OldRadioGuy

I had a good case of ducting once back in Nov. of 1986.  I had just moved to my new house in Greenfield (southern NH) and put on the portable TV to test the signal.  I was relieved that I was still getting the Boston MA and Manchester NH channels OK - but there was another rock solid channel that I was not familiar with.  I watched for a while and it turned out the be Burlington, VT which was shocking.  That's 160 road miles away with mountains in between.  It just didn't seem possible but there it was - rock solid.  
I had only moved about 20 miles further up from my old place in Milford NH.   I'd never heard of anyone getting Burlington TV around southern NH.  It was not a TV repeater channel either.  It was the Burlington channel direct.  It was probably 9 or 10pm at night. 
The next morning I tried it again and it was nowhere to be found.  Tried it a dozen more times and nothing but blank screen.  It was just a case of ducting that came and went. 
Vince

Transmitting with no load is a very different thing depending on the length of coax connected to the radio. 
An open circuit plus 1/4 wavelength of coax equals a short circuit.   Any odd number of 1/4 wavelengths will look like a short.  So the load seen by the transmitter can vary a great deal.  Some lengths could possibly make the transmitter unstable causing it to oscillate at some other frequency.  But this is somewhat less likely in newer radios where device parasitics are much lower today.  But it's still possible.  Note: 1/4 wave at 460MHz is about 5 inches.  Remember that wavelengths are shorter in coax than in free air.  You have to multiply by the velocity factor for the particular coax.... usually around 65-75%. 
When there is nothing connected to an HT it's likely to look like an open circuit since the transmitter circuits are likely very close to the connector.  So this would be one of the safer no-load conditions.   I suppose the worst case would be an apparent short circuit that may cause overcurrent but today's transistors are much more rugged than the ones of the 1970's.  And, since your radio probably uses a switching power converter it's unlikely to provide enough current to cause any damage.  Of course we are talking about hand held radios here.  
I would not key a transmitter intentionally into an unknown load but I would not worry about doing it unintentionally for a short period of time.   It certainly can happen for a variety of reasons, like forgetting to replace the antenna after a car wash or something.  Most legitimate radio designs would handle this fine.  Designers are aware that this happens.   
 

Transmitting with no load is a very different thing depending on the length of coax connected to the radio. 
An open circuit plus 1/4 wavelength of coax equals a short circuit.   Any odd number of 1/4 wavelengths will look like a short.  So the load seen by the transmitter can vary a great deal.  Some lengths could possibly make the transmitter unstable causing it to oscillate at some other frequency.  But this is somewhat less likely in newer radios where device parasitics are much lower today.  But it's still possible.  Note: 1/4 wave at 460MHz is about 5 inches.  Remember that wavelengths are shorter in coax than in free air.  You have to multiply by the velocity factor for the particular coax.... usually around 65-75%. 
When there is nothing connected to an HT it's likely to look like an open circuit since the transmitter circuits are likely very close to the connector.  So this would be one of the safer no-load conditions.   I suppose the worst case would be an apparent short circuit that may cause overcurrent but today's transistors are much more rugged than the ones of the 1970's.  And, since your radio probably uses a switching power converter it's unlikely to provide enough current to cause any damage.  Of course we are talking about hand held radios here.  
I would not key a transmitter intentionally into an unknown load but I would not worry about doing it unintentionally for a short period of time.   It certainly can happen for a variety of reasons, like forgetting to replace the antenna after a car wash or something.  Most legitimate radio designs would handle this fine.  Designers are aware that this happens.   
 

In hilly places like VT repeaters are necessary to get much range.  So HAM is going to get you much better service than GMRS unless you happen to be in an area with a GMRS repeater..... which is unlikely.  See repeaterbook.com for listings of HAM repeaters in your areas of interest.  
Also, with HAM you have other freq. choices that can be very helpful.  VT is very wooded and snow gets on the trees which tends to eat up higher frequencies.  So 2 meters or 144 MHz can be a better alternative. 
GMRS is great for reaching your fishing buddies or other nearby but longer ranges are very dependent on repeaters.  I have GMRS because my wife and fishing buddies can't use HAM radio.  So it has its place.  
I lived in NH for some of my HAM years and (30 years ago) repeaters were quite good.  I was often able to reach people with 5W and a mag mount.  There were "ham-fests" in VT and more hams than you'd think.  I expect that there are still some HAM clubs around VT.  This is the best way to get started. 
Today the issue can be finding a live person on the repeater.   But if something was "going on" I'm sure there would be lots of hams on there.  
Vince 

