Thanks for the welcome, and early too. If I'm ever awake that early, it had better be from not having gone to bed yet. For the foreseeable future the Baofeng will likely be my sole transceiver. At some point I'll probably look into some dedicated hardware, but disposable income isn't so disposable as of late. While I'm not against different antennas/transceivers for different jobs, and certainly understand the benefits of band specific antennas, the more general purpose the better. Also, for any base station style antenna recommendations, keep in mind that I live on the 6th floor of an eight floor building, so while I have altitude on my side, I can't mount anything outdoors as I do not have a balcony. I did locate a repeater listed in a neighboring city which is 3.5mi from work, just under 3.4mi from home, 8.5mi from where my parents, and son live, and 5.5mi from my grandparents. I haven't heard any traffic on it, though that might be at least partly due to antenna limitations. I did send a request to access it, so until I know what PL it's using I don't know if I can light it up, or not. My grandfather was really big in CB back in the licensed days, and even for a while after it. Not sure if he ever crossed over into any other bands, will have to check with him,