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I expect the fee will remain at $70 until they issue another document that includes the date the new values go into affect. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Welcome to the GMRS. Welcome to the forum. Enjoy! Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Welcome to the forum Jeepandy. Welcome to myGMRS. I would recommend you start a new thread with a clear title for your topic over in the General Discussion area of the forum. Doing so will make it easier for you and others to find and track along with the discussion. Once again, Welcome! Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Yes. No doubt. They publicly assert that the radio is a firmware modified version of the KG-UV9P. That suggests that only the firmware is different. The major complaint I have with the ham version KG-UV9P is the display. While I have no complaints with radio performance thus far in 6 months, I find it frustrating as all get-out not being able to view the display to see what channel, frequency, PL codes or signal level except when indoors. I use it nearly every day outside. That issue makes the radio less usable to me than the KG-805G. So unless its radio performance were to be substantially superior (which I doubt) I will stick with my KG-805G for GMRS usage and use my KG-UV9P when I want to listen to non-GMR frequencies.

Welcome to the neighborhood. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Good evening Mike. “So, are you saying that the lower dB gain antenna you have, the higher radiation or take off angle ? “ No, not specifically. Gain has nothing to do directly with the pattern or “take off angle”. The angle(s) of radiation (or pattern) are a function of the antenna design. Antenna gain is a term used to compare the relative signal strength of one antenna relative to another at some defined relevant position. A perfect omnidirectional antenna (does not exist in reality) radiates equally in all directions like a ball. This theoretical antenna has a gain of 0 dBi. This is called an isotropic antenna. The simplest vertical antenna (a vertical dipole) radiates like a big fat round donut. This antenna type has a gain of 2.1 dBi. It achieve its additional gain by not radiating energy directly above and directly below the antenna and instead adds it into the big fat donut shape radiation pattern around the antenna. See Supergoo’s comment above regarding the balloon. High gain vertical antennas achieve their high gain by robbing more and more of the power that would otherwise fill that big fat donut and putting it into a thinner and thinner and wider and wider donut. This is undesirable for you, because you want a fat donut to fill that hollow your are in, fat enough that it will radiate up the sides of the adjacent hills, rather than just at the foot of the hill. If a specific antenna design your considering does have a higher “take off angle” and that angle aligns with the needs of your location that is fantastic. That would suggest that the antenna design favors/top-loads the donut (more power above the mounting plane of the antenna.) You need to temper any expectations about getting over the ridges. GMRS frequencies do not roll very well over ridges. You may get over a little, but you will most certainly need a repeater up on the ridge to reach the other side well. Based on what I know of your situation, I think the 5 dBi of the Ed-Fong about as high gain I would go for starters. Besides, it is an inexpensive investment to try. (BTW, I own and use two of his roll-up variety). There are two things you do not want to skimp on in GMRS: Height and Coax. You need height to get the antenna above the obstacles that block (eat) your signal. But, the higher you have to go, the more signal gets lost in the coax. I currently own LMR400 cable. Others use heliax hardline. LMR400 has about 2.7dB loss per 100’. That means that a 50 watt GMRS radio feeding 100’ of LMR400 cable will result in only approx 25 watts making it to the antenna, and only 2.5 watts will make it to antenna if you start with only 5 watts. Finally, if you buy LMR400 make sure the manufacturer is Times Microwave. Do not buy any LMR-like imitations as I hear they are not even close to real LMR400 performance. I have no personal recommendation for heliax. Good luck. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Welcome! Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

I have raised an inquiry with BuyTwoWayRadios to learn what the duty cycle rating of this product is at each of its 4 power levels. They have acknowledged the question and have committed to getting an answer and letting me know. I will post their response when I receive it. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Hello Jeremy. I cannot speaker to quality and have no experience with it, but I stumbled across this ham radio this morning. The importer asserts waterproof submerged 3 feet for 3 hours. See the following link: https://www.ruggedradios.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2262 Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

