WRTC928

I do it. You have to be sure to check SWR all the way up and down the bands because some antennas aren't tuned well enough to the 462-467 MHz range. I've had good results with the Comet SBB-1 and SBB-2 and the Nagoya UT-72 and NMO-72 antennas. In terms of getting good SWRs all the way up to 467, the UT-72 gave me the best results. Some folks say the Nagoya 72s are trash, but I've gotten good performance from them. I'm not trying to reach ridiculous distances, so YMMV.

Okay, but that's pretty minimal and you don't even have to do that if you don't want to.

If you want to go the easier but more expensive route, BTech has a plug-and-play repeater system. It's not cheap, but it's literally all you need except the antenna and coax. It has all 8 repeater pairs and includes an auto-ID module. Put up your antenna, plug it in, and you're up and running.

Hi-Point is the Baofeng of the firearm world (although less ubiquitous). Cheap, fugly, not respected, but it puts bullets downrange and if that's all you need to do, you'll be happy with it. Baofeng is cheap and not respected (not necessarily unattractive, though), but if all you need to do is put signals downrange, it will do the job. There's a lot of talk on the ham forums about how lousy their signals are, blah, blah, but every single time I've requested a signal report on mine, I've been told it's strong and clear. I don't know anything about Midland, but if it puts out a strong, clear signal and has all the features you need, it's a good radio. For someone else, it might be a lousy radio. Okay, actually I do know one thing about Midland. Their Ghost antenna works far better than I expected it to. I wish they'd make one for 140/440.

Serious question -- Is 16 the agreed-upon channel by off-roaders across the country, or are you using "official" in an ironic way?

You do you, boo. The repeater I use most often doesn't have any sort of signal to let you know when it's available and it's not unusual to walk on each other. If everyone had the beep enabled, it would work just as well, but getting 50+ frequent users all on the same page about that seems unlikely. I don't own a repeater, so it's just hypothetical, a thought exercise, if you will.

I think if I were setting up a repeater, I'd incorporate a courtesy tone and ask people not to use the roger beep. What I really want to know is when the repeater is available for transmission and with the tone incorporated into the repeater, everyone knows regardless of whether the sender has a roger beep or not. But with your repeater, do whatever you like.

The "book answer" is that moisture and precipitation have little effect on VHF and UHF signals, but I've definitely observed that it can happen sometimes. A few days ago, we had very heavy fog and drizzling rain and I couldn't get through to my usual repeater 20 miles away with a HT. Even with the base unit, I had to punch it up from 12 watts to 20 to be understood clearly. That's the first time I've had that happen, but it wasn't the first time we've had fog and rain around here, so there must be some "perfect storm" of conditions to make VHF/UHF noticeably attenuate due to precipitation. The problem with "book answers" is that my radios didn't read the book.

I just received mine yesterday. The first thing I did was download the factory configuration file. Then, I tested power output at all three levels on different parts of both bands and recorded the results. I then uploaded a CHIRP file using the BF-F8HP profile and retested the power. It remained the same after programming as before, so whatever the problem is, apparently I didn't get one that has it. I was a little disappointed that power maxed out at 6-7 watts, but it's not all that big a deal, I guess. I'll probably never notice the difference, but if I buy a 10 watt radio, I'd like for it to actually output 10 watts.

Okay...not trying to hurt your feelings by asking something obvious...but are you sure you have the transmit power turned all the way up? Either you're not reaching it or it's not hearing you. The most likely reason for the first is not enough power (assuming you're using it from the same location you used your other radios), and the most likely reason for the second is tones either not set or set incorrectly.

The owner's manual shows a programming cable as an optional accessory, so it has a port. The cable looks like the type that plugs into the two jacks for a speaker/mic, which is the most common type. On page 7 of the manual, there's a picture showing the parts of the radio. It's labeled "13. Accessory jack".

I was once in a little village in the interior of Alaska when an earthquake took out telephone communication for 4 days. It wasn't local damage -- the stations somewhere south of us that relayed the telephone signals went down. I didn't pay any attention at the time, but I'm guessing they used microwave or something to "squirt" the signals to a series of towers. Anyway, some of them that served that village went out. This was about 15 years ago and cell service didn't exist in Alaska outside the few cities. The village had no road -- all contact with the outside world was by telephone and airplane. Fortunately, quite a few of the villagers had radios with which they could talk to the various aircraft overflying the affected areas. I didn't know much about radios back then, but I think they were mostly marine radios. The Natives in the interior villages are pretty casual about things like getting a license and using approved radios, and by "casual" I mean they don't give it even one thought. Anyway, the guys/gals with radios were able to keep planes coming in. The time schedule was a bit disrupted, but we still got one plane a day in and out. It's surprising how much more isolated I felt when the phones were down, even though I wasn't really calling anyone anyway. Some of the interior villages have cell phone service now, but it's only available in the immediate area of the village. I assume they still use radios a lot to stay in touch while out hunting or fishing. I think the main reason they mostly use marine radios is simply that they're readily available. When the next village is 300 miles away, nobody is going to hear you breaking the rules. One or two of the larger villages in the interior actually had an amateur radio repeater which everyone in the village used without concern for niceties like call signs. Heck, the repeaters probably weren't even licensed, but again, who's going to check? Come to think of it, I wonder if they could have been marine radio repeaters? A quick internet search tells me such things exist.

TBH, I can actually think of a couple of use cases for a radio that works on cell phone towers. For example, dispatching a fleet of vehicles a radio system would be much easier to use than a bunch of cell phones. The preppers who buy them are going to be pretty disappointed if they ever need them, though.

Hmm... That's an interesting question. Does it need to be something other than a handheld? There are a couple of 20 watt HTs here and here. I wouldn't be too enthustiastic about holding a 20 watt radio up to my temple, but with an extension mic, it should be fine. You could put it in a bag or box to take when you leave. You could even have a pretty long antenna attached to the bicycle.

Why does it have to be a repeater? Rapid Radio says their radios will reach someone 1,416 miles away.

Don't pay any attention to the haters. That radio is just fine for ordinary GMRS stuff. The guys who rant about "cheap Chinese junk" probably have a money tree or something.

Well, I may have found the lower limit. This afternoon, I tried to work that repeater 20 miles away with 1 watt and a 2.5" antenna. I could key the repeater, but nobody responded to my call, which usually means nobody can hear/understand you because there's always someone listening to that repeater. I have done it with 5 watts and a 2.5" antenna, but for 1 watt, a 701 seems to be as low as I can go. It's been a fun experiment, though. Just now, I got into the 70cm repeater 20 miles away and the signal report was "almost full quieting" using a 2 watt Arcshell AR-5 with its stock rubber duck antenna. The Arcshell is practically disposable, so if you spend $300,000 in the right location, you too can work a 20 mile repeater with a $10 radio.

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.