Transmitting with no load is a very different thing depending on the length of coax connected to the radio. 
An open circuit plus 1/4 wavelength of coax equals a short circuit.   Any odd number of 1/4 wavelengths will look like a short.  So the load seen by the transmitter can vary a great deal.  Some lengths could possibly make the transmitter unstable causing it to oscillate at some other frequency.  But this is somewhat less likely in newer radios where device parasitics are much lower today.  But it's still possible.  Note: 1/4 wave at 460MHz is about 5 inches.  Remember that wavelengths are shorter in coax than in free air.  You have to multiply by the velocity factor for the particular coax.... usually around 65-75%. 
When there is nothing connected to an HT it's likely to look like an open circuit since the transmitter circuits are likely very close to the connector.  So this would be one of the safer no-load conditions.   I suppose the worst case would be an apparent short circuit that may cause overcurrent but today's transistors are much more rugged than the ones of the 1970's.  And, since your radio probably uses a switching power converter it's unlikely to provide enough current to cause any damage.  Of course we are talking about hand held radios here.  
I would not key a transmitter intentionally into an unknown load but I would not worry about doing it unintentionally for a short period of time.   It certainly can happen for a variety of reasons, like forgetting to replace the antenna after a car wash or something.  Most legitimate radio designs would handle this fine.  Designers are aware that this happens.   
 

Transmitting with no load is a very different thing depending on the length of coax connected to the radio. 
An open circuit plus 1/4 wavelength of coax equals a short circuit.   Any odd number of 1/4 wavelengths will look like a short.  So the load seen by the transmitter can vary a great deal.  Some lengths could possibly make the transmitter unstable causing it to oscillate at some other frequency.  But this is somewhat less likely in newer radios where device parasitics are much lower today.  But it's still possible.  Note: 1/4 wave at 460MHz is about 5 inches.  Remember that wavelengths are shorter in coax than in free air.  You have to multiply by the velocity factor for the particular coax.... usually around 65-75%. 
When there is nothing connected to an HT it's likely to look like an open circuit since the transmitter circuits are likely very close to the connector.  So this would be one of the safer no-load conditions.   I suppose the worst case would be an apparent short circuit that may cause overcurrent but today's transistors are much more rugged than the ones of the 1970's.  And, since your radio probably uses a switching power converter it's unlikely to provide enough current to cause any damage.  Of course we are talking about hand held radios here.  
I would not key a transmitter intentionally into an unknown load but I would not worry about doing it unintentionally for a short period of time.   It certainly can happen for a variety of reasons, like forgetting to replace the antenna after a car wash or something.  Most legitimate radio designs would handle this fine.  Designers are aware that this happens.   
 

I agree with the previous replies, but wanted to point out something that I thought of recently, that made me laugh, and the OP’s post reminded me.
I got my first GMRS license in 2003 and it cost $90 or $95 for a 5 YEAR license...I forget exactly. I renewed in 2008, then I let it expire in 2013 due to the cost versus return on investment. Then I re-up’ed in 2018 when the license fee dropped to $70 and they extended the term to 10 years...”what a bargain” I thought !
In the past year, we have seen an explosion of interest in GMRS when the FCC announced the fee would be dropped to $35, and the Chinese manufacturers jumped on that interest by offering inexpensive GMRS radios. The only thing is, people got tired of waiting for the fee to drop to $35, so they paid the $70 fee. 
Congratulations to the FCC on a brilliant marketing scheme. Say you will drop the price of the fee, then drag your feet for a year or more, and bring in more $$$ than if you had done nothing at all.
 

You will probably find that just getting a Wouxun 805G for $80 is a lot cheaper than trying to find some special triple band radio.
Many commercial radios (I think) can only be programmed with a computer. 
 
I'm also a long time ham and bought a pair of 805G's so I can use with the wife and fishing friends etc.
It just worked out best that way.
 
You will find that your 440/70cm antennas work well though.
Also, Wouxun works with some Kenwood accessories like speaker mics.
 
