gortex2

I really want to get a drone but all my Jeep upgrades are coming first. 

Whoever gave you that information is flat out wrong. JVC Kenwood is still making new radios. Just delivered 25 new units the other day, and they all worked quite well.
 
 

Okay, car analogies aside for a bit, I think I get where you are coming from on the radio front.
On the commercial side, I have almost zero experience with anything civilians can buy for private use, except for owning 4 Moto mobiles.  That said, in my opinion commercial gear (like from Moto and assuming Kenwood based on other experience) will absolutely be a much better quality radio than non-commercial radios, such as radios designed for GMRS or Amateur use. 
 
Typical Commercial Radios Pros:
Will typically have more physical durability. Better weather/waterproofing (in most, not all cases). Better/improved receive sensitivity. Better transmit frequency and power stability. Better protection circuits to prevent accidental damage (antenna shorts and thermal protection, for example). Higher power output options. Higher duty cycles. Something that me and my friends have experienced... you can more commonly run these radios for decades without needing repair and without noticeable degradation in performance.  I have purchased 10+ YO commercial gear that ran just as good as it did on day 1 and still have them years later.  
There is no such thing as a commercial radio not being able to do what a purpose built GMRS or Amateur radio can do.  You just need to purchase a model that will do what you want it to do.  There are plenty things that commercial radios can do that non-commercial / private use radios can do, such as encryption, multiple heads, multiple mics, high volume ambient noise reduction on transmit, for some examples.
 
As for as longevity of non-commercial radios go, we are in a disposable world.  New non-commercial radios simply don't work as well or last as long as commercial radios.  Once you abandon the commercial v. private/amateur gear categories, pretty much all non-commercial gear is the same.  Just a question on if the price and features are there for you. 
 
Everything else is going to be opinion, anecdotal, and personal preference.
 
 
I have noticed that, too.  New troll technique? 

Personally, I would buy a used Motorola XTL2500 or 5000 dash or remote mount radio for a good mobile setup and you could save some money for the programming cable and maybe the software. The Motorola radios will be a lot more durable and will last a lot longer and have some important features that the Chinese radios don't offer.

Its hard to compare commercial LMR radios to CCR/Hobby Radios. I've had every flavor LMR radio (Motorola, ICOM, Kenwood, Vertex, RCA, GE, MayComm, Harris) and its night and day. If your looking at Ham gear I've always bought and used gear from the large manufacturers (Kenwood, ICOM, Yaseu). I currently run a Kenwood TMD700 thats 20 years old. Never had an issue with it. In my new JT I run the Yaseu FTM400 and other than a issue on my end Ive not had an issue. I just grabbed another for another Jeep. Ive run the ICOM 2M stuff alot but mostly switch all my stuff to LMR gear. All digi's run ICOM or Motorola LMR radios and all repeaters are Motorola or Kenwood LMR.
 
 

I guess I'm in the odd side of the thought process here but my "how to gmrs" for my parents was push mic button talk. use call sign. Done. For decades GMRs was for a private group/family only. Other than a radio tech showing us how to operate a new radio (back in the 2-6 channel days) thats all we needed to know. 95% of the GMRS repeaters were installed and maintained by radio shops and not home repeater. Now I see stuff has changed but in the end isn't it still about push mic talk listen ? 
Maybe those wanting the ham lite need more info but a lot of users are just talk listen radio to radio. I mean some of the trips I go on folks dont know how to put there jeep in 4Lo so I dont worry about the radio....

Dont count out Hytera  in this mix, these radios are as good as Motorola in many if not in all ways... And don't count out the Maxon's, they are pretty darn decent and compare equally to Motorola in many ways as well especially if using to build a repeater.   Personally,,   and for the HAM side, i have grown fond to the Hytera 600 and 700 Series radios.. These can also be set up as Repeaters but a little tricky, Maxon's are pretty easy.   These radios mentioned also tune well into the GMRS band if you want..  

Man, Moto is not even close to the same category as any of those radios.  You are comparing radios that were $3,000 to $5,000 new, to radios that are $150 to $500 new.  That is like comparing a an economy Honda to Bugatti. 
 
I am very fond of Wouxun, especially the KG-1000G.  The brand stacks up very well when compared to Yaesu, but I think Yeasu makes a better radio with many more available features.  I would put Wouxun on par with Icom, Kenwood, Alinco. 
 
I don't consider Anytone, Powerwerx or TYT in the same category of any of the aforementioned brands.  They are really budget brand radios.  I don't look down on them, but they just won't have the same longevity, features, durability, stability or performance as the higher tier brands.
 