https://mygmrs.com/repeaters Make sure you have an account, including a valid callsign. Do a search. When you find repeaters new you, choose the repeater, a new page opens up, then click the ‘Request Access’ button. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Hello Mike. Welcome to GMRS. It is good to hear you are doing your research and you are getting some good information to help you make your decision. If your antenna will live in a valley and you seek coverage on the valley floor and up the sides of the surrounding hills they you are going to want a low gain antenna, perhaps 2-4dBi. A home brew ground plane antenna is a candidate. You could also consider the Ed-Fong GMRS wire j-pole antenna (requires piece of plastic pipe and simple assembly on your end). Before you even consider a broadband antenna you will want to know what the supported SWR limits are of the radio you intend to use. It is reported that some GMRS radios are not warranted above 1.5:1. This is certainly material if you are considering an antenna that could be used on amateur and GRMS frequencies. You could easily find SWR well over over 3:1 in the GMRS frequencies if using a dual band amateur radio antenna. You would have to test actually antenna units to verify. You could look at discone antennas. These are low gain antennas with vary wide bandwidth for working big chunks of spectrum. Perhaps a discussion with the company ‘MFJ’ is in order to get their recommendation. Personally, I would not complicate matters. I would focus on getting your self operating the way you want with GMRS first and worry about the amateur band and antenna separately. Personally speaking, GMRS is primary for me so that antenna goes to the top of the mast. I have separate antennas and radios for each service. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Welcome George. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Good afternoon Steve. Yes, that is correct. The codes make is possible for multiple groups to share the same frequency, but allows you and other members of your group to limit what you hear to only those transmissions that use the same code. Now, this does not mean that two groups can use the same frequency at exactly the same time. You should not. If you do, you will interfere with one another and either your communications or the other parties will be adversely affected. At their essence, the codes make it possible for your radio to remain silent except for when someone transmits using the same code you have your radio set to. When you want to listen to any transmissions that might be occurring on a given frequency, you either press the “monitor” button on your radio, or disable use of any receive code on your radio. I hope this helps. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

You know, I was watching that video expecting to see an antenna still standing while the roof was ripped off. [emoji38] I read about the glue up PITA issue you talked about and was fretting it too. The version I received did not require glue. The couplers simply slide over the lower section and are tightened in place with an allen wrench. Nice! Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Could you post a link to the app you use? Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

The simple answer is, the further away the better. Practically speaking however, at least 1/4 the wavelength of the lowest operating frequency. Any metal in the path of the antenna radiation pattern will affect it, the closer it is the more pronounced the effect. Do expect a bit of a null on the back side of the mast, so position your antenna where the null occurs in a direction of least concern to you. I am prepped to do exactly the opposite of you. GMRS collinear at the top of 46’ mast and amateur dual-band collinear side mounted at 30’. Lower antenna will be offset by 20-24”. In my case the mast is actually fiberglass so my only metal of concern is the shield of the coax feeding the upper antenna. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

That is not an easy question to answer. It depends. The greater the separation between the upper and lower clamps the more effective stress the mast/antenna can withstand before bottom bracket fails and when wind is blowing some directions. The top bracket becomes the weak link when wind blows in other directions. In my case, I have some brackets spaced 4’-6” apart on a 10’ mast which is holding a large-format TV antenna at 5’ above the roof. I would feel perfectly conformable putting the Tram antenna on top of that same mast without any additional support. The better you anchor the brackets to the building, the better you will ultimately be. If you have access to the attic area of your garage, consider adding some additional interior wood blocking where the bolts for the brackets will go if all the bolts do not already bite into the existing 2x framing. Consider longer bolts too to ensure you are seated well into the blocking. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Hello David and Welcome to GMRS. I own, use, and would buy again, the Wouxun KG-805G. It is a good starter radio. I use it with an after-market antenna and the higher capacity battery back and other accessories. I use it with an external antenna in the car. It will cost you more than twice the price of the more costly bubble pack radios (e.g. Midland GXT1000) while remaining affordable enough to allow for one for each family member (IMO) if needed. The radio is repeater capable, audio quality is good, has more than sufficient memories, and is software programmable. It has all the features you will need to have a good initial GMRS experience. Do not get your hopes set to high on distance. Compared side-by-side against the best bubble rack radios you are likely to only see a 10-25% range increase when operating simplex and that is because of the added power and upgrade antenna. But, because it is repeater capable, if you have any local high-profile repeaters in your area that are within your intended area of use you can the expect much greater effective usable range. I expect I will upgrade one or two of my radios in the future, but only when I find one with notably better radio performance and a few additional features that I would like. Until them, I am content with this radio. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Good Afternoon. It is merely an added feature that can at times benefit repeaters owners needing to make it more work (read more time consuming) for unauthorized users to gain access. While some radios do have the ability to scan for the codes sent out by the repeater and used by you to control local squelch, the radio cannot as readily scan for the code that it may take to open the repeater up. Bottom line, if the tone to open is different from tone sent out unauthorized users have more work to do to hack their way in and many may just walk away. Regards, Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

