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I had been addressing my three kids as "you jokers, smokers, and midnight tokers", which was fun until my 7 year old asked what a midnight toker was. Didn't think my cunning plan all the way through. I just said "it's from a song" and played Steve Miller Band until he quit asking questions.

I probably would have participated in the jabber jawing on the local repeater if they talked about smoking meat instead of soup.

walkietalkiesoftware.com should have a link to download the "programming tools" for your radio which contains the firmware and upgrade tool, programming software, and he manual. That's probably "the software" they're talking about. But the download for the H3 Plus (both GMRS and ham) are getting flagged by the Windows virus scanner as having a trojan so I'm not going to go poking around in there. (The non-plus H3 download didn't get picked up by the scanner.) Like @OffRoaderX, it's probably not worth it. They don't publish release notes but I saw somewhere the last H3 (non-plus) firmware fixed something with the airband frequencies that I never use. Looks like the H3 Plus 1.0.29 firmware might be the latest, which lets you edit channel names from the radio and fixed the VFO scan mode to loop correctly. I doubt you'd use VFO Scan mode on a GMRS radio and editing channel names is a nice to have, but not a critical update.

"Well, you see, little Timmy, sometimes a man buys a radio so he can meet other men and exchange signal reports and talk about antennas." "What about talking to friends and family?" "Yeah yeah, they do that too, but first, let's talk about mag mounts and ground planes..."

to sticky the thread, right?

Fair enough. I forgot about LMR/business licenses. I was thinking about DMR/Fusion/D-STAR.

Nah, you're good. All GMRS is analog FM. CTCSS vs DCS is just a different way of sending the squelch code. I don't think you get into digital signals until you start getting into ham stuff.

Assuming the manuals I have are right: UV5G: Menu 25 should be SFT-D which is Frequency Shift Direction - should be +, and Menu 26 should be OFFSET and should be 05.000. UV5G Plus: Same deal but the menu numbers should be 28 and 29 Not sure if the manuals I'm looking at are correct, so you might have to look around for those.

Bummer. Here's a list of things I'd try: Verify your offset. Channels 23-30 should already be set to +5 Mhz. If you're inside, get outside and away from nearby buildings. I can receive just fine sitting at my desk, but I can't transmit to nearby repeaters unless I'm sitting in a very specific spot (thus the mobile mount on the porch). Make sure your radio actually works. My dead TD-H3s act like they're transmitting and I can pick them up from other rooms in the house but not across the neighborhood, much less hit a repeater 25 miles away. Either send someone out with a second radio to make sure it works or get a cheap SWR meter and make sure the HT is sending power to the antenna. If everything checks out and you still can't get to the repeater, you can try a 771 GMRS antenna. (Edit: could also try to build a rat tail counterpoise if you're feeling feisty, but if you don't already have a wire stripper/crimping tool, you'd probably spend as much on wire, terminals, and tools as you would on a 771)

I do, though. Everyone in this thread is henceforth banned from using GMRS. Banned, I say! Edit: ah, dang it.

I don't have a GM15 Pro, but I found this reddit thread - looks like it's a second set of repeater channels you can set up for different tones.

If not friend, then why friend shaped? I think people underestimate moose, too. Saw a female moose and calf at a ski resort in Utah during the summer and the employees were trying to keep people far away from them. They are absolutely massive and have no problems stomping someone who gets too close.

The repeater I can hear is quiet most of the day. It picks up around lunch and in the evenings but even then it was the same handful of guys who'd hop on to talk about food and complain about sports. Your radio should have repeater channels with offsets already programmed - you may just need to set the TX tone. You can always announce your call sign and ask for a radio check to see if anyone's listening - when I was fiddling with my antennas, I sometimes got a response from one of the regulars even if nobody was talking. If you're looking to talk to random people with a radio, the 2m/70cm ham repeaters around me get way more traffic. GMRS is geared more towards "I want to talk to people in my group" though some people use repeaters for random chat.

