WRTC928

I did a little testing using a Nagoya UT-72G antenna on a pizza pan about 9 feet off the ground on my back deck. Using an HT, I was able to get about 3 miles to the east and 1-2 miles to the south and southwest. Not spectacular, but not bad for an unfavorable setup. To my surprise, there were a couple of places about a mile to the west where I could access the repeater. I was surprised because there's a tall hill to my west. I guess there are a couple of places where radio waves can sneak around it. I plan to use it with a better antenna on a 25' mast attached to my truck or RV, so I expect much better distance under those circumstances. I just couldn't resist testing it. TBH, for a lot of purposes, i.e. camping, 2-3 miles is plenty. Still, I should be able to better that considerably with a gain antenna and more height.

Is 16 an emergency channel? People in Alaska use marine radios inland all day every day and I never heard of anyone getting in trouble for it. Maybe they know enough to stay off 16.

It would take a lot more information to answer this question. What do you want to use it for? What are your options for installing an antenna? What kind of repeater is it?

I have a pair of them which I got as a freebee when I bought some stuff from Temu. I haven't done anything with them, but I had the thought of doing exactly what you did. I probably will at some point.

Exactly my point. I really believe it's the best radio in its class. There are some things more expensive radios can do that it can't, and for those I have more expensive radios, but for an "every day carry", it suits my needs just fine. It's pretty much my "go-to" for grab-and-go.

I really like the 5RM (AR-5RM, UV-5RM). It has all the features I would ask for in an entry-level HT. As much power as is practical in an HT, 3 power level selections, 3 bands tx/rx, airband and NOAA rx, USB charging, and it uses accessories which are robustly supported. IMO, the UV-5r is too small to manipulate easily, but the 5RM is a good size and it feels solid in the hand. In fact, I don't have any significant complaints about it. I have a couple of spares unopened, but so far, neither of my "regular use" 5RMs have shown any sign of quitting. I invariably get signal reports of full quieting on repeaters. Some users have reported that they get poor audio output quality, but I haven't experienced that. It doesn't do digital modes, and I'll want that eventually, which is why I describe it as an "entry-level" radio, but that isn't a factor on GMRS and it may be all the HT radio you ever need for simplex and GMRS usage. It remains to be seen how well it will hold up over time, but it was so inexpensive that I bought spares, so I'm not too concerned about that.

Semantics. Yes, anyone can pay for it and do the work of maintaining it, but a single individual has to be the licensee/operator of record.

Fair enough.

GMRS repeaters have to be operated by an individual licensee, unlike amateur radio repeaters which can be owned and operated by a club or other entity. That means the cost and work can't be spread across numerous individuals as it can with ham repeaters. Most people who go to the expense and effort of installing a GMRS repeater do it to support a specific activity, such as operating a ranch or other business, keeping contact with family members, etc. There are a number of altruists who put up a GMRS repeater for use by the general public, but that's a small minority. Ham clubs can maintain a little tighter control over the use of their repeaters because the license is harder to get and because there are literally thousands of frequencies across several bands they can utilize, so it's not so easy for some random idiot to find the repeater and jump on it. Hence the existence of GMRS repeater clubs. They won't tell you the tones unless you belong to the club and if necessary, they can notify all the club members and change the tone. Sure, it will cost you a little to join, but operating a repeater isn't free, and you will have access to a lot more repeaters as long as you behave in accordance with their rules.

I may actually leave it that way. I'd just never heard a repeater that didn't do it, so I was afraid maybe something was wrong with the repeater. It tested out okay, though, so I figured it was just a quirk of the design. Stealthy actually has some advantages for a portable unit. I don't want every random yoyo in the park scanning for the tone and jumping on my repeater.

That's true. As I said, it's not the end of the world. It just irks me that I can't do everything in one step via the software. I don't know much about software design, but it seems to me that it wouldn't have been very difficult to make it possible to do it in the program.

Thanks. I'll look at it. I don't even know for sure that I want it to "kerchunk" but I'd like to know how to set it if I want to.

It's not the end of the world to have to program "no tone" from the keypad, but it is a bit of a pain in the ass. The whole purpose of programming from software is to avoid crap like that.

