WRTC928

As far as I can determine, in the history of the FCC, nobody has ever been cited solely for transmitting on a radio which was not type-accepted for that frequency. Of course, if you were being an ass and causing problems, they'd probably throw that charge in as well "just because". That said, the power and bandwidth restrictions exist largely to keep someone on that frequency from interfering with other users. If you decide to use the 5RM on GMRS, please be a decent human and set the bandwidth (wide/narrow) and power to the "legal" GMRS limits. The 5RM won't go below about 2-3 watts, so you should probably block transmission on channels 8-14, which are restricted to 0.5 watt. You can program them in and then set duplex to "off", then if there's some urgent need to use one of them, you can turn duplex back on fairly quickly from the keyboard on the front.

This morning, I checked into the daily net on a 2 meter repeater 20 miles away using 1 watt and an HYS NA-701 antenna on a Retevis RT85 HT. I was told that I was "a little noisy but not hard to understand". Tomorrow I'm going to try 1 watt and a stubby antenna. If that works, I'm going to just shout. This demonstrates pretty well, IMO, that height is might, elevation is propagation, and power is not as important as a lot of people think. I knew the "book answer" but it really reinforces it when you do the experiment yourself. There's a 70cm repeater in the same location and I was able to hear myself on another radio using that repeater. There's hardly ever anyone on that one, so I had to settle for saying "testing" and listening to myself. I know this is a GMRS forum, not ham, but the principles are exactly the same. Unfortunately, I don't have a GMRS repeater I can reach from my home. I used to have one about 25 miles away which I could easily use with a 5 watt HT, but it went offline a few months ago. There's one in Oklahoma City about 35 miles away, but I can't reach it with 50 watts -- I've tried. There are a couple of ham repeaters I can use in Oklahoma City, so I assume the GMRS repeater is in a less advantageous location. There are (I think) 11 amateur radio repeaters in Oklahoma City, of which I can hear 4 and actually use 2. Again, the difference is probably location.

I've said that myself, but I yield to your real-world experience. I may try it sometime to get a feel for how much difference it makes. Of course, no two heavily wooded areas are identical, but there's no substitute for experiencing it yourself.

My experience has been that two supposedly identical radios may prefer different antennas. That's why it's hard to answer the question, "What antenna should I buy?" or "What's the best antenna?" I usually say that most name-brand aftermarket antennas are better than the stock antenna and throw out some brands I've had good results with. Nagoya, HYS, Signal Stick, to name a few. Unfortunately, you can spend quite a bit of money before you find one you're really happy with, depending upon what you want to do with it. However, for what you're trying to do, the stock antenna may be fine, so I always recommend people try it before they replace it.

Since it sort of came up in another thread, here's something I posted in a Ham forum. It stimulated some interesting discussion. This morning, I checked in to a net on a 2 meter repeater 20 miles north of my house with 4 watts on an HT. I didn't know it when I bought the place, but my house is in a very advantageous location for radio dorks...err...enthusiasts in central Oklahoma. I'm on a 40' bluff above a river which is the second-highest location for miles around. I have excellent terrain for radio waves, apparently. I have checked in to the same net with a 2.5" stubby antenna on a 6 watt radio and was heard clearly. I used to regularly use a GMRS repeater 25 miles to the northeast with an HT until it went offline. On a good day, I can be heard clearly on a repeater 50 miles northeast with a handheld and I can always work it with 12 watts on a mobile/base in my living room with a mag mount antenna on a steel pizza plate. I've talked HT-HT with a guy almost 20 miles to my south, albeit not very clearly. The only direction I don't have good results is to my west because the highest point for miles around is about 1/2 mile west of me. Ironically, I can reach the repeater to the northeast with a HT from my house but can't reach it with a 20 watt mobile from the WalMart parking lot. The answer to the ubiquitous question, "How far can you talk on that?" is...it depends. I'll bet I could reach Kansas with a 35 watt mobile from the hill to my west. I may actually try it some time. My goal at present is to see how low I can go and still work that repeater 20 miles to the north. This morning, I used an HYS 771 antenna. Tomorrow, I'm going to change to the Comet 2m/1.25m/70cm tri-band antenna. It probably doesn't perform quite as well as the dual-bander just because that's kinda how antennas work; you don't get something for nothing. If I have no trouble with the tri-band antenna, I'm going to drop to 2 watts and try different antennas. I wonder if I can be heard clearly on that repeater with 1 watt and a stubby antenna? This is fun! ADDENDUM: I was right. The tri-band antenna didn't perform as well as a dual-band 701. I didn't have any trouble getting in, but it was reportedly less clear than with the 771. You can have an antenna that does one thing well or one that does multiple things less well. I did get down to 2 watts on a 701 antenna, which isn't bad. Power is no higher than third most important factor in distance and clarity. The first is line-of-sight (usually better the higher you get) and the second is the antenna. I was reliably hitting the aforementioned GMRS repeater 25 miles away with a "cheap Chinese junk" Baofeng BF-F8HP that generates about 6 watts on GMRS frequencies.

In medicine, we have a saying, "When you hear hoofbeats on the prairie, think of horses, not zebras." which is a way of saying that common things happen more often than uncommon things. In radio, the most common cause of poor range is obstructions, and the way to defeat that is with elevation and a good antenna. There absolutely are people who work the repeater on the International Space Station with a 5 watt HT. The only real difference between them and the OP is what's between the two radios -- basically nothing in the case of the ISS. I'm a believer in approaching anything except an emergency in a stepwise fashion. That way, when you get it right, you'll know what made the difference. And, yes, I've been called a liar for saying that I can work a repeater 52 miles from my house with an 8 watt HT, but I have the advantage of highly favorable topography. Both the repeater and my home are the highest things for miles in that direction. I wouldn't say GMRS can't be a hobby. There are a couple of guys near me who frequently use Ch 19 to discuss their day and what's going on in their lives. They could easily use a phone, but to some of us, a radio is more fun. But, yes, in general, GMRS is a communication tool whereas amateur radio is much more focused on the equipment and how to get the most out of it.

Oh, yeah...the one piece of equipment that I'd suggest you buy right away is a pair of good antennas. The stock antennas tend to be mediocre performers, whereas some of the aftermarket antennas can significantly improve your signal. Something like this or this. I've had really good results with Nagoya antennas, but some other people think they suck. YMMV.

You'll probably get as many answers as there are people on the forum, but here's my advice. Buy two inexpensive GMRS handheld radios and see if you can talk to your wife 5 miles away. It might be possible with no modifications. If that doesn't do it, buy a magnetic-mount GMRS antenna (Nagoya UT-72G, for example) and mount it as high as possible at your house, preferably outside. It will need something metallic for a ground plane. I use a large steel pizza pan. You'll need an adapter to connect the HT to the antenna. Something like this. You'll probably get a little skinny one with the antenna, but it doesn't last very long. Then try again. If that works, you're done. If that doesn't get you what you want, do the same at your place of work, if possible. If you can't do that, put the mag mount antenna on top of your car. If that doesn't work, come back here for more advice. Remember, radio waves travel in a straight line. If you could see the other radio (assuming you could see 3-5 miles), you'd easily be able to talk HT to HT with a 5 watt GMRS handheld radio. I can easily talk from my house to a repeater 20 miles away with 5 watts, but we're both on elevated positions. If I go to the other side of the hill 1/2 mile west of me, I can't do it with a 20 watt mobile rig. Height is might. Elevation is propagation. However you want to say it, you need to get both antennas as high as possible. I'd be surprised if that didn't get you what you want. DO NOT go out and immediately buy a 50 watt base station thinking that much power will give you a lot more distance. It won't. Radio waves still travel in a straight line, and if there are obstructions between the two radios, it would take an unrealistic amount of power to get through them. In my experience, if you can make contact but your signal is weak, more power might give you a stronger signal, but it won't make up for bad geography. Before you buy a base station, buy a true base station antenna and get it at least 20 feet high. If you buy the base station radio first, you'll likely end up having to then buy the antenna anyway. If you buy the antenna first, you may not need a different radio. When you've played with the two handhelds for a while and have an idea what you want, then spend your money on other equipment. Maybe it won't be as useful as you hoped, or maybe you just get bored with it. Start with something inexpensive and move up slowly.

I like that plan. How far apart are the cabin and your home?

I understand your point, but in order for that to happen, a number of things would have to occur simultaneously. 1) Someone would have to hear your call. 2) They'd have to know they could look up your address from the call sign. 3) They'd have to know a criminal near where you live -- because by definition, if you're away from home, the miscreant is somewhere near you, not near your house. 4) They'd have to go to the effort of contacting their buddy and telling him to burglarize your house, which they'd have little incentive to do because criminals don't burglarize a house and send part of the ill-gotten gains to a friend 100 miles away. The odds of all that happening simultaneously are so astronomically small that I don't even consider it. I just periodically check the security cameras on my phone and go on enjoying my vacation.

I concur. It's almost certainly something in the feed line. The antenna itself would be minimally affected by cold weather, and presumably the radio is indoors and doesn't get cold. That only leaves the coax and its connectors as the potential source of the problem.

My favorite T-shirt says "TANSTAAFL" which is a fake Russian word popularized by author Robert Heinlein in the novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It's actually an acronym for "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch". You never get something for nothing and in order to gain in one area, you have to lose in another. The AR-5RM has three Tx bands: 70cm, 1.25m, and 2m. I only recently programmed some simplex frequencies on the 1.25m band which necessitated buying a tri-band antenna. I went with the Comet HT-224 which doesn't suck, but it gives up a noticeable amount in clarity to the NA-771 I had on it before. In turn, the NA-771 does not perform as well on GMRS frequencies as the NA-771G which is GMRS-specific. From my living room, I can work a 2-meter repeater about 20 miles away with a HT. This morning, I used the tri-band antenna for the first time, and although I still came through okay, I was told my signal was weaker than previously. With the 771 antenna I can blast into that repeater "like gangbusters" according to the net controller. I'm going to stick with the tri-band because it's good enough, but I did lose something in the transition,

It's interesting they said that. I've never seen a difference in power readings between an antenna and a dummy load. Sounds like they were just making stuff up. In my experience, Baofeng -- and by extension, BTech -- always overstates the power of their radios. I have a several-years-old f8hp (nominally 8 watts), a UV-5r "high power" (nominally 8 watts), and an AR-5RM (nominally 10 watts). They all produce about 6-7 watts on high power.

