wayoverthere

Will do, thank you. Working through initial setup teething. got ahold of CPS 16 and it straight refuses to load on the laptop. Tried it on another computer and it loads, but it isn't recognizing the radio. Going to grab the 6550 from the post office tomorrow, and see if that will play nicer.

Is Midland still including it on the mxt115? I know the one I bought in 2020 definitely has it ?

The main menu items for PL (aka CTCSS) tones are T-CTCS and R-CTCS. Hit the menu button to select that item, turn the channel knob to scroll through, and press the menu button again to confirm.

Good to know..will keep in mind for another tinkering project ?

No worries. I don't own that radio (though tempting), so I was going off of the info on buytwowayradios. https://www.buytwowayradios.com/blog/2020/11/wouxun-kg-1000g-mobile-gmrs-radio.html

My 45 and 50 watt rated radios tend to be between 10 and 11 Amps draw on high power. I want to say around 4.5 amps for the 20 watt rated anytone at779uv (twin to the retevis ra-25 @back4more70has). You should be okay on medium on the wouxun, whether you have it set for 10 or 20 watts. One thing to bear in mind looking at watts the outlet can handle, vs radio power output is everything else that needs power between input to the radio, and output to the antenna. 50% is good for a very rough estimate of input vs output when looking at wattage . Alternator noise is a possibility, but not as common an issue at gmrs frequencies. (Both of my at779uv are powered from the 12v sockets in the truck and beater car)

Yeah, my better half loses interest as soon as I utter the words "radio" or "antenna"...was worth a shot, though ?

In a convoy, it should serve you well over reasonable distance; strictly handheld, the vehicle isn't entirely helpful with the signal getting out, but you can set up an external (mag mount) antenna pretty easily. Gmrs is gaining popularity in the off road realm, especially with Midland throwing its marketing behind it at some of the events. Function wise, ham-lite is fairly apt, as it works pretty similar to 70cm ham band; some antennas can cover both. Repeater wise, there are still holes, yes, but the number is growing, including as linked networks. Midwest gmrs is a big one in the region, and might be worth keeping an ear for on your trip. While I believe this site is head and shoulders the best listing, there are others that may have some not listed here. Repeaterbook, while mostly aimed to hams, has been adding gmrs listings for the last year or so, and 'USA gmrs association' has some as well. The license covering family can be a bonus here; there's a lot of family use on gmrs, while still room to experiment with what works, what your coverage is like, etc. Maybe you can get the wife on board with her own 935g, or something simpler like an 805g. ?

Realistically, Gmrs doesnt have as much of a "hobbyist" crowd as other services, at least in many areas. Central CA is similar, though there are a couple repeaters up, and a few people on them here and there. It was a bit of a letdown at first, but there's starting to be a little growth. Emergency use...I'll say it really varies based on the area. from what you describe I wouldn't want to depend on it. There's a lot of repeaters out there, quite a few open, and a few under the radar and unlisted (nor are they are they required to be). There's definitely the occasional outdated listing that isn't still up or operable. Good choice on first radio, imo. One other limiting factor (and lack of repeaters plays into this) is that gmrs is much more of a line of sight signal than cb. I'd be surprised if you aren't hearing a little bit of kids or businesses, though.

So...dmr. was up and running for a bit, boiled down to the talkgroups I started with being stone dead. Not sure if it's currently not working or just dead groups again...not a super high priority for a minute...back to this in a minute. I'm realistic about the db20g/779uv...it's good for the price point, and for portability, but I have no illusions of it matching any of the big names for quality or longevity. Also quoted what I did because I'm about to go down the Motorola rabbit hole. Recently picked up a xpr6580 (that should be in the mailbox now) and added a xpr6550 to the queue today. Given the availability of sample codeplugs, it shouldn't be too hard to make sure I'm on the right track with it. Looked out of curiosity, bout the triband is OOS everywhere now. ended up picking up a 2m/1.25m wouxun and a vx7r in January. Haven't heard much on either, other than some repeater ids from the Condor network, and one that's linked into the local club's 2m & 70cm machines (on 1.25). 6m is all quiet, even plugged into a mobile antenna on the truck. Curious what I'll find on 33cm next.

