mrgmrs

The Crete 600 repeater fills a NE Illinois / NW Indiana void that was created by the departure of the Schererville, IN repeater. It is very capable, having a large footprint. And it's part of the linked Midwest GMRS Network. Please consider donating to it. A gofundme link is included in the repeater's entry on mygmrs.com. The owner of the repeater is not looking to make money on it. He is simply asking for the yearly operational cost of approximately $2000, which works out to $167/month (e.g., the backhaul to link the repeater to the Midwest GMRS Network). This doesn't even factor in the initial significant $$$$ expense to get Crete 600 on air. And it might also not include a recent significant $$$$ expense to replace faulty equipment. The repeater owner did not ask me to create this post. I did so on my own because I value this repeater. I'd hate to see it depart if yearly operational funding were to become an issue. Thanks for your consideration.

Good luck to all youtube GMRS content providers - I mean someone - on pursuing and getting their ham license.

Currently retevis.com has their RA25 version of the DB20-G for $76. For $85 they have the "farm tractor bundle." In the bundle a programming cable and mag mount antenna is included. *** IMPORTANT *** On Retevis' web site they offer both a dual band ham version of the RA25 as well as the GMRS version of the RA25. Notice the model number is the same. So look at links and/or drop down menus carefully if it matters to you which version you get. Let's say you get the GMRS version and use the simple button mod to open up the radio. It's true that you could xmit on the ham bands in this case. But type acceptance wise that is not valid. So if interested primarily in GMRS, get the GMRS version. Along the same reasoning, if interested primarily in ham radio, get the ham version. Physically the RA25 looks the same as the Radioddity DB20-G. However, I seem to recall someone (MichaelLAX ?) once posted that the Radioddity and Anytone versions of the radio could share a code plug with each other but the Retevis version could not use the Radioddity or Anytone code plugs (?). If so, potentially this suggests at least a small difference in the Retevis version regarding its settings or firmware. Comments @MichaelLAX, our resident DB20-G and variants fan?

@WRAM370I appreciate your response. Thanks.

Hi Michael. Not an Ozzie. But I have had shrimp on the barbie and Fosters oil cans. Apparently there are differences of opinion on how well Fosters is regarded in Oz.

For those with experience with the Wouxun KG-UV9D Mate HT, did you experience any negatives which soured you about the radio? There are not many reviews/comments to be found. There are a small number mentioned in Amazon. There are also some in youtube videos. One negative comment is that the display is hard (if not impossible) to read in a sunny setting. As another negative, one commenter stated that with an RX tone in place, squelch was broken by an undesired data/pager signal. That person added that the radios they owned from the big three did not break squelch in that scenario. Someone else mentioned another negative receive issue, though I don't recall the specifics. Due to the low number of reviews/comments about this radio, I though I'd ask the readers of this site who own or have used this radio about their experience. To be fair, there were positive comments also. Unless it was a comment I came across by someone about a different Chinese radio, that commenter mentioned a positive receive aspect that was better than those of the big three. For those with experience with this radio, I'm interested in your observations. Thanks.

Pinned comment: BTW Randy, in case there's a resolution issue with the emoji in my post above, that's an *index finger* pointing to the word 'you.' P.S. I've been an Extra class ham for 5000 years. ?

I was surprised to see new activity on this thread. BTW, some person, "some person" ?, released a newer Youtube video seven months ago about the updated 2.0 version of this device. You ? (dramatic pause) are our favorite GMRS Youtuber. On another note, @Wrue597, hope you are able to restore your radios.

The title of this post states that south central Kentucky needs a GMRS repeater. However, the body of the original post states that Kentucky [implied as a whole] doesn't have one GMRS repeater. As far as Kentucky as a whole, there are 25 GMRS repeaters. And there are more if stale (which may or may not be in service) and offline repeaters are counted. I'm not pointing this out to be a smart alec. Just pointing out that there are in fact GMRS repeaters in Kentucky as a whole, in regard to the sentence in the body of the original post.

