gortex2

This^^^^

It gets hard sometimes. Part of the reason I took a break was because I was sick of the arguments.
 
Anyway, I sent the radio back to Midland last week for an alignment and to have the power turned up. Let's see how this goes. 
 
When I get it back, I'll retest the power output and blow the dust of the signal generator to test receive sensitivity.

Guys lets get back to the Midland MTX500 stuff.
There is a section in the forums for arguing called Amateur Radio or Miscellaneous Topics

You will spend more money on cable and connectors than the antenna many times. Spend more on the proper antenna. As gman1971 said terminate the cable where it breaches the building and ground with proper lightening protection (again $$) then run a smaller cable. If a short cable (under 10')  is needed RG142 or similar could be used to the mobile/base/portable. 
With all of this said manage expectations. Using ham grade home made antenna and RG8 cable will not give you the benefits you hope for in most cases. There will be those that claim its better but YMMV. Determine your use case. If this is a repeater or abase for simplex spend the funds and do it right. If its just a way to hit a local repeater then you may not need what you are looking for. 

Guys lets get back to the Midland MTX500 stuff.
There is a section in the forums for arguing called Amateur Radio or Miscellaneous Topics

Guys lets get back to the Midland MTX500 stuff.
There is a section in the forums for arguing called Amateur Radio or Miscellaneous Topics

Guys lets get back to the Midland MTX500 stuff.
There is a section in the forums for arguing called Amateur Radio or Miscellaneous Topics

If you want an LMR style rig look for a M1225 or CM300. the other great GMRS radio is the CDM1250/1550 but watch the 1550. There are a few models and one only has limited conventional support. The 1250 is a rock solid unit and can be had for under $100 if you shop around. 

Guys lets get back to the Midland MTX500 stuff.
There is a section in the forums for arguing called Amateur Radio or Miscellaneous Topics

That appears to be the 160 Ch so should be the proper one. I don't have my programming PC in front of me to check a code plug with that model.
Some good info in this post from before also - CDM1550LS+

And also remember the cable cost. 60' mast means at minimum 75' of cable to get you in the house. RG/LMR is most likely not the best option here. You really want LDF hardline which will cost almost or more than your mast. As was stated earlier 60' is on the edge of a mast. I would start looking at tower sections. Rohn is solid performer and 50' with a 10' mast of aluminum would be ideal. Still needs guyed but will stay up much longer than pipe bolted together. Budget everything you need and decide if 60' is really what you need. 
 

In several threads where I have posted about using Motorola DTR410's to monitor local Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) radios, many have said that this requires special equipment or knowledge. In my area of the country, Motorola FHSS DTR/DLR/DPL radios proliferated due to the overuse of VHF and UHF radios, such as FRS/GMRS and MURS equipment. However, most areas I frequent have defaulted Motorola FHSS radios in use, no special knowledge or equipment is needed, except another radio of compatible type. I leave mine on the default "Public 1" TalkGroup, as that is most often the one used (in my area and experience).....most radio users see everything as just a "Walkie Talkie" and charge it up, turn it on and press a side button to talk.
On a similar note, I have an older monitor that went to a baby monitoring system made around 2000-2002 or so. With the proliferation of wireless video systems sold by a popular low cost tool store (which I do not recommend - buy Klein Tools, Xcelite, Wiha, Wera, Knipex....etc.) has also become useful once again. People default technology all the time, and this still applies to cheap radios for GMRS/FRS/MURS and amateur gear. The lowest common denominator still applies, often.
 

And more quotes, with pun intended... btw, did writing that post give you a headache too?

