  I'm aware my desires are idiosyncratic, and I'm sometimes prickly.  I look forward to devising clever solutions to my weird problems, sharing for the world to see, and making friends with the people who have similar problems.    I'm really tempted to put another Midland 275 in the family ragtop, after the 100 freaked out.  I'm super not impressed with their mag-mounts, and I'm trying to get Sti-Co to talk to me after early negotiations; I want a fender-mounted antenna that doesn't require any new holes for each of our cars, but they went silent when I pointed out that the sales agent was looking at roof-mount "sharkfin" antennas and I wanted their higher-gain fender mount.  Irritiating, but unsurprising.  Given the family friction, reversible mods are definitely favored over drilling holes, which is me-having-a-long-sigh motivating, but it is what it is.  Fortunately, Ozzie UHF-CB enthusiasts have embraced the handheld control head with 8p8c jacks -- ethernet.  So I'm looking for a good way to hang a few handheld control heads in a Tacoma's cab, and moreso a late model Miata.  Midland's mic hangers are too deep, and give the weight too much leverage to rip the sticky off; command strips with hooks and "buddy hooks" were quickly winning, but in flor-I-duh, the heat and humidity will melt command strips too!  Not quite back to square 1, but it's frustrating.  At least the buddy hook lets me stash the speaker-mic on the E-brake while driving, but you really can't see the display from above (stupid calculator display!)
 
I'll probably try to get the rest of my "minimally-licensed" radios bought or installed, and I've got like three cubic meters of the lights and luminaries of genre fiction competing with the ham study, which is the real limiting factor once I get done with estate work.  I'm leaning toward Uniden CMX-560 and 760 radios, but I really resent that you can't get a SSB CB in a handheld controlhead form factor.  It's stupid, but it's a big reason I hesitate.  Given the resemblance between the HHCH radios from Uniden on CB and Midland on GMRS, I really have to suspect a common cheap-chinese-radio source behind them, and wonder if I should go there.
 
Speaking of estate work?  My grandfather had one heck of a run, a long and happy life, and a short illness at the end - just enough time to come to terms with it.  Ideal, in most people's estimation, but I still miss the man.  Can't say he didn't do it all right along the way, though.
 
it stung at first, but the more I tried to reach out to contacts, the more I realized that most of them were FRS users who were freaked out by sharing a channel than GMRS users trying to make contact.
 
I've got a ... (goes out to garage)  Midland 70-1336b 2m rig waiting for some love.  (It'll need a lot of bias resistors replaced to access the A range; the B range is very much business only, if my memory is correct)
 
Thank you!  Just need to find some me-time where my brain hasn't been reduced to runny jello first to polish off the studying and take the silly test already!
 
Anyway, I'm out of brutal honesty, and need some sleep.
 
Edit:  Oh, Berkinet?  GMRS isn't really dead in Florida, I just live in a big hole in repeater coverage, and those I can hear are boring to listen to.  I gotta believe they're run by snowbirds, who only use them seasonally.  Otherwise, it's hard to understand why tower leases are maintained while everything's abandoned.  I look forward to our resident mad scientist and his Oviedo project. 

Because I can't help myself... I like to learn new things and after using some local repeaters in my area I thought it would be fun to set one up. I also have access to a facility where a repeater being located there would be very useful for my friends and family.

Sorry if that sounded like it was directed specifically at you, it wasn't. I just meant other users might not be interested in talking outside their own user group. This is particularly true for family based groups where the communications tend to be limited to immediate practical matters (pick up some tomatoes while you are at the market...).
 
BTW, A quick look at the RepeaterBook page for Florida seems to show a lot of activity on 2M
 
Good luck with your ham ticket.

A buddy of mine flies drones.  Be careful, left- and right-handed polarization are not the same!
 
Edit:  Yes, he learned that the crash way.

FRS is licensed by rule, they also have authority to operate. See 95.359, it's up to both parties to resolve interference issues. This also means that GMRS users cannot jam FRS users in an effort to clear the channel. There's no ownership of channels and they are shared between the services. If the other party is operating outside their authorizations, they lose these protections.

If I were to do it... it would be for the fun of trying. There are enough CCR's on the market that it doesn't have a practical purpose.

It can be about coordination.  Though GMRS has no official coordination it helps others decide a frequency that might be open in your area.  I know every repeater operator in the area and we do all things possible not to cause interfirance among though known repeaters.  Several are not listed but we do our coordination on our own.  This is no way stops someone from putting up one, but allows us to do it and not cause others problems.  I recently was going to put up a .700 repeater but someone else did and decided to go to .675 as it was open in the area.

What I can't seem to understand is: If a repeater is Private, and the owner does not want to allow anyone to use it, then why even list it?  Is it just a vanity thing to have your name on a website as the owner of a machine? Ooohh lookie, I have this shiny thing, but you can't touch it!
 
It can't be about coordination, since there is no coordination on GMRS, and everyone must share the frequencies.
 
I have a repeater. It is private, DCS locked, and for use by my family only, so I just do not advertise it at all.

I have asked for permission on several repeaters in Michigan and never received a response. I understand why the repeater owner would want to screen users, but a response would be at least courteous.