WRTC928

That's good advice. I'll start doing that.

There's not a lot of activity around here, and the UT-72G was good enough, so I never felt the need to replace it, but I agree it's not the best available. However, for the itty-bitty Ghost to outperform it was a surprise to me. In a lot of scenarios, it may be good enough. At some point, I may get the MXTA26 or something similar and throw it in the back of the car. If I feel the need, I can just screw off the Ghost and screw on the MX. I really like the fact that I don't have to worry about the Ghost in a drive-through or a parking garage, and on my black car, it's almost a stealth antenna.

Today I put a Midland Ghost Antenna on the NMO mag mount on my car. I figured a small black cylinder on the top of my small black car wouldn't attract a lot of attention. I was previously using a Nagoya UT-72G with its own mag mount. TBH, I didn't expect much from the Ghost Antenna, but I was quite surprised. I attached a Baofeng AR-5RM which emits 7-8 watts (even though it's nominally a 10 watt radio) and took a drive to check it out. I got about 15-17 miles from the Oklahoma City repeater and received a signal report from a kind GMRS user. I was at the extreme range I usually get, and he said my signal sounded like I had "a little strange interference" but he could understand me just fine. TBH, I was impressed. It didn't give up anything to the UT-72G, and in fact, may have been marginally better.

I thought of that, but I don't have anyone to help me test it. It does transmit to a HT as far away as I can hear it, but that wouldn't take any significant amount of power. That would be pretty depressing if the radio suddenly decided to stop transmitting. That's the most obvious, but I was hoping someone had a different idea.

I haven't personally used them. The response I got from the rep was, "You have a choice of 50 CTCSS and DCS (privacy code), and by default, these tones are turned off." However, if they provide software to turn them off or change them, it doesn't really matter what configuration they're in from the seller.

I recently acquired a Surecom SW-102 power and SWR meter. The problem is that when I hook it up to the Anysecu mobile and key the mic, nothing happens. Literally nothing whether I use an antenna or a dummy load. Yes, I'm sure I hooked it up correctly. It works just fine with my Baofeng HTs and Retevis HTs, but not with the Anysecu. The Anysecu is a nominal 20 watts, so I don't think it's overloading the device. Any ideas why my radio is invisible to the meter?

Per my conversation with the seller's rep, the 27V does not have codes enabled at shipping, but they can be enabled with the included software. As long as I get the software to change the codes, I'm okay with it either way.

Because many people will want to enable codes to ignore chatter from other people. Apparently, the provided software does that though. My concern was that they may come from the factory with some codes already programmed in which would make them pretty much incompatible other brands of radios. Some "bubble pack" FRS radios do that. Bear in mind that my initial concern about this radio was that the ad copy accompanying them on Amazon says they are only able to communicate with other Retevis radios. That appears to be incorrect regarding the 27V.

I'm sure I'll eventually come up with something more permanent. Since I tend to drive my vehicles until they fall apart, I may have a hole drilled and a permanent NMO mount installed. Before I do that, however, I want to make final decisions about where I want the radio, etc.

I passed the Technician test Thursday and I'm just waiting for the FCC. I need a good dual-band antenna for the top of my small car. It needs to be NMO compatible so I can use the mag mount I already have and not more than about 2 feet tall. For now, I'm going to use it with a Baofeng AR-5RM while I ponder exactly what I want as a permanent installation. So, what do you recommend?

Thanks! This is exactly the information I was looking for. I think I'll buy a few.

Is that specifically a TD thing? I use a standard Chirp file for Baofeng and Retevis radios without any problems.

According to both theory and real-world testing (a rare occurrence) a more powerful radio won't typically increase your distance much, but it will usually give you a clearer signal at the same distance. Also according to both theory and real-world testing, a better antenna will usually do the same. Since what you need is a better signal, probably either would do the trick. An antenna is cheaper and less subject to failure than another radio. Furthermore, with a better antenna, you may discover some simplex traffic in addition to the repeater. The Ghost Antenna would work, or perhaps even something like a Nagoya NMO-HDG with some plastic flowers wrapped around it or some other form of disguise. My logic is this: I'm 99% certain you'll want a better antenna before too long no matter what radio you have. Getting the antenna out of the house is probably the most significant change you can make. Structures are a significant impediment to RF radiation. There's only one repeater I can reach from my home about 25-30 miles away. I can usually converse on it from my back yard and occasionally from my living room with an 8 watt HT but I can't hit it from the driveway with a 20 watt mobile and 48" antenna. In between is my house. With a better antenna, you may feel the radio you have is just fine for quite a while. Of course, funds permitting, you can certainly do both, but I suspect you're never going to be fully satisfied until you move the antenna out of the house. Stealth antennas are a whole thing in some forums, with a number of videos on YouTube dedicated to the subject. I'm sure you can find something that will fly below the radar.