Hi there,
as gortex2 stated, cable is rather important, especially at UHF or above freqs.
Personally, I would dump the RG-8/U and go with LDF-50 1/2 inch heliax with trimetal N-connectors. BUT.... big if.... if all you are going to do is simplex then I would entertain genuine LMR600. With either silver or trimetal N-connectors, especially for indoor runs. I wouldn't waste any money on PL259/SO239 for anything above 300 MHz, it can't hold impedance well at higher freqs, so you might end up going down a very deep rabbit hole ... not fun.
Personally, I run multiple 40 foot sections of LMR600 with silver plated N-connectors for my UHF GMRS base setup (no repeater) at home. Loss is very small. For anything else I have, everything is heliax LDF-50 1/2"
The Effective Sensitivity (or dynamic sensitivity) is not the advertised sensitivity figure on the radio. In order to determine the dynamic sensitivity figure you need to perform an isotee test on the radio. Nowadays, it seems that noise floor is pretty much the limiting factor as to how far you'll be able to hear the base.
As for Antenna, after trying over two dozens of ham grade stuff, I wouldn't waste my money on anything vertical, go straight to either a half wave dipole or a half wave folded dipole. You will not be disappointed.
G.
 

My original link was to get you started, seeing what it takes to get a safe mast that can be 60 (or more) feet high. Rohn makes many different sizes of towers. However, that height does require more than what you could probably get at Home Depot, or expect from chain link fence poles. However, it is your money, house, property, etc. Advice is advice, you can take it or leave it. https://www.cableandwireshop.com/rohn-45gsr-tower-4-foot-short-base-section-r-45gsrsb.html Poke around the website, or others, but Rohn is a very respected company in the industry of radio antenna masts. 60 feet is higher than what many people need, want, can afford. Depending on location, you may need permits, lights, painting the mast, and other items as well. Also, height should include the length of the antenna you wish to put on this mast, and the base that is going to be used. Good luck with your installation, be sure to post pictures whenever you complete the project, a 60 foot tower is something that I would be interested in seeing. 

Asstated GMRS is in the middle of the business band. Most any UHF 450-470 antenna will perform fine. 

So first where is your antenna for the 275 ? I run the midland in both my JT and JK and have no issues. Do you have after market LED lights (headlights) by chance. on my JK ii bought ebay LED lights and it killed the 2 mtr band completely. 
 

All those radios are basically modified ham gear. There should be no reason why GMRS radios couldn't have great filtering, as they only need to listen to a handful of frequencies... but again, any filtering just piles on the cost... and we all know that everything these days needs to be free... 
G.

I watched the video as a user of GMRS and GMRS only. He made mentions of other channels he wants to listen to. The radio is a GMRS radio and GMRS only. Was never intended for other uses. I still go back to the fact that the Midlands are good basic mobiles and fit a market of a user who just wants to buy a radio and turn it on. Up until about 10 years ago GMRS was 90% Part 90 gear with a few other manufacturers making gear specific to GMRS. The CCR world has changed GMRS and in many parts Amateur Radio also. Some good but bad at the same time. As said in the past Midland will sell hundreds if not thousands of the radios and thats what makes the market grow. 

What lesser expensive GMRS built radios do this ? I have yet to find a GMRS mobile that was designed as a GMRS mobile other than Midland. All other are a CCR radio that has firmware to lock it in a band or frequency range. You can buy the same radio with different model numbers ie: DB-20=Anytone779, KG1000G=KG1000M=KGUV980....
Guess I don't understand the dual mode statement. Scan allows you to monitor other GMRs channels. If you meant other uses (Amatuer, MURS, Scanner) then it wouldn't be a GMRS radio.
I have no need for a MTX500 as I already have the MTX275 so am not going to order one to run checks on my service monitor. When the new 575 comes out I may upgrade one of mine and run some tests to see what it shows. If I need 50 watts I'll use my APX, but have yet to find a reason to. 
I find it strange that people get all worked up over Midland charging a few $ more for a GMRS only radio but no one mentions Motorola T800 series that cost about $130 a pair and can't use repeater splits nor have removable antenna's. Walk around any campground or park this summer and you will find talkabouts all over....Its all about how folks use the radio. Many just push and talk. Simplex is the most likely the most used mode in GMRS so Midland, Motorola and other manufacturers will cater to that before they worry about the 300 users on mygmrs.... 