My RT97L arrived today, and I did some initial testing. Setup was a breeze using the software downloaded from the Retevis website. There is no software included, but the download was no big deal. There aren't a whole lot of things to set or change, so it's hard to goof it up too much. I didn't have a GMRS-specific antenna to test it with because my truck is loaned out, so I tried it with a few dual-band antennas. The Comet 2x4 had an SWR of 2.04, a couple of others had ~1.69, and once again, the much-maligned Nagoya UT-72 came out on top with an SWR of 1.23. I'll be interested to see what I get with an antenna that's tuned for GMRS. Power output was good -- 21-24 watts with all the antennas except the Nagoya. For some reason, I consistently got a reading of 26-27 watts with the UT-72. I can't explain why a different antenna would make a significant difference in power, but that's what I got. All the antennas were tested on the same NMO mag mount except the Nagoya which is an integrated unit. As far as I know, a different antenna and/or coax shouldn't change the power reading at the meter, particularly because the reading is taken before the RF energy even enters the antenna's coax. I wasn't able to test range, but I did confirm that it does indeed perform as a repeater. It doesn't "kerchunk" which surprised me a little. Not that I really care, but it was unusual. I hope to get this thing out to the field sometime soon, but my first impression is that it will be an excellent tool to have available for camping, hiking, or other outdoor activities.

I emailed BTech support and got a reply that you can't program "no tone" in the software; you have to do it from the keypad. I said that didn't make a lot of sense when you have software available. She got kinda snotty with me and said, "You do realize it's a GMRS specific repeater and you can't change the repeater pairs?" I said yes, I know that, but it doesn't address my issue. She shot back with, "Most of our customers prefer to do programming from the keypad anyway." I wanted to ask, "Or do they just program from the keypad because your software sucks?" but I figured it would be pointless and just let it go. Bottom line -- you can do it, but only from the keypad.

I don't have "trust issues" -- I have "learned experience".

Because most of the time, that's all you need. There's a GMRS repeater about 2 miles away from me; 1 watt will give me a good connection. There's a ham repeater 72 miles from me that I can usually use with 12 watts from my base unit, and can always use with 35 watts, so even though my base will do 50 watts, I never set it that high. The units in my vehicles can also generate 50 watts, but I usually have most frequencies set to 12 watts because that's all I need. The most significant limitation on radio communication is terrain, and if 12 watts won't do it, 50 usually won't either. There are a few exceptions, but you will figure them out with experience. With regard to handheld radios, one good reason to keep the wattage as low as feasible is that higher wattage will use up your battery faster. Again, most of the time, more power won't allow you to reach a radio or repeater that you couldn't reach with 5 watts. Just from a standpoint of politeness, using more power has the potential to cause more interference with other people's signals. Trying to avoid that is just part of being a decent human.

You have a good point. It almost happened to me. Just when I was about to give up and start over, a miracle occurred and I was able to log in.

I'd say definitely not necessary, since FCC issued both my licenses on the same FRN. I was just curious if it was common to have more than one FRN.

I like the idea of an agreed-upon channel for travel/emergencies, but FCC apparently has no interest in selecting one and nobody else has the mantle of authority to decree one. Amateur radio has ARRL. Although they don't have any actual power to enforce their band plans and calling frequencies, the vast majority of users go along with ARRL's plans. We don't have anything comparable for GMRS, as far as I know.

I'm pretty sure I didn't get a new FRN for my amateur license. Is it normal to have different FRNs for GMRS and amateur licenses?

I'm currently away from home, but mine arrived while I was gone. I have a friend picking up packages and putting them in the garage, so hopefully it will still be there when I return tomorrow night. I'm kind of excited to play with it and see what it can do.

I'm not sure they wouldn't. IMO, it's worth a try.

I do a little bit of both of these. I have GMRS 1-22 simplex, some "friends and family" channels, and then repeaters. The repeaters are grouped according to where they are geographically, generally based upon how far they are from my home and if they're on a route I travel quite a bit. 1-22 have no codes engaged, "friends and family" channels have codes to match whatever the person I expect to talk to has entered, then of course the repeaters have input codes I don't usually enter rx codes unless it's in a particularly busy area.

As far as I can tell, most FRS radios come with tones already set. That's how they advertise them as having "64 channels" or whatever the mierro de toro of the day is. As Alec said, most people are absolutely clueless about them. Odds are that almost nobody on an FRS radio will hear you unless you intentionally coordinate it with them. GMRS users seem to be more likely to operate without tones set when on simplex, but even so, groups tend to set tones to avoid having to listen to a bunch of other people.