IamConfusion

I really don't know. It sounds like signal strength to me, it's choppy fuzzy and weak. I believe we were holding them properly, I've been a CB guy for a LONG time and have used FRS radios for a while for those that didn't have CB etc. So I think everyone involved was familiar enough with how to properly hold and talk into a handheld so I don't believe that is the issue.

I have not, but that could be a good test.

So guess I'm still not sure what action to take. I'm passed my return window on Amazon so I'm at least stuck with them. Does Boafeng offer any useful support/warranty? Is there any other info I might provide that might be useful for troubleshooting?

Yea what you describe is more of what I expected honestly. Sorta feel like I got a bad batch like has been mentioned. I effectively haven't changed any out of the box settings. I turned off the voice call-out feature and changed the mentioned uhf vhf settings while we were struggling but that's really it. Not sure how to troubleshoot it.

I didn't realize the upper channels would make that much of a difference. I'll have to test, should I assume lower channels aren't powerful enough for close vehicles conversation?

I'm not sure which settings are relevant, but will gladly provide anything helpful. We tried channels 1-7 with the same results. Power output was set to high. I'm not sure on wide or narrow. I did see a setting for UHF and VHF, we tried each with no difference. They seemed to work well outside of the cars but we were usually standing next to each other. Distance was a few car lengths. Maybe couple hundred feet. I don't know anyone outside of my two radios to check if others can hear me. I haven't tried jumping into any conversations I've heard and I'm not even sure the ones I heard that weren't on a repeater were GMRS and not FRS as I never heard a single callsign all day.

Thanks for the reply. So, are the Tx radios just junk in these particular radios? Assume if it's a physical issue there isn't much I can do to get them up and going?

I've used the blister pack FRS radios for a long time for vehicle to vehicle communication on multi-vehicle road trips. Just recently decided I wanted, or thought I wanted, to move away from the FRS world and into the GMRS radio world. Grabbed my license, grabbed some BAOFENG UV-5G (UV-5X) radios off Amazon. Felt pretty good about the whole thing, watched a bunch of YouTube videos to kind of understand the radios and features etc. Jump forward to this weekend and my first road trip, talked my friend into a GMRS license before the trip, so handed out my shiny new GRMS radios, hopped in our cars, fired off a radio check and womp womp... the quality is awful... Only a few hundred feet from each other and transmits are weak and choppy from either handset. I had a set of long high gain antennas in the box I didn't think would be needed but we tried them, but it made no difference. I can hear others very clearly, I can hear repeaters very clearly, just not my radios for some reason. Before I write these radios off and junk and throw them in the ecycle pile, is there something my novice self is just missing here? The pile of cheap FRS radios I have work great vehicle to vehicle, I would have expected (maybe wrongly) that GRMS would have worked similarly up close but would have had added better range and the ability to use repeaters if needed.