Vince

All of my 70cm ham antennas work fine on my GMRS and have and SWR well under 2:1. 
Vince

I should add that my two spare batteries were still fully charged after sitting the same length of time- but not on a radio.  Both of my radios were stone dead. 
Having worked in this stuff, some designers just don't worry about such things.  They put the processor in sleep mode and figure that's good enough.  They don't want to bother with circuits that wait for the switcher to reach voltage and reboot the processor whenever the power is turned on.  It certainly can be done but they just don't bother.  They probably imagined that people would store the radios in the charger base when not in use.  But not everyone does.
At my last job it took about 2 full days of arguing to get a lazy project engineer to change the design so the batteries were not drained while being stored.  And they were not removable batteries!!!  And it was a product that is often stored for long periods between use.  The fix cost like 20 cents.  But this is how some engineers think.
I have inserted paper tabs in my 805G radios so I can leave the packs attached but not connected.  This way I don't have to carry the batts separately.  When I want to use the radio I'll just release the pack and remove the paper.  Seems to work well.
Vince
 

Both measurements show very low SWR. The chan 15 shows 35W forward power, that is expected and close to claimed 40W. Second is just tad below 5W. The 15W-150W switch on the face of the of the SWR meter seems to be depressed for both measurements. Looks like depressed is for 150W range (based on 35W reading for 462.550MHz)?  Make sure you have it in correct position for 40W and for 5W readings. You will have more precision in 15W range for the low power measurements.
Other than that, everything is nice and dandy. What cable do you use? 50 feet of RG-58U will give you a low SWR reading, and a lot of loss.

My point mostly was that these radios may not be tested in production.  So you may get a good one or you may get one that under-performs or even interferes with other services.  Testing is expensive and tossing the ones that don't pass is even more expensive.  So they just build and ship. Maybe they do a functional test or something very basic.  Lots of cheap Chinese stuff tends to be this way.  Harbor Freight, for example, has some great stuff for cheap, but sometimes you have to pick through the stock to make sure you get a good one.  Quality is inconsistent.
I think Wouxun is a level above this.  I think they do test their radios.  One reason is that Ham Radio Outlet sells them but will not sell Baofeng.  They test some samples to make sure they are legal and basically in spec. before deciding to carry them.  Of course the major brands Kenwood, icom, Yaesu, Alinco, are reliably good.
And even if you see a Yeasu that appears to be made by somebody like Baofeng it isn't necessarily the same.  They production test everything and they don't sell what doesn't pass.  So you're getting a hand picked Chinese radio. 
The radio tester guy from our club does use the Baofeng.  So it's a serviceable radio.  He just understands the limitations.
Vince

A guy in our ham club was a project engineer on the hp 8920A transceiver tester.  He gave us a presentation on radio testing and one of the examples he used was a Chinese  dual band HT.  I think it was the Baofeng UV5.  It met most of the specs very respectably but one or two of them were WAY off the published numbers..... like 5x worse.  It still met the legal requirements but not the published specs.  I believe it was sensitivity that it failed.  He only tested one sample so who knows what 20 others would do.  His ancient Kenwood radio passed every published spec with margin. 
Overall he considered the Baofeng to be a decent radio but certainly not passing their own published specs.  So some of the Chinese radio thing may be hit-miss quality control.   I  do like my Wouxun 805G radios and they seem to perform well but I can't prove it.  For recreational use they are fine.    
These videos are fun and show that the radios are rugged but there may be more to the story.  Making a contact shows that it's functions but nothing more.  I would be curious to see what my Wouxuns would do on the 8920 tester.  
Vince
 

I have both the Nagoya 771 and the Smiley super stick (and the stock 805G rubber duck).  The Nagoya 771 and the Smiley (fully extended) seem to perform about the same and both are significantly better than the stock antenna.  I think the Smiley retracted is at least as good as the rubber duck.
As for the range of your 905G...   There are lots of metal foils (on insulation and foil backed drywall) and "see through" metal coatings on glass used in commercial buildings and high rise apartments.  Texas has a lot of intense sun and hot weather so many windows will have the metal coatings.  These will just eliminate your GMRS signal.  So I would not judge the radio by that.
Take the radios outside and test them.  Even our cheap FRS radios will do a mile... and that was inside the car with no external antenna.  Terrain and metal surfaces are your two worse enemies. 
Vince
 

I depends on the matching network (if any) on your GMRS antenna.  If it has a matching network and it's a high pass type design it will attenuate the lower freq signal.  I think many GMRS antennas do not require a matching network so not super likely that there is a high pass network in the bargain. 
I have tested a few dual band 2M/70cm antennas on my GMRS radio and SWR is just fine.  Remember 465 MHz is only 8% higher than 430 MHz.  That's not a big deal.
Vince