GMRS radios as well as FRS, MURS, Amateur, Commercial and other radios use a technique of transmitting and requiring receipt of a tone (one you will not hear) for the purpose of allowing the receiver (you and your radio) to limit which transmissions are heard. By quick example. Say you have two radios that feature this capability. If both radios are set to Channel 1 and radio ‘A’ is set to transmit a tone of ‘100.0’ and radio ‘B’ is set to also use ‘100.0’ tone, then the user of radio ‘B’ will hear transmissions from radio ‘A’. If however radio “B” is set to receive a tone of ‘67.0’ then the user of radio ‘B’ will not hear the transmissions from radio ‘A’ because they are not using the same codes. In practice, consider also the following scenario. You live in a neighborhood. Every family in the neighborhood has compatible radios and every family uses the same channel. If all families used code ‘67.0’ then everyone in the neighborhood would hear the transmissions of every other radio in the neighbor. This may be good if you were all working neighborhood watch the same evening, but bad if you only wanted to communicate with and hear members of just your family. If you only wanted to communicate with your family, you could set your radios to transmit and receive on a different code of say ‘100.0’ which has the effect of filtering out signals from other local users. Tones are ‘Squelch Codes’ because they are used to control when the squelch (mute function) of your radio opens up so you can hear it. The terms PL (private line), DPL (digital private line), CTC/CTCSS (Continuous Tone Coded Squelch System), DCS (Digital-Coded Squelch) are all used in connection with squelch control. When you see a repeater that gives a ‘tone-in’ value, it is saying the repeater will recognize your radio and will retransmit your signal if you supply the designated tone in your transmission. If the repeater lists a ‘tone-out’ code, it is saying the repeater will transmit that code so that you can use it on your radio to filter out all other transmissions on its frequency that do not use the same code. Codes make it more enjoyable to share a limited set of frequencies with your citizen neighbors without having to hear every conversation that may be occurring. You can always turn off the receive code on your radio which then allows you hear everyone’s transmissions on your current channel. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

I finally made the purchase of the HD 46’ push-up fiberglass mast I referenced in my earlier post. This weekend I rigged things up in a temporary way to conduct tests with local (and not so local) repeaters, as well as do some local simplex work. The image below shows my antenna at full elevation (56’ AGL to tip of Antenna). Mast was installed in a temporary way just for testing. Eventually it will get moved next to the house. Amazing how plumb the mast was being guyed only at 7’3” (not good long term, but good enough for testing). The antenna is a Comet 712EFC Collinear 9dBi. https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/cma-ca-712ef Cable is TMW LMR400 Mast is from DX Engineering. https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/dxe-tfk46-hd All of my testing consisted of using two handheld 5w radios. One feeding the Comet antenna, one in the car using an MXTA-26 antenna. First, the high-point of the testing. I was able to communicate from my home southeast of Cincinnati to the Dayton 700 repeater located 50 miles north(straight line distance) using approx 3 watts of input power into the antenna. Signal report from a Dayton area resident was “very good” and “into the repeater solid”, perfectly suitable for a QSO. That alone made my weekend. On the local front I was able to get into three local repeaters located 20, 21 and 26 miles way. Got in with full quieting to the one 20 miles away (“just as though I was next door”), and with just a hint of noise on the ones 21 and 26 miles away. Getting the antenna up high obviously makes a huge difference. On the simplex front I found I could achieve pretty reliable coverage out 4 to 5 miles where things transitioned to hit and mis out to about 7-8 miles when all seemed to die completely. I expect the reliable range will decrease as foliage comes back. Not bad though for a couple of lower power HT and with good external antennas. It will be nice to experience the positive change to simplex coverage after I up the power of the base and mobile to legal limits. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Welcome Bill, Welcome Nick. Enjoy GMRS Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Good Morning Steve. No, there are no amateur radios manufactured that are strictly legal for use on FRS+GMRS+70cm amateur band. If you read the internet enough I am certain you will conclude that some folks have found radios that can they have activated or modified in some manner to make it possible to technically to do this. If you did find a radio that would allow it, and you were going to comply only with the spirit of the rules, you would need a radio that could be programmed to limit output no more than 1/2 watt on some frequencies, no more than 5 watt on others, and no more than 50 watt on the remaining. That 1/2 watt limit limits the pool of hardware even further, and failure to keep power low on the those designated 1/2 watt frequencies can have an adverse affect on GMRS repeater operation. Sorry, but I have no hardware recommendation for you. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

I agree that you need the permission of the owner to use their repeater. Be a good GMRS citizen and use only repeaters that you have permission to use. If MyGMRS lists the repeater as open and the owner publishes the code in their listing, one can interpret that as permission. I still ask. There are a couple of models of GMRS radios on the market that are derivatives of similar amateur radios and feature the ability to scan for the code. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Channels 23 and above on the Midland GMRS handheld radios are nothing more than unchangeable preset combinations of GMRS/FRS frequency and squelch code (CTCSS/DCS). They are nothing more than a sales gimmick to make the public think the radio can do more than it really can (in the same misleading camp as their absurd range claim). I own many of those radios so I am speaking from experience. I truly wish they would just remove them from the radio. Now, if they were customizable, I might change my tune. If you search the internet hard enough you fill find some charts that identify what the “real” channel and squelch code actually being used. Here is a list I have for the 10-year old version of their radios that I have. It may or may not have changed during that time. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM