piglet

Yeah, my feelings exactly.

Thanks, Radioguy. Lots of options between those two sites.

I live in an area with a pretty sophisticated GMRS repeater network. In order to use the repeaters, you must join the club and pay dues. When you join the club, you get a "Tactical Unit Number". What I have found is that the hams will use their GMRS call sign or their GMRS call sign and their tactical unit number together, but the GMRS only users hardly ever use their call sign, and just use their tactical unit number. I do hear a couple of yahoos on a regular basis on CH 18 (462.625 MHz) simplex and they never use any identifier. Based on their other behaviors, I suspect they are not licensed.

Possible that there is a difference in firmware, but mine allows me to change that column.

I have a hearing impairment, and I find that a headset provides me much more facility than a speaker and desk microphone. I have a cheap, expedient headset right now, but I find it grows uncomfortable after about a half hour, and the microphone leaves a lot to be desired as it tends to introduce some distortion. So, I am looking for reviews and recommendations on a lightweight adjustable headset with a decent mike. It needs to have speakers on both sides, and I would like to keep the cost below $200. So, anyone have experience using a headset, and would you mind giving it a review?

Eh, I think not. The UV-5X are CHIRP programmable, so you can manipulate the pl tones as you see fit and set the FM mode to narrow or wide. Doesn't sound like a design flaw to me, but rather a quite flexible design.

Let's hope so. As for Baofengs being "extremely poor quality", I think there are thousands of Boafeng owners that would argue that point. They are not the same quality as the flagship brands, but for the price differential, you would not expect that. However, you do get what you pay for, and sometimes, you are surprised and you get a little more than that. I think Baofengs fall into that category, at least in my experience.

If you are still using the rubber duck that came with the UV-5R, it is no wonder you can't pick anything up from a distance. Baofeng rubber ducks are notoriously poor antennae. I have two aftermarket antennae. One is an Abree 48cm and the other is a Nagoya NA-701C. With the Abree, I have recieved GMRS HT signals from nearly 15 miles away. The Nagoya is not quite that good, but I have recieved HT signals from a little over 5 miles away in the flatlands.

I do get on the HRCC yahoo channel pretty regularly. As for being a fan, I have difficulty with the live streaming format. There is too much chaff to wade through to get to the wheat. I have learned a lot in spite of that, however.

Dang. You still have an open mall? All the ones in my general vicinity have declared bankruptcy. You might not have to do anything but give it a couple more months.

I just passed my Technician test this past Saturday (100% !!) I am looking into a CS800D because I would like to explore DMR, and I see good reports on that radio. There are a handful of DMR repeaters in my general vicinity, and I just heard about D-RATS last night. If you have already gotten your feet wet, could you talk a little bit about your equipment?

I am not programming Kenwoods, but I use Chirp in native Ubuntu. I had a similar error and it was a 2-step fix. 1. Instead of using a TTY com port, I scrolled down to the bottom and selected USB0. 2. I had to add my userid to the dialout group. sudo usermod -aG dialout username (replace username with your own) I try to stay away from Windows, even Wine, as much as possible.

I am a newbie too. Got my license and radio last month. Just because the map does not have any repeaters in your area does not mean that they are not there. There are 14 repeaters in my end of the state that are not on the map. They are part of an organized club, and if you want access, you join the club and pay dues. Unfortunately for me, the club is run by a fudd who doesn't like my brand of radio and one of the rules of the club is you don't use that brand on the network. Setting up a repeater seems to be an expensive proposition, especially if you want any range. My understanding is that the single most critical success factor is the antenna and its height above the surrounding area. One of the open repeaters in my area is atop a 5 story hotel and gets a consistent 8 mile range in most directions. You may want to consider the Wouxun KG 1000G, which has built in repeater function when you hook two up together with the repeater cable. It would probably make your life easier.

Did you click on the 'Show Empty' button and put an S under the Skip column on the rows for channels you wanted to skip in the scanning mode?