WyoJoe

That's pretty funny!

Michael, I know what you mean. She interrupts almost every conversation I hear on that repeater! It's a little better now, though, because you can talk over her if she interrupts you. It used to be that she would talk over you in that case, but it's been changed (for the better, IMO).
The funny thing is that she says to limit your QSOs to 20 minutes, but she doesn't say anything about additional QSOs immediately following...

Another funny thing: right after I clicked send on my last message, she came on the air within about 30 seconds!

I've found with radio while traveling is that you have to be in the right place at the right time. Unless someone is involved in a long ragchew as you're passing through, the radio seems to be pretty quiet. I occasionally monitor the "KERN System" and sometimes it's silent for hours at a time, yet at other times, it's quite busy. During this holiday weekend, it's been pretty quiet when I've listened to it.
I haven't looked at the numbers, but I suspect there aren't a lot of GMRS users in the Taft and Cuyama areas. My experience shows that there may be only about one GMRS licensee for every 10 or more ham licensees. Other than on my family's personal repeater, the only place I've heard traffic on a GMRS repeater is in L.A. where there are a lot of users.
I've found the same thing with CB. Unless there are a couple of people ragchewing, local traffic on the radio is basically nonexistent. About the only time I hear much of anything is when there are traffic problems on the freeway, and even then there isn't a lot of traffic.
The airwaves are a lot like our roadways. It's often nice to have the road to yourself, but it does feel lonely when you don't see any other cars around. In some ways, it's kind of nice to have the airwaves mostly to yourself, too, but only as long as you have someone else to talk to when you want to talk.
Like you, my experience is that the family's interest has mostly been passive. I think the biggest problem for me is that most of my family is spread out to where we are out of range of each other for CB, GMRS, and UHF/VHF ham bands. In order to use the radio to talk to each other, we would need to use either a linked system or HF (which would likely require they get at least a General class ham license). We would probably also have to call each other to find out when we would be on the air, so we could coordinate our contacts. This kind of defeats the whole purpose of radio, since we could just talk on the phone in that case.
It would be good to have the ability to use radio in the event of a major disaster, which where we are would most likely be a major earthquake. In such an event, I will likely scan CB and GMRS frequencies, and the local ham repeaters. If I need to reach someone by radio, most likely, it'll be on a ham repeater as that's where most of the radio traffic seems to be.

I just checked and it's $87.99 for me too. That's a bit better than the ~$100 price on their website.

I guess I should have clarified what I meant by power supply. The RT-97 has a 12V input, and includes a 120V to 12V power supply to provide power from a household outlet. What I meant by power supply was a battery or solar panel, for example, that would provide 12V to the repeater. I guess what I should have said was that the RT-97 doesn't come with a 12V source. The user has to provide a source if not using 120V AC power.

If I'm not mistaken the speaker output on the DB-25G uses a TRRS (tip ring ring sleeve) connection, making the standard plug on most external speakers useless with this radio. If you didn't use a special breakout cable for your speaker, I actually surprised it worked at all. When I tried plugging an external speaker into a QYT KT-7900D (a very similar radio), it locked the transmitter open until I unplugged the speaker.

This is a widely recommended practice with any new radio that you want to program with Chirp. Once you initially read from the radio, you should save the resulting file immediately and name it something meaningful to you like "GT-5R_Original." Then save it again with another name like "GT-5R_20211117" or something like that (in this case it's Radio_YYYYMMDD). You can then edit that second file, save it again, then write it back to the radio in order to load the updated file information into the radio.

I'm not sure what the issue is for sure, but perhaps the frequencies you're trying to add are outside of the radio's permitted frequency range. If so, the radio could be rejecting the programming you're trying to add.

You can also test as you go. For example, install the antenna and test it, then install the coax and test it, then, if you have adapters, lightning arresters, or anything else to add, install those and test again. The purpose of doing this would be to ensure nothing you add to your antenna system causes any problems along the way.
Your most important reading, though, will be the final one, where the antenna system connects to the radio. If you had any flaky readings along the way, hopefully you would have made any necessary corrections, so the final reading should be good (or the last thing you added could be causing a problem).
Overall, though, you want to check the antenna system as a whole. The test as you go suggestion is mostly to help rule out problems as you're building the antenna system.

I was going to basically echo what tcp2525 said. Optimizing your antenna system will give much greater gains than more power ever could. Given the restrictions you have to comply with, your best bet is to get a good antenna as high up as you're able to without getting in trouble with the HOA.
One option might be to put a "stealth" antenna in a tree, provided it's close enough to run the cable to the radio.
Something else to think about is if you have a friend nearby whose house is on a hill where coverage would be better. If so, perhaps you could talk them into allowing a repeater at their house (of course they will also likely have to comply with HOA restrictions). Of course, that would not help you to reach other repeaters, but it could give you an option for broader coverage in the area around your community, but it would likely be limited mostly to those in your group or family.

You can also test as you go. For example, install the antenna and test it, then install the coax and test it, then, if you have adapters, lightning arresters, or anything else to add, install those and test again. The purpose of doing this would be to ensure nothing you add to your antenna system causes any problems along the way.
Your most important reading, though, will be the final one, where the antenna system connects to the radio. If you had any flaky readings along the way, hopefully you would have made any necessary corrections, so the final reading should be good (or the last thing you added could be causing a problem).
Overall, though, you want to check the antenna system as a whole. The test as you go suggestion is mostly to help rule out problems as you're building the antenna system.