Good to know...might have to look for one of those...sounds like it would pair nicely with my setup (previously had crossband set up 1 way for ham, but moved that radio to the truck).

Diamond rates this one at .1 db insertion loss, and 60db of isolation between ports. https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/dmn-cx210a I have one on my desk currently; when my faltering btech gets retired, I'm planning to drop it in between the diplexer and my uhf radio, so I can switch between the feed to the dual band ham antenna (comet gp1), and the gmrs antenna (Midland 3db whip)

They both dropped it after I told them "no, that one is ham radio, and this one is gmrs". That scanners don't generally have microphones would sort of support the 'lack of expertise' kind of thinking. that I don't have any public safety stuff in the scan list of either one probably isn't a bad thing either.

When I was stopped by LE not too long ago "for the trailer ball obstructing the license plate," both officers separately asked if the radios in my truck were police scanners (icom 2730 and anytone at779uv).

Yes, the current part 95e rules don't leave much leeway for radios to transmit outside of gmrs and still be able to gain certification; the rules do allow for another certified service (dual 90/95e certification), but there appear to be few (if any) radios with that dual certification. Much of the gmrs gear on the market is closely related to ham gear, with firmware changes for compliance (only allow transmitting on the approved 462.xxx and 467.xxx frequencies. Those repeaters in the 100's and 200's you refer to are probably ham or public safety; 144-148 and 222-225 are ham, while the 150's has a bunch of business and public safety (MURS is there too, but no repeaters). A side effect of the hardware being related to ham is that many will be able to receive a whole lot of spectrum outside of gmrs (just not transmit). I believe my btech receives 136-174mhz and 400-520mhz, plus commercial fm. Some can receive even more (like the wouxun kg1000g).

Agreed...something to be aware of, but if the first set imports correctly, all is good....they're convenient starting points, not full grab-and-go configurations. Didn't mean to add any confusion.

They all have a bit of learning curve, as far as I've seen....some similarity, but unless they're twins there always seems to be a few differences between brands or even models.

I was thinking the same...default value, like 023 in DCS...gets ignored unless tone mode is set to tone, tone sql, or one of the dcs settings.

It's under the "Subscriptions" link in the sidebar on the main pages (rather than the forum page). If you hit the "repeaters" link at the top of the forum page, that will have the main page sidebar available (3 lines near the top left of the page). https://mygmrs.com/profile/subscriptions

I haven't been back up that way recently, but when we traveled up through Utah in 2017, we had the latter part of one day, and most of the next morning with no cell signal. the motel that was our overnight stop had no phones in the rooms, and the internet connection dropped somewhere around 10pm. in preparation for that, i'd loaded a number of frequencies (some amateur, some public safety) into the only radio i had at the time, a baofeng. looking back with more knowledge now, i don't actually know how much good it might have been, had it been needed; while definitely unlikely, circumstances where those conditions could be met don't seem all that farfetched...things like sat phones and PLBs seemed a little of a stretch given we were largely sticking to state and interstate highways, save forays into the parks. on a side note, Dead Horse Point would have probably made for some awesome range.

Indeed...have ended up with both ends of the spectrum. I have one from Amazon that looked like nice thick wires...nope,just kidding, it's thin wires with extra thick insulation, and the t connector doesn't even fit...for those I just hit dx engineering. (DC power cable assemblies) The premade power poles were west mountain radio, iirc.

Fairly common connector in the ham and LMR world, and you can find extra harnesses with bare wires, or t connector to power pole connector fairly easily. I made a similar connector for mine, with 12v socket on one end and power poles on the other (my alinco psu has 2x power poles on the front and binding posts on the back).

Ahh, yeah, that's worse. I didn't see the separate days part...lacking a context, it seemed like it was the 8 times all together as part of one incident. Sympathy status off.

Yeah, that would make a lot more sense if there's more than is being reported. Given that comment you found, that does also support there's more there than Is being covered. Maybe what we're seeing is all they have him dead to rights on Not exactly sympathetic either...seemed big for what was presented, but makes a lot more sense if it was the tip of the iceberg of his activities and just what they could actually nail him with...ala al Capone.

Good catch...the impression I get from what I can find seems like he didn't continue after that...is there something else I'm missing?