Absolutely, Superheterodyne is nowadays a marketing buzzword; and with that said, superhets of old used to be really good, b/c they spent a lot of time/effort in making them work very well because there wasn't any other practical way to do it... Heck, if done well, those can be quite amazing.... in fact, a member from another forum shared with me some data, showing that the best selectivity he's ever measured was in a double conversion superhet radio made in 80s... I'll have to find the PM somewhere for the model, but yeah, superhets can be made extremely well. 
But I also agree that DSP and SDR radios are the way forward. The XPR7550e uses basically a direct conversion architecture. However, they have something inside that radio that no other radio can, short of the APX radios, can top in terms of performance. Its probably filtering coupled with DSP and who knows what else... 
A lot of the Icom radios like the 7300, etc, all seem to use direct conversion SDR, and those are nothing but amazing radios, I would love to own one when cash allows, but if you look at the crazy filtering they use in those radios is just insane... heck, even tracking filters, and those are not cheap... and the radio price tag shows, 3500 and 13000 for the two top performers in the Icom HF base rigs catalog... I bet most that of the price tag was due to the impressive filtering and DSP-wizardry stuff... otherwise it would be no different than the 29 dollar SDR POS running some SDRsharp on Windows.
Well, the oversimplistic superhet and oversimplistic SDR are the ways of the CCRs, they took the basic SDR and surrounded in a case with a screen and an antenna, or they got some reference design from all these radios made in China, and made it as cheap as possible, and once again, shoved it inside a fancy box with a fancy screen and sells them for x100 the price it costs to make... 
Sometimes, going to a "blank piece of paper" is the only way to go. If you take someone else's design you are also taking all the assumptions and design factors that went into that design, which might work in the short term, but once you start iterating, you'll certainly bump into those; and the end result is that to meet deadlines you'll resort to hacking everything together, again, been there done that.
Weeeell.... not sure if "Front end improvements" are as easy to implement as the "throw some improvements there" makes it feel like it is; those are rather expensive, and time consuming, otherwise the ICOM IC-7810 would go for 130 bucks, and not for 13,000 dollars, I would think. I also suspect the IC-7810 has its own custom everything, they probably scrapped a lot of stuff from the previous generation radio designs just to get that extra performance they needed, just like I've done before in my career, because hacking the previous design just wasn't going to cut it.
G.

Ah, the good old ISO-tee test... special thanks to repeater-builder.com for putting information on how to perform the procedure.
"I am a simple man with a directional coupler... only an ISOtee away from the truth."
G.

Here's what the antenna bracket looks like that I made for  the red bike. It bolts underneath the top case and the RG400 feeds to the radio(s), and yes, the SWR is pretty damn good on both bikes and I have no issues transmitting 50w on either band.?

I watched the video as a user of GMRS and GMRS only. He made mentions of other channels he wants to listen to. The radio is a GMRS radio and GMRS only. Was never intended for other uses. I still go back to the fact that the Midlands are good basic mobiles and fit a market of a user who just wants to buy a radio and turn it on. Up until about 10 years ago GMRS was 90% Part 90 gear with a few other manufacturers making gear specific to GMRS. The CCR world has changed GMRS and in many parts Amateur Radio also. Some good but bad at the same time. As said in the past Midland will sell hundreds if not thousands of the radios and thats what makes the market grow. 

I only have one problem with this video. He said it doesn't receive as well because it's a ROC. Not only that, he went on the say that every other type approved radio is better than the Midland, but did nothing to demonstrate that.
 
I'm a little confused by this guy (and others I have seen) complaining about the Midland and others being a ROC instead of a superheterodyne.  There are ROC systems that outperform some superheterodyne systems all day long and cost as much as $10,000 for amateur transceivers. Flex SDR is a great example. 
 
There are POS superheterodynes and POS ROCs.  The style of tech shouldn't be automatically discounted as junk or awesome based on design style alone.