Bogieboy01

Shot yourself in the foot right there.... if its a short distance use class, linking repeaters makes it no longer short distance....

If swr is halfway decent it will work just fine... i have been operating a 25w anytone 778uv base setup(just upgraded to 50w anytone 5888uv, which seems to output about 42w on gmrs) off a "bingfu" 30" mobile dual band antenna literally electrical taped to a piece of conduit with a radial ground plane, and can operate a repeater 22 miles away on a daily basis, on a $30 antenna showing approximately a 1.9-2.2swr on gmrs frequencies.... and i can hit the repeater better than someone right up the road from me also running 50w, thru a commercial 6' comet for gmrs, with a 1.4 swr across the repeater band.... All that said, TLDR..... get the free antenna and see what it can do.... worst that can happen is the FREE amtenna doesnt work well, and you end up padsing it along to someone else who can use it....

The radio i use in the secondary vehicle has a BNC installed on it, the rest of my radios all basically have a single use in mind, so the antenna stays put most of the time...

Second this, i have 2 vehicles, and have only had time to install a mobile in one of them, when i want to drive the other AND talk to anonymous men on the radio in the other vehicle, i have a mag mount antenna that i hook to a Boofwang ar5rm with a hand mic, crazy part is the range is not all that different with an 8w handheld than it is with my 25w mobile rig... granted both of them are operating on stubby ghost antennas....

There should be an option in the menu for naming the repeaters, i have my ar-5rm set up this way, witha ll the repeaters names... then it was just changing a setting in the menu of the radio, or in chirp for the name to show instead of the freq...

Not to poke the bear but YOU are the one that said a 15" antenna would not fit in the standard box, and severeal others have proven that to be incorrect. I myself have ordered several radios from baofeng and Btonera, all with 15" whips in the standard sized box, doubled over as others have demonstrated. Also the gaslighting of "i try to be helpful" right after being proven wrong? The " holier than thou" vibe i get from this post has me one click away from the blocked list... just saying. If you know @OffRoaderX at ALL.... sarcasm is a thing, and all his posts that are not tech related should fully be read in sarcasm font... so dont get your panties in a wad....

Wondering it anyone on here might have a copy of the band change software for an anytone at5888uv dual band, for the 1.0 firmware (pre 08/2013 build dates) that they could send me, just got a steal of a deal on a 5888, but it is currently locked to professional mode, which only allows freqs on the 430-440 mhz spectrum for uhf. The version 1.0 cps does not allow band changes, and i have tried the 2.0cps to no avail, as well as the 5888uvIII unlock tool to no avail either.

If you get a mag mount on the roof it would likely perform even better.... i run one of the chinese copies of the midland on my car, and can get 20+ miles to the local repeater with no issues with my 778uvII

Hmmm... never heard of OSO....

Potentially, i am working on getting a ham license, and may look into it... last i saw the callsign was still listed as active though, and was renewed in '23, not sure if that will stay active for the 10 yr span or not?

Maybe i am a wierdo... but i purchased a used anytone off ebay a few months back, and it had a calk sign programmed into it for the boot screen, i looked it up and the gentleman had passed away early this year, and he had a lot of similarities in life to myself and my wife..... i kept that call sign programmed in, in memorium of him. I never met the guy but i can tell you if i id did, we would likely have been great friends... i like to think he might be watching over me as sort of a "silent Elmer"... Like i said.... maybe i am a wierdo....

Thanks for the info, i am getting close to being confident in passing the technician license, so thats one step closer, but my wife isnt too excited about being a "radio dork"....LOL i would likely have better luck trying to skip 11m to her truck cb than getting her to get any sort of ham ticket...

Yeah, thats the sort of thing that actually got me looking into radios, was the rapid radios ads on my local talk radio, thinking hmmm... that could come in very handy having long range comms for an emergency....but then find out that they all use LTE, so its kinda pointless in a situation where a cell phone wouldnt work.... for context on this, my wife is an over the road trucker, so having long distance comms for us is vital.... especially considering that any given truck load that she hauls "could" put her right in the path of a blizzard, hurricane or tornado... Still havent found a viable/reliable setup past cell phones for these types of situations unfortunately...

Guess we gotta up our game on our boofwang handhelds.....just saw this on facebook today....

Put that baby on a mag mount and fire away on the roof top.... have mag mounts eith the knock off cheapo ghosts on both my vehicles, work absolutely great, my daily has the anytone 778uvII, and the fun truck has just a boofwang ar-5rm with a speaker mic and the mag mount antenna.... both get the job done good enough for me, granted the 25w 778uv does get out better thru the foliage this time of year than the fun truck....