WRHS218

No one is coming. Expect to self rescue.

Even with an InReach, you need to evaluate the situation and decide if it's the best solution in any given situation. 

[Trigger warning - really graphic gory stuff follows.]

In 2019 I fell while hiking on a mountain in the Mojave Desert in California. To be specific, I was standing on a rock that decided to disintegrate. I lost my balance, windmilled wildly for a few seconds, realized the situation wasn't salvageable and that I was falling into a jumble of large boulders. I instinctively put my right hand (I'm nominally right-handed) on my neck to guard my spine. After I landed, I took stock of where I was and the condition I was in.

I had fully broken both bones (radius and ulna) in my right forearm, with the bones sticking out. My knuckles were pretty scraped up and I wasn't sure if I'd broken anything there, either. I was not losing blood (although there was a lot of bleeding) and I could both feel my fingers and move them, so there was no risk of bleeding out and no apparent nerve / muscle damage. If you remember the Harry Potter movie where Harry breaks his arm and the crackpot wizard 'fixes' it by removing all the bones in his arm, that's about it, but with more blood and protruding bones.

I got some of my army surplus emergency clotting powder (the yellowish stuff) out of my pack and dumped it on the spots where I was leaking blood. I snapped one of my hiking poles (I wasn't going to be able to use both of them, anyway) to create a makeshift splint and used one of those giant Target plastic bags (that they used to give out when shopping, and which I carried to port out any trash I made or found), poked a hole across the bottom to put my arm in, and put the handles over my head. FWIW, in the late 1970's I was on the volunteer first aid squad in the town I grew up in, and have also had more recent survival training).
With the immediate emergency taken care of, I drank some water and took a pain pill from my pack and sat down on a less defective rock to take stock of the situation. I was WAY up on the side of a mountain, hours from the nearest hospital (as part of my pre-hike planning, I always take note of where the nearest urgent care / hospital / regional trauma center is).

I had an InReach (and the SAR 50 plan that covers up to $50K in rescue costs) with me. However, I was in the middle of nowhere (Inyo County is twice the size of the state of Connecticut and has 18,500 people living it, none near me). I figured if I pushed the button, LifeFlight would send a helicopter from Pahrump, NV (the closest medical facility), land down on the flatlands near where the Jeep was parked, look up the mountain and go "NFW" and call out mutual aid from San Bernardino Mountain Rescue. Which, aside from being in another county and several hours away, I know those guys well and it would have been pretty embarrassing. They would have to carry a litter from the helicopter up the mountain to me, strap me into it, and have the helicopter fly up over me and drop a line down to hook onto the litter. So I decided to self-rescue.

An hour and an half to get down the mountain to the Jeep, an hour across open desert and dirt roads, and another hour on paved roads to get to Pahrump. So, 3.5 hours total. I decided I could do that in less time than being rescued via the InReach, so that's what I did. With a fair amount of screaming in pain as I drove over bumpy areas. I was proven right about 6 months later when someone had a similar accident nearby, but closer to the nearest place where people lived (calling it a town would be vastly overstating things) and it took over 9 hours for LifeFlight and SB mutual aid to get that person to the same hospital I drove to.

The moral of the story is that you need to be self-sufficient in the wilderness, and also be able to evaluate your situation and make the best decision possible based on the information you have and your training. If you're alone and unconscious or pinned and unable to move, nothing will save you.

If you enlarge the attached picture, you can see red captions for "Where I Fell" and "Jeep" to get a feel for the situation I was in.

But the laws!!! and the fines!!!!! Ohhh the fines!!!!!!
Is it worth it?????

Used these at my previous employer with our Kenwood Nexedge radios. Rock solid, as you'd expect from both brands!

Astron makes really good (but not inexpensive) power supplies and they have a line of different ones with radio enclosures. 
https://www.astroncorp.com/slim-line-w-housing

I like the look of the Icom one. Retevis has one that you can get with the RA87 as well. 
https://www.retevis.com/products/rmb87-40w-desktop-base-station-radio-kit

One additional kit is Anytone GJ-0854. The PS and mount hold a radio that's 1 1/2" high (40mm) and a 5/8" wide (119mm) from here: Base station power supply

One of the real self-gratifying myths of radio, not just GMRS, but also ham radio, is that in an emergency (or the SHTF scenario people get so giddy about) it will save you.  Unless you have already arranged for someone to actively monitor for you to send a SOS on a specific channel, it’s really just BS. The fact is these frequencies are not actively monitored in most places.  

As soon as he said mountainous region the answer was probably not.  Running with your buddies it would probably work.  As an emergency device in a rural area not so much.

Best wishes for you 521. I'm glad you are here to post.

Best wishes for you 521. I'm glad you are here to post.

That's about as close to a smoking gun as you're going to get from the FCC. They are aware that people are using surplus Part 90 equipment - and they don't intend to anything to stop that use.
 
As others have mentioned, there's never been a single enforcement action by the FCC against anyone for using Part 90 equipment in Part 95.  If you've been around the block with the FCC a few times, you begin to realize that many of the rules have been written after the fact.

Its easiest to start with the pre-programmed channels so you can see what they look like in CHIRP.. Once you figure that out you can then create your own new, custom channels.
Re Tone or TSql, i believe @SteveShannon already answered that question in your other post, and because he is an officially-recognized HERD, you should listen to what he says.

Does this include sporks?

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day!

IIRC something like this will occur if you are using the 935G software instead of the software specifically for the 935G PLUS radio.. are you sure you are using the Plus version of the software and not the regular 935G software?  
You can download it here: https://www.buytwowayradios.com/downloads/dl/file/id/1572/product/5920/wouxun_kg_935g_plus_programming_software.zip
If you are already using the correct software then my only other response is "this sounds like a Windows issue".

The output power isn’t meaningless, but it has much less of an effect than the antenna height and gain. A 20 watt radio can easily transmit 100 miles if there are no obstructions, but obstructions are common.  A fifty watt radio cannot overcome obstructions, but it can power its way through vegetation which might attenuate the signal of a less powerful radio until it cannot be detected. There are lots of threads which discuss which antennas work well and how and where to mount them. And attenuation affects signals in both directions.
So, more important than the output power is the cable, the antenna gain, the antenna mounting position, and the antenna height. Personally I use a db20g radio with a Midland MXTA26 antenna on the center of my steel roof using a magnetic mount from Midland.

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day!

Premium members can run reports and download files that can be used offline. 

You typed that like it is a BAD thing.

I want to thank everyone for their help! I have not been on here for quite a while! I have stage four brain cancer and it has really taken a toll on me! I am feeling better for now thanks to the treatment! 
I still have difficulty with simple things, I am not sure I am putting my thanks in the correct place??? But everyone on here has very helpful with my questions and I see I have been on here for a year! Doesn’t seem like it!!! 
anyway my thanks to everyone! 

This is the perfect place. I’m glad you’re feeling better and I hope for the best for you.