gortex2

As said your radio is narrowband and some users are on wideband hence making the voice lower. I've used the 275 in all my off road vehicles since they hit the market. Folks on this site complain about midland non stop but they are the only GMRS only radio in the market. All others are CCR with different firmware in them for GMRs, Ham or other services. And lets face it 90% of the GMRS users are not on this forum and use it on the trails, woods and farms all day every day and dont have issues. As suggested next time have yourr friend change to a narrowband only channel. Channels 1-7 shoudl be narrow band on all radios already and will work fine on your 275. The last JJ I was on we had 16 jeeps on our trail and 14 of them had midlands. 1 had a motorola T600 and the other user had a CCR. He was the only one who complained all day about communications. Not saying he was the issue but when majority of the users use the same gear and one or 2 dont it can casue issues. Day prior the channel given to us was a channel not in any mobiles. Most of the trail vehicles for that trail had mobiles so the trail guide found another channel. In the end its all how you need to use the radio. The MTX is an ideal radio for the Jeep or Bronco and trail ridiing. As for antenna and placements as you know on the Jeep they suck. Best placement is a hood lip mount with a decent antenna. I run a 1/4 wave on most of my jeeps and never had issues on the trails. I do have a "pepper" shaker on one of the jeeps but again never issues with the jeeps on the trail. If your looking to talk 50 miles then thats not the best option on the east coast. Roof is the best place for an antenna but fiberglass, or no top doesnt help. I di run a half wave in the summer on my roll bar as I dont run a top all summer. In winter its on a fender mount. Have no experience with the bronco but know alot of guys use a A pillar light mount with decent results. I sue midland for the KISS method. I use my APX for my radio hobby.

1 - Really depends on you plans. For most stuff at home I run the cheap RTL noolec dongles. Last one was $35.00 on jungle site. For work I run the Airspy as its a much better unit. But its over $100/ 2 - Nommally no cables come with the USB dongle. Lots of places sell a kit you can order but most have a SMA connector. So any SMA adapter to your antenna cable works fine. 3 - No software is included with many of them. Each manufacturer has some flavor of software. Depends on your use case. I use SDR TRunk at home for TLMR stuff as well as on the road. There are lots of software packages online. 4 - Any flavor of windows will work. I run stuff on PC's as far back as W7 to my current W11 PC. Even run a few application on a rasperry pi. All in all it really depends on what your plan is with an SDR. Most are narrow banded and can only pick up 2-3 mhz at a time. So for TLMR in VHF UHF a single dongle may not work for listening to more than control channel. I run 2 dongles on most of my TLMR applications. The air spy is a wider band and thats why I use it for work stuff. IF we knew what your looking to do it would be easier to give you ideas.

APRS DRoid will only take valid HAM call signs. And requires a passcode. It can also be used without internet as we do for some of our SAR stuff. Yes internet allows igates so users can see eachother on APRS.fi or other sites to monitro APRS but in 30 years of APRS use by myself nothign I have ever had used the internet to beacon locations, wx or messages. In its day it was a great tool and was used alot more than it is now. Now I can send a text on my phone in 2 seconds vs pulling over on the side of the road and typings on a querty keyboard to reply to a message.

Thisi s part of the reason none of my repeaters are listed. I ran into this in the north. Then we had a huge storm and the next week I got 100 emails of people complaining of coverage or no one answered them. I told many up front I do not answer and thats not why the repeaters were on the air. I finally removed them from listings and changed frequencies and DCS tones. Oncei n a while I'll get some one on one of them asking for radio checks. Normally I ignore and they go away. There is also a false understanding that repeaters are just therel ike cell sites and people must monitor the channels. Not how it works. Many here realize repeaters are done by volunttersd and not government but many dont realize that.

I run the MTX-275 in all my Jeeps for trail communications. Paired with 1/4 wave UHF whip on an NMO on all.

The F21GM was the UHF GMRS Version of the radio. When I was an ICOM dealer we sold a ton of them to hunters. It was firmware locked to GMRS/FRS. https://www.ameradio.com/doc/Icom_IC-F21GM_brochure.pdf

Are you asking about a HAM radio or GMRS. Being you said HAM I want to clarify. If HAM, Yaseu, Kenwood, ICOM are all decent solid units that have been in the market for years. If GMRS... I wont comment as this forum is a CCR happy forum. I use Motorola Equipment and Midland for my Jeep. Midland for KISS method and Motorola for my normal GMRS conversations.

1/4 wave UHF will outperform most of that amazon garbage. And drill a hole and install a NMO.

No...None of them are listed on the forum. 2 different sites.

youll spend more money and time trying to rig something up that may or may not work. a NMO mounted in the roof is your best and cheapest solution. I had 6 on my F150. Frilled the holes with 6 miles on the truck. My $100K challenger had a hole in it with 26 miles.... If you do it right its better in the end and wont affect any value of the vehicle.