Also, I a assuming you are either asking for use an amateur bands or just general speaking.  Moto is the only brand mentioned that has models that have the ability to be legally used in GMRS.  All the other brands are good for amateur bands, and some will have LMR/business options, too.
 
 

IMHO, a simple radio should not require a computer connection in order for the operator to access a particular Repeater.

Not to mention the advantage of APRS is the infrastructure. 144.390 is all over the county, albeit lacking in some areas but its the same. We can't get repeaters to work together where are you going to find one frequency in GMRS to use all over the county and not interfere with someone else. Use HAM radio if you want to use APRS

Correct, the payload is the only ting typically encrypted, but the 'repeaters' in a conventional system are also transparent to the data stream.  They look at the signal to see that it's P25 and nothing else.  If it's a 'system' then the data stream is further processed to see that the talkgroup ID and radio ID are encrypted before allowing the traffic to pass.  But if you stand up a stand alone Quantar repeater in P25, and run encryption on the subscribers, the repeater doesn't care or even have the ability to look at the data stream.  Now the headers which carry the ID are NOT encrypted typically.  This becomes apparent when you have a radio that isn't encrypted listening to the secure traffic.  The transmitting radio ID will be displayed, but the audio is muted since there is no way for the receiving radio that's not encrypted or doesn't have the proper key in it to decrypt the radio traffic. 
As mentioned, to have 'wireline' control of the repeater, it requires a DIU with encryption in the DIU to communicate via wireline encrypted.  The repeater isn't encrypting the traffic, that is done by the DIU and the encrypted data stream is fed directly to the repeater and it puts that stream on the air.
 

You might have heard that someone had to 'buy back' an entire system over the issues with the interference that it was causing and getting from surrounding agencies.  I have first hand knowledge of that system.
Those issues were also why the APX line of radios never received the ability to do DMR.  That family of radios were built for public safety in mind of course.  And Motorola didn't want to even go down that road for interoperability.
I know of a Motorola shop owner that did setup a TRBO system after all the mess happened.  He told me that M said if it didn't work, they would pull his dealership from him.   He was a very accomplished RF engineer, and his system did work without issue.  But it was not a case of just taking out the analog repeaters and dropping in DMR on the same frequencies and power levels.  Some of the original frequencies were reused, but some couldn't be.  And the whole thing was re-engineered.  Different antenna's at different heights, and power levels were all significantly reduced.  But DMR requires a different mentality and effort than old school analog radio where you run as much power as allowed as high on the tower as you can. 
This is another concern that I, to this point, have been reluctant to bring up with DMR on GMRS. GMRS users typically do subscribe to the 'height is might' mentality with strong reliance on power.  We hear guys complaining that there 50 watt radio only does 48 watts on their meter (coax loss in the test jumper is the typical cause) and wanting those extra 2 watts.  With that line of thinking, dumping DMR into GMRS in a suburban or urban environment WILL cause interference problems of course.  And getting the max power thought process out of peoples heads isn't going to be possible.  So there is yet another reason to steer clear of the whole idea of DMR on GMRS.
 

I guess I'm in the odd side of the thought process here but my "how to gmrs" for my parents was push mic button talk. use call sign. Done. For decades GMRs was for a private group/family only. Other than a radio tech showing us how to operate a new radio (back in the 2-6 channel days) thats all we needed to know. 95% of the GMRS repeaters were installed and maintained by radio shops and not home repeater. Now I see stuff has changed but in the end isn't it still about push mic talk listen ? 
Maybe those wanting the ham lite need more info but a lot of users are just talk listen radio to radio. I mean some of the trips I go on folks dont know how to put there jeep in 4Lo so I dont worry about the radio....

Those Midland/Retevis repeaters have a very small internal duplexer that can barely create any decent isolation when the repeater is cranking more than 5 watts.
There is no magic bullet. You are never going to find a good, cheap, compact duplexer that passes 95% of your transmitter power and still gives you 90+ dB of isolation. It doesn't exist.
Every rookie with a wattmeter wants to get the MAXIMUM possible output power out of their repeater. I mean, 50 has to be better than 5, right?  In my opinion, the MOST important spec in a repeater system is the isolation between transmit and receive. Especially if you're using portable radios out in the field that can talk back in with 4 or 5 watts of transmit power. 
What good is it to key up your repeater with 10 or 15 watts of power when you introduce 3 or 4 dB of desense into the system? 3dB of desense on the receiver just made your 4 watt portable into a 2 watt portable, and how well is that going to work?
Better isolation = a better repeater.
Want to have a cheap repeater? You will get what you paid for. Cheap is rarely good.
 