So...apparently the UV-5RM is not GMRS/FRS compatible. I have heard that some can be jailbroken and some can't. I've also heard but not confirmed that the 5RMPlus is restricted and can't be jailbroken. The AR-5RM is the same radio but it's unrestricted. That said, I ordered two AR-5RMs and one of them is labeled AR-5RM and the other is labeled UV-5RM but they both are unrestricted. My advice is to order the AR-5RM and if it arrives labeled UV-5RM, don't send it back until you plug it into CHIRP and see what you have.

My AR-5RM will work on MURS, but that's a little too expensive to just pass them out to all the volunteers at an event. FRS-compatible radios like the 888s are about $10 each.

Channel 1 is allowed 2 watts and a lot of the radios come out of the box set for that. Most FRS users never change anything on the radio, hence my guess that it's 2 watts. But it could be 0.5 watt; there's really no way to know. Either way, 2-5 miles is pretty good. It probably can only happen when the stars align just right.

All the slack in the back of my jeans is used by my big backside. I usually put it in my left jacket pocket but a couple of days ago, I snagged an antenna getting out of my truck and bent it beyond repair. That's the first time I've done in that in at least 2 years, so maybe I'll decide it's not a big deal, but there's no harm in exploring options. I sometimes use the belt clip, but by the time I've put a firearm and one or two magazines on the belt, adding a radio makes me feel like my pants are going to fall down.

Lose 'em. That's what I'm going to do. That's why I need to get them cheap. Almost every time I change an antenna, I lose the stupid O-ring. I don't know why; I don't typically lose other small parts. The $6 for 100 of them is cheap enough to avoid the frustration.

Right now I'm listening to a couple of kids on 1. One of them said he's "over by the red house" and there's not a red house anywhere near me -- certainly not within a mile. That's pretty good for an FRS radio. Radio waves are funny. There's a repeater about 25-30 miles from my house with which I can usually contact people with a 5 watt HT in my back yard. I can't even kerchunk the same repeater from my driveway with a 20 watt mobile and a 47" antenna. The only apparent difference is that my house is in the way. I'm on a 40' bluff above a river and it's entirely possible the kids are in the town across the river east of me about 5 miles away. Edit: One of them just said, "I'm at the school." That puts him about 2 miles away if he's in my town and about 5 miles away if he's in the town across the river. Not bad for 2 watts, especially if he's in my town, because there are a lot of houses and other buildings between me and the nearest school.

I understand the rule to mean that you are allowed to identify the individual by a unit number or letter, by their name, or not at all according to what works for you. If there are only two of you, there's really no need. None of my family was ever interested enough for it to matter. In the military and law enforcement, it was the rule to identify yourself at the beginning of a transmission and I've just (mostly) carried that habit over into civilian radio. I always open with my call sign on a repeater because essentially, I'm a guest there and it just seems polite to tell the owner who is visiting.

I get great results with the 771G, but it's not a "pocket friendly" antenna.

So...about what I figured; you'll lose some distance. Back in my (23 channel) CB days, I noticed that electrical length was never quite as good as physical length on an antenna, but on a CB it didn't matter much because your distance was either annoyingly short or ridiculously long (due to skip). I think the Slim Duck is pretty comparable in length to the Nagoya 701G. I have a couple of those and I'm pretty happy with them. Mostly if I can hit a repeater with a 771G, I can hit it with a 701G but signal quality suffers a bit at longer distances. My reason for asking the question is that I'd like to have something I could put on a Baofeng f8hp and stick it in jacket pocket without worrying about damaging the antenna. I expected a bit of loss of distance, but if everyone was saying they could get about 10 feet and the signal sounded like wadding up aluminum foil, then it's not even good for that. Sounds like it may be okay for what I want.

I see that Abbree and Baofeng have very short antennas for HTs. The Baofeng claims 3 dB gain, but I'm pretty skeptical of that. The Abbree claim of 2 dB gain is a little more believable. The idea of such a short, rigid antenna is appealing, but I wonder how much performance would suffer? Have any of you tried one of these or a similar product from another brand?

That's why I prefer something like this over a UV-5r (which right now is cheaper than the 27V) for events or groups. Pick it up, turn the knob, and you're up and running. You can't accidentally lock/unlock the keypad, enter the menu, enter VFO mode, etc. Most people don't care about all the whiz-bang features of the radio, and if you give them something complicated, it'll just confuse them.

Thank you. The reason I was hesitant is because the ad copy that accompanies the radio on Amazon specifically states that they can only be used with other Retivis radios. I messaged the company, and their rep responded that the radios are programmed by default with the 5 MURS frequencies without codes but can be customized using the provided software, which I took to mean the software comes with the radio. If it's programmed by default with the MURS channels without codes, it logically seems that it should communicate with other brands of radios. I've ordered one to play with. If it interfaces seamlessly with other MURS radios, I may want to have a couple of them around. They're still more expensive than the 888s or Arcshell, but at $16 each, they're cheap enough for a group.