AdmiralCochrane

On the MXT400, you can program all 30 memory channels to the same frequency with 30 different PL's if you wish

Yes water could have compromised the coax

Local terrain makes or breaks GMRS and other UHF. 2 hills and tall buildings between me and the nearest repeater at about 2 miles, I can hardly get in with a MXT400 on full power with my antenna at 40 feet elevation. Flat terrain with a tall antenna (or your base on top of a hill) for direct line of sight is a winner

I picked up an antenna from a pile of demo stuff not knowing what it was. It turned out to be labeled as a 2gig unit. It was enclosed in a plastic case so I cracked it open to measure the actual element to see if it might have some use for me on VHF or UHF ... the more I thought about it, the more I decided the only way to tell would be to hook it up with the swr meter key the mic and find out. I might have to add or subtract one element or it might be completely useless, but only the swr meter will tell in the end.

Hams also use "contact"

Half way up a hill and no one behind you? I don't understand what the practical application of a yagi would be with a repeater??

A long running thread on this exact subject on radio reference.com https://forums.radioreference.com/threads/part-95-gmrs-radio-list.275040/

A point to remember, even though Part 90 radios are normally illegal to TRANSMIT on the GMRS band/channels, there is the emergency use exception when human life and limb are in danger; sort of a Good Samaritan rule. The ability to do this in disaster situations is a valuable asset. As scanners and receivers, they are 100% legal to RECEIVE GMRS transmissions at all times.

That doesn't mean the selectivity is sufficient enough to reject closer noise that makes weak on-frequency transmissions readable.

They could still have legal use. Just because they are illegal to transmit on GMRS doesn't mean they are illegal to use to receive GMRS, '

Didn't appear rude or condesending to me, you simply asked a valid question and I honestly answered. I agree about VHF but drawback on this forum is inablity to monitor GMRS channels that would be possible on many UHF and dual band radios. Even if there are 200 possible used radios, I still wish there was a pro/con comparison thread.

Only my ignorance. I'm getting a lot of Elmering here. I wish there was a thread specifically for this subject with the pros and cons of the various radios mentioned.

Thanks for all the responses, you guys have been very helpful and I appreciate the guidence. I found tons of info on the 1225's and tons of them on eBay for varying prices. Am I correct that there was a UHF version, a VHF version and a dual band version? I looked at 30 or 40 web search results other than eBay and could only be certain of identifying the single band units and the LS and another version that were obviously unsuitable. If I could figure out which model of the 1225s is dual band and can find a dual bander for less than $60 I'll get one to try. I don't know which radio or model it was, but in one of the things I found, there was mention that the programming software wasn't compatible with newer operating systems. This is my example of though there may be "better radios" out there at the same price point of CCR's, availability of such is limited to those who have specific knowledge of specific radio models or an Elmer to guide them.

OK, I looked at the P1225s on eBay and did some other searching. Where is the programming cable and software for these? It appears to be a stumbling block to using them. Also there seems to be a mystery to decoding which models are VHF, UHF or dual band; sellers rarely seem to know anything except that they are radios. Can you point out where this info can be found. I spent about a half hour searching and am coming up blank on these answers.

I've never found better made radios close to the price of CCR's, usually double or triple to move up, sometimes 4 or 5 times. My "junk CCR's" performance has been only marginally worse than the name brand Japanese radios I have replaced them with, maybe I have been lucky. CCR's are an entry point to the hobby. The firearms comparison isn't close, a High Point pistol often doesn't function at all, much less poorly.

Valid considerations, but I decided I wanted the ability to jump into the repeater momentarily if I thought simplex would be too weak. Repeater traffic in my area is very sparse and infrequent; its exciting to hear one contact per week.

Actually my question was answered when it was revealed that the antenna I questioned was identified as a stacked dual band unit and not a UHF only antenna.

It occured to me while programming my programmable radios that if you programmed a channel to both receive and transmit on a repeater's input you would be able to hear a nearby transmitter and determine if it was close enough for simplex or not and instantly respond on the repeater with the results. I decided this was practical on most GMRS radios because we would already have the repeater output as a simplex channel and another memory channel for repeater use and a full spilt wasn't really needed. If you programmed them in succesively as 15, 15r, and 15s you could easly flip back and forth.

I think this is because FCC sets the repeater offsets without exception for GMRS and on the ham bands, there are a few exceptions. Because of this, the aren't choices for GMRS, but there are for ham.

So, if I switch the receiver on the second radio to wide band, half of the possiblitiies are eliminated, right?

Time will tell

I failed to mention that I monitored the retransmit from the repeater with a second radio. There's just not that much traffic in my location.

If you have a cell phone, you have a decoder

Not getting that on this particular repeater in my neighborhood.

Talkaround is repeater offset defeat. Uses a preset channel normally used with a repeater (and different transmit and receive frequencies) but directly using the normal receive frequency for both transmit and receive (also known as 'simplex')