I’ve finally figured it out on both of my repeaters! Sorry about all the confusion, I was burnt lol. After taking a breather & eliminating things one at a time, I interfaced it with 7 wires & no interface board. I think the ICS boards are garbage. PL & crisp audio through wireline. I appreciate you both, gentlemen! 

There is no solution. Its not part of the service. There are other services to use if you want to use digital. The service has been around for decades. Many of us have had repeaters for decades for our personal use. I don't know why the huge influx to the service happened but its good and bad. Very few places in the US have issues with congestion so I don't see changing a service because one city or state has an issue. There are threads of arguments over a "travel" channel. Its said we cant use certain channels above Line A and folks say who cars its only one state. So in the end every part of the service has pro's and cons for a particular area. 
JMHO

Congress gave the FCC the right to get involved in local wireless communications, as well as justification to exist as an agency when they passed the Communications Act of 1934.
And just FYI, complaining/arguing/chest-beating about it in an online forum wont change anything - If you really want to change/eliminate the FCC start by contacting your congressman or an attorney.

The original was the Garmin Rhino which exchanges GPS data between handhelds and then displays your friends’ locations on a very nice topo map.  AFAIK it was entirely proprietary also. They are still very nice radios and one of the few not manufactured in the PRC.

Wow, so I finally broke down and added three specific individuals to my 'Ignore" list, and *man* is this a much more useful and enjoyable forum all of a sudden!

Who gave the right to the Biden administration to raise the price of toilet paper? It's getting cost prohibitive to take my morning dump. I'm not going back to the good old days where corncobs were your first choice when you got to the last page of the Sears catalog. I have no problem with the FCC because I follow their rules and guidelines. I don't se an issue here.

There's a little-known Constitutional amendment, the 28th, I think it is, that says "This amendment gives the Federal Government the right to get involved in local wireless communications. And justification to even exist as an agency."

Gee, couldn't get anywhere finding someone dumb enough to petition the FCC for DMR or some other digital modulation format on GMRS , so you decide to bring up the question of the actual existence of the FCC.  DO you actually work for a living or are you stuck in your house, just sitting there figuring out new ways to post stuff on the web to wind up the masses and cause trouble? 
 
I said this before, if YOU don't like the service, find a different one.  Or go entertain yourself with freeband, pirating on commercial frequencies, or just put Zello on your cell phone and use that.  It's become clear that you are not here to have a reasonable conversation about any topic that resembles reality and instead just post things that will stir up the best result. 
Welcome to the ignore list.  You have joined a rare bunch that up to now only included OffroaderX.  May the two of you find happiness in limbo.
 

Well, I wouldn't go saying triggered, but the subject has been brought up many many times as many people have said and I have personally watched most Hams "empty out of the room" so to speak when it comes to using the VHF/UHF bands where these digital voice modes are used. Not only has that happened, but many Hams will straight up talk very badly about these bands right over the air and get other new Hams to trash talk these bands. What is really sad is that they have added many different digital voice modes, DMR being one of them, to these bands and not only does it cause Hams to trash talk the bands even more, some fly off into a rage about how digital voice is not real Ham radio and they will go as far as having certain feelings (not good) about those who use it. Like I said, there is literally over 1 GHz worth of space to play with on these bands where you can do digital voice. DMR only takes up 6.25 KHz per channel (utilizing time slots). There are some places where some of these bands are dead. There is literally no one on them at all. You could set up pirate radio stations (not condoning that) and no one would know, as in, that dead.

So when people get on here with ideas about DMR on GMRS and someone like me has seriously watched Ham bands, where this is more than allowed, dry up in front of his face, yes, it can be pretty irritating to see the posts. So, Yes, Ham Radio all the way. Just dont get sucked down the HF rabbit hole when the Hams with higher class licenses come around coercing you to upgrade your license to join the HF crowd in contesting, otherwise, you will become like every other Ham abandoning the VHF and UHF bands to talk around the world doing contesting.

GMRS is meant to be analog for people just simply trying to communicate between family and friends. Would I personally love to see DMR on GMRS. Absolutely. But not with the limited space and lack of control over the band the way it is now. Ham Radio is the place to be for digital because you have all sorts of freedom to experiment with it any way you want, minus encryption. 

19 can't be used by the something like 20% of US citizens who live above Line A...