You can also test as you go. For example, install the antenna and test it, then install the coax and test it, then, if you have adapters, lightning arresters, or anything else to add, install those and test again. The purpose of doing this would be to ensure nothing you add to your antenna system causes any problems along the way.
Your most important reading, though, will be the final one, where the antenna system connects to the radio. If you had any flaky readings along the way, hopefully you would have made any necessary corrections, so the final reading should be good (or the last thing you added could be causing a problem).
Overall, though, you want to check the antenna system as a whole. The test as you go suggestion is mostly to help rule out problems as you're building the antenna system.

I use a Tekpower TP50SW, and run the output to a fused distribution block with 8 Anderson Power Pole outputs. The link is to the first similar item I found on Amazon but is not the specific one I'm using.
I then put Anderson Power Pole connectors on the power leads for my radios, and can plug them all into the distribution block. I use a similar setup when running off a battery.
My power supply does have one 12V "lighter" plug, which my Anytone AT-779 is plugged into at the moment. I haven't put the Anderson connectors on it yet.

In addition to MIchael's suggestions above, since the radio has dual receivers, have you tried using both the A and B sides of the radio? Is the problem common to both sides? If not, it would suggest an internal problem with one side of the radio (or perhaps a problematic setting), but if so, it could still be internal to the radio, or it could be an external problem (antenna, etc.).

In addition to MIchael's suggestions above, since the radio has dual receivers, have you tried using both the A and B sides of the radio? Is the problem common to both sides? If not, it would suggest an internal problem with one side of the radio (or perhaps a problematic setting), but if so, it could still be internal to the radio, or it could be an external problem (antenna, etc.).

That looks like it's mostly correct. What I didn't see mentioned was a CTCSS tone in the "tone" column. That needs to be included to open the squelch on the repeater.
It should be in the form of "141.3" or something like that. Normally, as long as you have permission to use the repeater, you can get the correct tone to use from the repeater owner (if it isn't listed as an open repeater with the tones published).

That looks like it's mostly correct. What I didn't see mentioned was a CTCSS tone in the "tone" column. That needs to be included to open the squelch on the repeater.
It should be in the form of "141.3" or something like that. Normally, as long as you have permission to use the repeater, you can get the correct tone to use from the repeater owner (if it isn't listed as an open repeater with the tones published).

The ones I have came with the old firmware and I updated them when the new firmware update was provided. When I turn them on as described, I also see P51UV01 on the display. I don't know what it showed originally.

There is a UV-5X GMRS radio that is the same form factor as the UV-5R series, and can share the same batteries. Unlike the UV-5R which requires an SMA-female antenna, the UV-5X GMRS radio requires an SMA-male antenna. This radio is supposed to be renamed UV-5G for future releases.
There is also a dual-band UV-5X that does not share the same form factor as the UV-5R, and does not use the same type of batteries. As far as I know, though, it does use the same SMA-female antennas as the UV-5R models.
When talking about the UV-5X radios, we should specify whether it's the GMRS version or the dual-band (ham) version. They are significantly different.

AK,
Welcome to the forum and to GMRS. What do you want to test on your radio?
From the other replies on the thread, it looks like you don't have anyone to talk to that is near you.
Do you know anyone near you that has any FRS "bubble pack" radios (the ones from Walmart, Big-5, etc.)?
If so, you should be able to talk to them using simplex (radio to radio) communication. This would allow you to test the functionality of your radio.
If you're looking to test repeater operation, you'll first need to figure out what repeater you will use, and unless it's an open repeater, you'll need to get the owner's permission to use it.
Anyhow, we can give better advice once we understand what you want to test on your radio.
Once again, welcome to the forum.

There is a UV-5X GMRS radio that is the same form factor as the UV-5R series, and can share the same batteries. Unlike the UV-5R which requires an SMA-female antenna, the UV-5X GMRS radio requires an SMA-male antenna. This radio is supposed to be renamed UV-5G for future releases.
There is also a dual-band UV-5X that does not share the same form factor as the UV-5R, and does not use the same type of batteries. As far as I know, though, it does use the same SMA-female antennas as the UV-5R models.
When talking about the UV-5X radios, we should specify whether it's the GMRS version or the dual-band (ham) version. They are significantly different.

In that situation, I have extra radios to share with my family, friends, and neighbors. They are a mix of FRS, GMRS, and ham radios.

What's the point of that? If I wanted the radio for the ham bands, I'd just use a UV-5R instead. Most of them, or at least the older ones, will work on ham and GMRS frequencies, and they cost less too.
The UV-5X/UV-5G models are GMRS radios and already function reasonably well for what they are. Additionally, if you want to monitor ham frequencies, you can already do that with them.
As I understand it, a GMRS radio that has been modified to work on another service is no longer legal for GMRS use, so why would I want to mess up a radio I purchased specifically because it is legal for GMRS? Again, if legality didn't matter, the UV-5R would suffice.
Michael, these questions aren't targeted at you. I just don't understand the reasoning behind this effort.

From the looks of it, that is a "CB" radio SWR meter, designed to work in the 27 MHz band. While I don't know its specifications, I'd expect it would not work properly for GMRS frequencies.