I have both the Nagoya 771 and the Smiley super stick (and the stock 805G rubber duck).  The Nagoya 771 and the Smiley (fully extended) seem to perform about the same and both are significantly better than the stock antenna.  I think the Smiley retracted is at least as good as the rubber duck.
As for the range of your 905G...   There are lots of metal foils (on insulation and foil backed drywall) and "see through" metal coatings on glass used in commercial buildings and high rise apartments.  Texas has a lot of intense sun and hot weather so many windows will have the metal coatings.  These will just eliminate your GMRS signal.  So I would not judge the radio by that.
Take the radios outside and test them.  Even our cheap FRS radios will do a mile... and that was inside the car with no external antenna.  Terrain and metal surfaces are your two worse enemies. 
Vince
 

We have a Uniden VHF with FRS. 
Maybe they still make these since FRS does not require a license.
The VHF in ours works pretty well but we've never tried the FRS band on them.
 
Vince

Lots of people like the Surecom SW-33 SWR Mk2 meter avail on Amazon.  It's about $40.
It certainly can be used with an HT (Walkie Talkie) as long as you have the correct cables.  I use my MFJ meter with HT's all the time and it works fine.  Just make sure the power range is appropriate for whatever radio you intend to use in your test.  You do not have to test the antenna with the same radio you want to use it with either.
Testing a portable antenna (like a rubber duck) is a little tricky because the ground is not well defined and the meter itself can impact that. But usually portable ants aren't tunable anyway so why bother.  With HT's and portable (radio mounted) antennas your body is actually part of the ground system.
The main reason CB meters are so cheap is that they make so many of them.  They're a commodity.  Some day GMRS meters may also be that cheap but I suspect most GMRS users do not test their antennas and just use it out of the box. 
 
Vince
 
 
 

Another good alternative to the Nagoya is the Smiley super Stick 465MHz telescoping antenna.
https://bettersaferadio.com/smiley-antenna-super-stick-iv-465mhz-gmrs-noaa-sma-m/
It can be used fully collapsed at just under 5" or extended to 17" to become a 5/8 wave.  It is very comparable to the Nagoya when extended (I have both).  When collapsed it is still better than a rubber duck and very compact.  It only takes 1 second to extend or retract it.  It can be very convenient and it's the antenna I use most often.
You can also buy these direct from Smiley.  Their website did have the extended length incorrectly stated. Not sure if they fixed that.  The correct extended length is about 17".
Vince

Our ham club discusses GMRS often and even has a GMRS repeater.
Several reasons.
1  Radio is radio and we like them all.
2  It gets people interested in ham
3  The whole family can use it.
4  The whole family can use it.
5  The whole family can use it.
 
Vince

Our ham club discusses GMRS often and even has a GMRS repeater.
Several reasons.
1  Radio is radio and we like them all.
2  It gets people interested in ham
3  The whole family can use it.
4  The whole family can use it.
5  The whole family can use it.
 
Vince

Looks like the scadacore tool believes in a flat earth! 
Probably the paid version includes curvature but the free version leaves it out.
 
Vince

The best way to get started in Ham is to join a local club.  NE Ohio has several clubs to pick from.  Of course covid has thrown a wrench into these things for now.  Not much we can do about that.  Maybe some clubs are offering zoom type classes on the internet.  You'll have to explore the current options.
Vince

As others have said.....Check your antenna SWR with just a foot or two of coax if you can.  Minimal loss coax will show the true SWR of the antenna but higher loss coax will hide a bad SWR.  It can make a bad antenna "look" good (but not work good)
If the SWR looks worse with longer or higher loss coax you probably have a connector problem... or the coax is not 50 ohms.
 
Vince

I have tested several of my 70cm ham antennas on my GMRS and the SWR looks fine on all of them.  Under 2:1 in all cases and usually about 1.5 which is just fine.  Most of them are dual band 2m/70cm.  Many of the ham antennas are dual band so this gives you a lot to choose from.
Since 465MHz is a shorter wavelength than the ham 70cm you probably could trim the antenna down very slightly to improve SWR but you'd want to be very careful and use a very short coax with a good SWR meter for your testing.  I do not see the need for this.   You only lose about 10% of your power or .5dB with a 2:1 SWR.
There is a huge selection of 70cm ham antennas so it really is a nice option to have.
Vince