gortex2

Can you yes. Should you no. They are ham radios. Use radios with the proper certification.

As said it all depends. In the end its what your going to use it for. Alot of folks on here trash midland gear but its simple to use, relaible and plentiful. If 99% of your stuff is talking to your mobile, to another user on simplex then they make good gear. If your trying to make GMRS ham lite and want 100 repeaters in the radio then its not for you. I have many midlands that are used for what they are. Never had issues with any of them and just ordered another for our new Jeep.

I have to agree with socalgmrs which bothers me but spending a bit more up front on proper gear normally results in happy life and better performance. Ive seen many folks come on here, get annoyed when they use inferior gear then get disgusted with performance and disappear. If your serious about the service buy stuff made for the service and use it. Very few of the GMRS users are on this site. The majority of GMRS users buy a GMRS radio and talk and dont care about all the bells whistles and other stuff.

I dont have that microphone but on my early 275 all channels are narrow band. On my new 275 repeaters are wideband. The 575 lists both wide and narrow available in the manual as well as on the site. The 275 doesn't list that info. Ch 8-14 are not in either radio. I guess is there a need for wide narrow ? I use my midlands to talk to other jeeps on the trail and thats about it. Being 99% of the folks are on hand helds or other midland mobiles it works out of the box. YMMV I'd be curious to know if you do swap mics and it gives you that ability. I am guessing it does not.

Just send it back and get a Part 95 radio

I think solar is great for those that can use it, my issue is it getting crammed down my thoat. For use case our SAR Team has a 40' shipping contianer. This is divided into a 20' storage unit and a 20' classroom. Being we are volunteer and not funded a monthly electic bill isn't the best. We installed a 100 watt panel and some batteries. This year we got a grant to replace the 30 year old batteries. Doesn't cost us anything and is more than enough for a class, or to stop and grab gear at night. I also have a shed on my property. NO AC power in it and only way is overhead due to concreate. I put a 20 watt solar panel, a 3ah battery and a LED strip light. On a motion detector. Perfect to go in grab a wrench or other tool and leave. It wont last 8 hours but fills a need. On the other hand I could not run my house or want to. I wont be alive by the time I make my money back.

I use GMRS same way I've used it for 30+ years. As a tool for my family and friends to talk. I also use it on trails with friends now.

I have used the Laird/Larsen version of that antenna in the past for investigators cars as well as my wifes vehicle. All use was on TLMR and not on conventional simplex stuff. On scene of an incident it worked ok (should I can see all the FF's from my windshield). Larsen still sells this antenna - SB450FME12 for 450-470. So depending on your use case its a good antenna. If you can't talk on a HT from inside your car with rubber duck this wont help. Works very well for close by or good repeaters.

No. All scanner feeds scan certain sources, frequencies. No one just scans unknown frequencies.

If its not the programming it most likely needs to go on a service monitor and get tuned. WHile many are out there that work just fine the manual even state yearly tuning of the XTL series. I'l at least get ii to a shop and have them check the receiver.

In the end your looking for a scanner feed. You are certainly able to set one up on your own. Takes a scanner, PC and internet. I have multiple scanner feed for SAR stuff but dont have any GMRS stuff on them.

myview.motorolasolutions.com is the only official location to get TRBO/XPR software.

I run the Laird on many public safety applications and have never had an antenna break. I dont believe the antenna you mentioned was a laird antenna. The FG series is a rock solid LMR antenna and is used on towers as well as control stations. I have the FG4605 on my base. I also use the FG4500 on a ton of locations. The FG4603 is a great control station antenna. 2 of my repeaters use the FG4607 on towers in the northeast and are almost 8 years old with no issues with snow, wind and ice. I did not want those but tower loading eliminated the DB408 I had planned so had to use those. I used the FG4500 on my motorhome repeater for multiple years as well and a few times forgot to pull it off the ladder and dragged tree branches thru it and it never broke off. They run between $100 and $300. I agree a $1500 antenna is not needed at a house or low level repeater. The 4603 is a $200 antenna max. https://theantennafarm.com/shop-by-categories/antennas-mounts/base-antennas/gmrs-base-antennas/gmrs-omni-directional-base-antennas/8028-laird-connectivity-fg4603-detail

If your going to use a pole barn, put the repeater as close to the antenna as possiblee to limit cable loss. thats the cool part about the midland and RT97. Just run a power cord to it. A decent antenna and a 3' piece of cable terminated with proper connectors will go along way.

I had one on my fathers house. It worked ok but was only on the side of the house. I normally run the Laird antenna as I think they are better built but its twice the price for a comperable antenna.

Or just spend a bit more on a real antenna.

For GMRS I use a mix of Motorola LMR gear and Midland for the KISS method. Ham is mostly on Motorola gear but APRS is on the TMD700 and FTM400 in my vehicles. Work truck is only MSI gear so use it for all.

Ive never had issue but all my gear is commercial LMR other than my HAM radio. I run a TMD700 in the wifes JK and for 10 years in upstate NY had not one issue.

This is an ideal situation for the RT97 repeater. Add a battery and a little antenna and it will sit and tick away.

Or just buy a base station antenna

We have migrated to this mount over time on our SAR team. Its held up the best out of anything we have used. Both in true NMO mount fasion (in a roof) as well as on fender mounts and other not normal installs. The enclosed cable on the bottom of the mount keeps water out and we found it worked better in fringe areas on simplex. I still use the standard NMO from MSI/Larsen/Laird/PCTel on our UHF TLMR stuff but anything VHF is the Larsen one now. When possible I use them on all mounts. My new work truck as 6 mounts and all are the same.

Larsen NMOKHFCX is probably the best mount out there right now. Any Larsen, Laird, PCTEL, Motorola mounts are good.

So it only happens when Jeep is on ? Alot of folks add aftermarket LED lights to jeeps that casue a ton of interfearance. If its only when key is on or running I'd check to see what turns on with the key. If its present regardless then its a radio issue.

Over the years there have been different thoughts on listing repeaters on this site. In the past it was thought if its listed then at least folks know where it is. I had my repeaters listed for years as CLOSED repeaters. I still got messages over and over. I finally removed them from this site so I did not get requests from folks. Others just ignore the emails or lets face it could be in spam or other places.

Normally when the 7/8 hardline enters the building/shelter it goes to a polyphaser on the bulkhead. From there you would use 1/2" superflex to the N on the kenwood. 7/8" is the feedline for the tower only.