@MichaelLAX @WRPS580 First, @MichaelLAX, reviewers typically didn't provide details whether their radio and the target radio were both set to wide band. However, @WRPS580 did mention of the two GM-30 radios he has, both were the same firmware version, same programming, and same bandwidth (wide/narrow). So without knowing if he was using his two radios for a transmission test to each other or if he used his radios separately to talk to a different radio, at least the parameters of his two radios were the same. To be fair to Radioddity, reports of low audio are inconclusive. Maybe the majority occurred if a GM-30 that was in narrowband tried talking to another GMRS radio that was set to wideband. Or if there was a problem early in the GM-30's release, perhaps Radioddity fixed it, possibly quietly. There have been quite a few positive reviews of this radio stating there was no low audio issue. Therefore, the first response by @MichaelLAX to this post offers good advice. If purchasing a GM-30, when asking for radio checks, explicitly ask how the tx audio sounds. This is actually a good thing to ask when getting early radio checks for any radio purchase you make. And as Michael stated, if the GM-30 (or any newly purchased radio) exhibits low tx audio, be prepared to return it within the exchange/warranty interval. Thanks again for everyone's comments. In Summary 1. Plenty of people say this radio is good and does not have low tx audio. 2. As with any new radio, ask for radio checks and explicitly ask how the tx audio is. 3. If there is a low tx or other issue, exchange the radio within the exchange/warranty window.

First, thanks everyone for your responses. Regarding making sure that the radio was in wideband mode, some of the reviewers had stated there was low tx audio even after verifying the radio was set to wideband. Perhaps the people who reported low tx audio happened to get an affected model. I don't remember if it was here, on Amazon, on RadioReference, or a comment in a Youtube review...someone thought a possible explanation could be that remnant flashing from the manufacturing process maybe blocked the mic partially. It's been awhile since the GM-30 was introduced. If there was a manufacturing issue, maybe Radioddity addressed it. If so, they didn't let on in their response to my email in which I asked if they were aware of reports of low tx audio. Again, thanks for everyone's responses.

back4more70, a few minutes ago I created a new post in the Equipment Reviews section. The post mentions that some Baofeng radios which supported broadcast FM reception might not do so due to chip shortages. My new post provides additional info.

According to a Reddit article titled "No FM broadcast on new UV-9G"... Due to chip shortages, some Baofeng radios which supported broadcast FM reception might not be equipped to do so. In addition to the UV-9G, the UV-82 was mentioned. According to copy/paste responses from Baofeng and Radioddity's tech support, they confirmed the missing functionality was due to chip shortages. Also, Baofeng stated that due to the number of batches, it would be difficult for them to confirm whether a particular radio is missing broadcast FM reception for this reason. So if some of your Baofengs are missing broadcast FM reception that you expected, this may be "normal." The new normal.

I am considering purchasing a Radioddity GM-30 GMRS HT. Of the various negative comments made in reviews, one that is disconcerting is reports of low TX audio. Commentators have said "you need to practically eat the mic to use it" or "if you're more than an inch away from the mic TX audio is nonexistent." Purchasers, including some on this forum, have returned the radio for this reason. For the folks on this forum, especially if you own a GM-30 and have used it for some time, what is your assessment of its TX audio? Thanks.

Since you're interested in txing on GMRS but not HAM, of those two antennas the UT-72G is the one to get. That antenna is optimized for GMRS (i.e., 462-467 MHz) as well as for the MURS radio service. In fact, the "G" at the end of the antenna's name represents GMRS. Incidentally, I am using the G version as a base antenna. I plopped it on top of a steel pizza pan, which serves as a ground. I'm happy with the results. Since I don't use the antenna as a mobile antenna, I cannot comment on its performance for that scenario. If you have a chance, can you update this post to let us know how the UT-72G is working out for you? Good luck.