I can hit a local repeater about 25 miles out with a 771 clone that I can't with the stock antenna but a 15" whip is annoying inside a vehicle. I also went down the "big antenna = maximum fars" rabbit hole but it turned out I don't really use it except to be a radio dork and listen to that one repeater - the stock antenna works fine like 90% of the time. I bought an even longer whip for ham stuff which did make a difference, but the biggest boost came from sticking that antenna on a mobile mag mount with 16' of coax and putting it out on my front porch. I'd say hold off on the bigger antenna unless your use case requires it. Edit: that said, the Abbree 771 was also like ten bucks so it's not going to break the bank if you want to pick one up just to mess around with it.

Anyone have a TD-H8? The manual doesn't say what the low/med/high power levels but I saw somewhere the low is 2W. Might be a good test radio. The TD-H3 only has low/high and mine is 1W/5W. Rocky Talkie released a video showing how their 2W and 5W radios performed with obstructions - both performed similarly with minor obstructions (more static with 2W but still understandable) and major obstructions/foliage significantly reduced the range of both with 5W doing a little better. It's a marketing video, though, so... grain of salt and all that.

Yeah, I've replaced two of them already and I pulled a dead one out of the bin - glad I tested it before the road trip. I think I'm done replacing them - I'll see if I can find something more reliable. Not sure what else is out there as far as 5W GMRS radios go. Seems like there's the $20-30 "CCR" tier, $100 Wouxuns, and then $200 Midland/Rocky Talkies. I'd be happy to stick with the cheap ones if someone's got a brand that's got better QC.

Kind of hard to holler from one vehicle to another. Not saying it can't be done, just... difficult. The in-laws have handheld CB radios and my wife grew up with a CB radio in the car on long road trips. They usually give him a radio when we have to take two cars on a trip, but my father in law is out on a railcar trip with the CB radios, which is why we used mine and why my kid was the only one handling the radio. Grandma couldn't reach it when he dropped it. I don't think it's "invasive thoughts", I think he's trying to follow the "when you're done with something, shut it off and put it away before moving onto the next thing" rule. Which is great, except he keeps forgetting the rule doesn't apply to radios. (He's done this at home, too.)

Went on a road trip and my 6 year old rode with grandma. I gave him one of my radios and we kept the other. Thought it'd be a fun way to try to talk. In the 20-ish hours of driving: Kid turned off his radio "to save battery" Kid turned off his radio because he wanted to watch Minecraft videos on the iPad Kid dropped the radio and couldn't reach it Kid couldn't hear his radio over his headphones while watching a movie on the iPad Kid said "hi dad, I love you" and a construction worker on the same frequency responded "what?" and my kid went "what?" and the construction worker went "what?" and my kid panicked turned off the radio when he realized he wasn't talking to dad We talked about how big windmills actually are when we passed a blade being transported All in all, a fun experiment. He enjoyed using "dad's radios" and getting to use walkie-talkies somewhere other than the backyard (when it was turned on). Also, sorry, random Illinois DOT guy.

Agreed. It just fit the "I'm gonna look up this person's call sign so I can send them something" thing.

so it's like a mildly threatening QSL card?

maximum pew vs minimum pew

Alright, I passed my general, so now I can talk to anonymous men across the country instead of just anonymous men in my area. Since I don't have an HF rig yet, I hopped on someone's public KiwiSDR and started poking through the 40m/80m bands and heard... old dudes talking about soup. I can't get away from it. Apparently radios are meant for soup chat.

Yeah, they're fine otherwise (they read 8v when not on the charger). Since I have enough of them (all four radios came with two batteries, plus the two batteries from warranty replacements), I can just swap with a spare from the bin without worrying about charging them while using the radio. I'll mark this one but keep charging them separately.

@SteveShannon I didn't take pictures, but I tested the new battery. Drained it to 7.3v and charged it overnight - it's reading 8.5v across the terminals while it's on the charger. Success! Looks like maybe they fixed the battery management circuit and the high voltage coming out of the batteries when they're plugged in and fully charged. Now if only I didn't have a stack of the bad batteries that look identical to the one good one.