OffRoaderX

How DARE you sir! Have some respect! After all, he memorized a test, he has been a H.A.M. for OVER 30 years and a radio tech for over 15 years! By God, he is even R-56 certified!!! That is why he put all that in his forum-signature, because he DESERVES respect!

Geezus.... Thank you for proving that the people we make fun of actually do exist. But don't worry, because we are all VERY impressed with how smart you think you are!

As someone that has recommended a few radios to a few people in my day, i have, and still do recommend Midlands to "regular people" that just need simple vehicle to vehicle comms; ie; The Jeep Crowd. Radio Dorks and latent hams will require something with more bells and whistles, but MANY normal people are more than satisfied with the simplicity and performance of the Midland mobiles. Choose the radio with the features that are right for you, and ignore the online "experts" that look down on you for not being the same kind of socially reet-ard-ed know-it-alls that they are - it's difficult, becuase there are a lot of them right here in this forum.. Even in this thread..

Mine was receiving radios at 10-20 miles away.. but.. yah.. other than that, you're right.

I made a repeater using to KG-1000Gs and I never had an issue with duty cycle, even when our entire group was banging away at it for days at a time. I DID however run into the issue of desense which was limiting the range of the setup - I was getting 25+ miles, but why my geography I should have been getting a lot more fars. As Mr @WRYZ926 said, I too upgraded to a purpose-built repeater and with LESS power out, i get 2x+ more fars.

Surprisingly good!

Pro Tip: Normal people only answer questions when someone asks a question. You're welcome.

My GUESS is that you are describing an MDC, which is a digital tone that some radios output containing their radio-ID. Similar radios can decode the MDC tone and display the ID, or other person's name on the screen.

My fix would be to send it back and tell them to either send you one that works as advertised, or give back your money.. But, thats just me...

That Joshua Tree repeater has great range - i was hitting it last weekend from out around Desert Center and toward Blythe. The Palm Springs Tram repeater also has great coverage and the Mesa Crest repeater has great High-Desert and Inland Empire coverage.

There's your problem, right there.. The iCom IC2730A is not a GMRS radio.. Good luck!

Is this a trick question? 1) Go into the settings for TX DTCS tone and enter it, then go into the settings for RX DTCS and enter that 2) Virtually all GMRS radios manufactured after 2017, and a large majority of ones manufactured before 2017.. The list of radios that do not support this is very small.

I have one mounted on a cookie-sheet in the window. You only need a few inches of metal around the base, and it doesn't even need to be solid-metal, it can be strips. There is also an inexpensive ground-plane mount you can by that will do the job, but i dont think the hand-railing alone will do the job unless it's at least 6-10 inches wide. My 72G on the cookie-sheet works fine - it has an SWR below 2 and I can hit repeaters 70 miles away and talk on simplex with HT's ~20 miles away.. YMMV based on terrain.

Sir, the term "CCR" is racist and moolahphobic.

The best and most important functions to have on a radio are the ones that are most important to you and allow you to do whatever you want to do with your radio. In other words, only you can answer that question. That said, by far, THE single most important feature to have on a radio is the Roger Beep - because without it you will never be able to draw-out all the Sad-H.A.M.s and laugh at them when they start crying about hearing your Roger Beep.

Is the duplexer correctly tuned for whatever frequency you are using? and are your two RA87s properly shielded to prevent de-sensing each other?

EDIT: Upon reflection, never mind.

Based on all of the detailed information you have provided, I would say "probably a lot of things"

Yah, there is a reason for that.

Ok.. Mine did not do that.. It's not in the user-manual because this radio does not have a Roger Beep.. So yours must be defective. What did BTech Support have to say?

Aluminum will work, but your mag-mount wont stick to it as well as a cookie-sheet.. However the wife will probably complain less about using the foil vs the cookie-sheet. I'm sure that "some people" will leave a more detailed, 10-paragraph explanation complete with the molecular differences between steel and aluminum and the RF calculations, all just to say "it will work" ....

The offset is 462.700 +5Mhz = 467.700 - thats what you are seeing on the screen when you transmit. Because it's a GMRS radio, you dont have to worry about entering the offset because it's all automatic. The radio is working 100% as it should. If people aren't hearing you it is because you are either not in range of the repeater (just because you can hear it does not mean you cant hit/use it from your radio), you put in the wrong tone, or did something else wrong.

You wont find it in the manual because the 50V2 (at least, the one that I had) does not have a Roger Beep.

What kind of report are you trying to download, and as already asked, WHERE/HOW are you trying to download it from?

I want to see him tell us.