Dont have any of these issues with a simple quarter wave...

Speakers are along back window. Works perfect for 4. I had ordered the covert ones but they didn't arrive in time so used the standard speakers. I had been tempted to swap them out but thye work solid. I put them on an aluminum angle iron to an aluminum flat stock. It bolts into a factor bolt and has 3m tape. It is solid.

"Team Drill" - Meaning no mag mounts no glassm ounts, drill the darn hole. As for my preferred NMO I use a mix of MSI and Laird. The Laird NMOKHF200NOCONN is my preferred mount but all my radios come with the motorola NMO and use them alot as well. I like the Laird as it is a sealed bottom and in the fringe areas on VHF simplex we are in for SAR they help that little bit. They are also ideal for antenna brackets on some Jeeps and are pretty water resistant vs standard NMO with the plastic cap on the bottom. All my Jeeps run that mount and a couple are almost 15 years old and stil lsweep fine. I do run the Laird NMOKHFDSTHK on one of my Jeeps with my BACK RACK as its a good 1/8" steel and a standard NMO wouldn't work. We run those same mounts in our command post as they are aluminum in construction (like an ambulance). In the end I've never had issues with either the MSI or Laird and still install MSI mountso n all our UHF stuff as thatsm ostly repeater or TLMR use and not simplex.

@SteveShannon as you are aware a properly installed NMO will not leak nor casue issues with resale trade in value. Other than my Jeeps every vehicle I have owned for 30+ years has had NMO mounts in the roofs. On my last F150 (2020) it had 6 NMO plus 2 GPS antenna's. My previous F150 (2019) had 4 mounts and the dealer never said a word when I traded it in. I put black NMO caps on them and I am sure no one even realized they were there. I've probably installed over a thousand NMO mounts sinces I've been in 2 way radio and in the end its always the right choice. As said I like the simple approach of not seeing cables, worring about cables etc. I drive thru car washes all the time and I'd definately not do that with a mag mount. I'm definately team drill it.... (btw...even my 2023 Scat has a NMO in the trunk for a 1/4 wave VHF...)

I run the bulletpoint grid in my frontier. Has my phone mount as well as camera mount. Just doens't work well for a tablet. Puts it to high for my liking in the frontier . I ran RAM mounts in the past but they dont make one for the new Frontier yet.

6.12.05 is 10 meg zip file...so ya your missing stuff.

Make sure the center pin of your antenna is actually touching the NMO center pin. Alot of times the mount is not instaleld right and depending on antenna it may not touch. The old larsen wouldh ave this issue when swapping between vehiles. The metal tab would bend up after years on the vehicle then the new mount would not touch.

I'll try to snap a pic of the decks and speakers later today but this is the heads. The new Frontier leaves little room for radios and no one makes a mount for it yet for PC/Tablet. So went from 4 heads in the F150 to 2. The micsare on a metal plate thats 3m tape to the side with magenetic mics on both. I wish I had those 25 years ago doing installs.

Nice to see real radios once in a while. Our SAR team still uses MCS2000 VHF 110 watt decks. Can't kill them. I'll have to snap a few pics of my trucks. Work truck has 4 8500 with dual deck E5 control heads. Tight fit but only option I had in the Nissan. Both JK and JT run 8500's with O3 HHCH. I do miss the full head on the Jeeps but for the space thye work the best. In the JK I've bounced between an O5 and the O3 about 5 times now. The O5 actually sits nicely right in front of the shifter. I may grab another E5 for the JK just to simplify stuff and make it easier to see the channel for us old guys..

For the price you will spend on 2 mobiles, or a mobile and a repeater module and vehicle extender you can grab a GR1225 or Vertex online. If our seto n using 2 radius mobiles they are online for $25-30 all day long. I stopped listing them as it cost me more to ship than I was selling them for.

^^^^ What he said. Dont skimp on COAX. The RT97 and Midland repeater is ideal for your situation. Just give them 12v and walk away. If you can do 10' of coax with a good antenna the RT97 works great if you can get it in a good location. My motorhome had the RT97 with a 3' Jumper to a LAIRD 3db gain fiberglass stick. Covered the entire campground I was at on a handheld. If your only using handhelds no reason to use a bigger repeater. Its all on antenna location.

How do you know the repeater is working properly or duplexer is tuned correctly. Depending on duplexer there may be some desence on TX but if you can talk simplex fine then either its a configuration issue or a equipment issue with the repeater.

Well Id start with the map on this website and see if any are listed. Next I'd listen to every pair via a HT or mobile. Next I'd listen to each pair at the location and antenna you want oput the repeater on. From there I'd pick a channel/.

If recorder has right and left inputs. Leave one side on mobile radio for rx then second to a SDR listening to your TX frequency.

You can't dop that. Your VXR is going to have a duplexer correct ? That is tuned for TX and RX channels. You can't flip them and use it the way you plan.