Radio waves do weird stuff. There used to be a GMRS repeater about 25 miles northeast of me. From the back yard, I could always work it with a 5 watt HT and sometimes could even do it from inside the house. From the driveway, I couldn't hit it with a 20 watt mobile and an antenna on the vehicle roof. The only thing in between is my house. It's made of 6" logs, but I wouldn't think that would make that much difference.

I have both on the roof of my truck and I haven't noticed any change in directionality. Since the two operate on such widely different frequency ranges, it's likely the CB antenna is no more than any other piece of wire to a GMRS signal. As such, it could affect directionality a bit, but I haven't noticed it.

The concept behind the "calling" frequency actually is a bit like the Star Trek "hailing" frequency. The idea is that you go to that frequency to make a contact and then change to a different frequency to have your conversation. However, I do hear people having protracted conversations on the calling frequency. To be fair, I almost never hear any other traffic on those frequencies, so maybe it doesn't matter much that they're gabbing about their gardens. It may be different in some other areas. A lot of the purpose of the calling frequencies may have been obviated by cell phones. I didn't have a ham license back then, but it's my understanding that they got used quite a bit for people stranded on the road, etc. I don't know how many hams routinely monitor calling frequencies, but I do. Historically, ch 19 on CB has been and is used as a "trucker" frequency and it got the most traffic, hence was the one people always monitored. CB became popular long before dual-monitor radios were a thing, so you could monitor either the channel everyone was using or the "calling" channel. Obviously, most people chose the popular channel, so a calling channel just never became a thing. It would actually seem to make sense in CB since you have 38 (excluding ch 9) other channels you could switch to after making contact. Ch 9 historically was monitored by emergency services agencies and perhaps still is. I don't know whether a calling channel for GMRS would ever take off simply because anyone who might want to hear from a stranger is probably already scanning all the GMRS channels anyway. It still makes a little sense for amateur radio because there are literally thousands of frequencies available, but for CB and GMRS, technology has made calling frequencies obsolescent, if not entirely obsolete.

Well, that's not bad. It seems unlikely I'd ever want more than 4 iterations of the same channel anyway.

I like this one, but it only tolerates 30 watts max. My mobile can do 50, and there might be a time when I wanted to use it. I'm probably going to go with the Compactenna eventually, but right now, my Comet is working just fine, so I'm not strongly motivated to replace it.

Are there any MURS radios that will let you have more than 5 memory slots? I'd like to have the option to have one bank with tones enabled and one without. It seems like the makers of MURS radios never anticipated that.

I wish I could find a 70cm/2m antenna in the same form factor that would work as well as the Ghost. There are some available, but I'm skeptical of a "no-name" antenna selling for $16. I mean...there could be one out there, but I'm not going to buy one without seeing some reviews.

On my favorite repeater, it's mostly nets and people chatting while stuck in traffic or the like. Of course, there could be people using ham for simplex while talking to family, traveling in a convoy, etc. and I just don't hear it. There are literally thousands of available frequencies in amateur radio and people doing that probably aren't on a "high traffic" frequency. The ability to use a frequency that nobody else is on is the main advantage over GMRS for those purposes. The big disadvantage, of course, is that all participants have to have an amateur radio license, so unless they're doing something ham-related, it doesn't seem like that would happen a lot. I used GMRS a lot in Alaska, but I've hardly even keyed up since I moved to Oklahoma. There are two good repeaters in Anchorage and two in Palmer, and people used them a lot to communicate highway conditions, much like CB is used elsewhere. It's possible there was a lot of CB action for the same reason, but I didn't have a CB, so I don't know.

I rarely use GMRS simply because I rarely have any occasion to do so. I don't have any family in the immediate area, I don't participate in an off-roading group, and when I travel, it's usually just me. If I were traveling in a convoy with family, I'd give them radios, but it hasn't come up. I do use ham repeaters when I travel just to alleviate the boredom. There's usually someone willing to have a chat with a stranger passing through.

I don't remember who makes it, but someone makes a mobile/base radio that's actually designed so you can plug two of them together and have a repeater. That's an intriguing concept.

Interestingly, although I have read that the newer ones can't be opened up to the additional range, the one I bought a few months ago came out of the box with those frequencies already open. My original thought was that I'd move it from the vehicle to the house, so I wanted the 6m and 10m capabilities. I have it set up so I can install or remove it in the vehicle very quickly, but it's still kind of a pain to replace the faceplate, carry it into the house, hook it up, etc. so I don't actually do that. As you say, the 6m/10m antennas are too long to be practical while driving, but I might put one in the vehicle just in case I want to use it while stationary. Comet makes a quad band UHV-4 that's "only" 54" long, which isn't too long to carry in the car, although I wouldn't want it on top while driving.

Me too. There's essentially no 6m activity around here and the antenna for 6m is impractically long.