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I can hit several repeaters in my area (north east San Diego city), but they are extraordinarily quiet.

I expected to hear something other than silence for days on end. Not a big deal, as I don't have much skin in the game. But surprised that it's dead, in my area at least.

Doubt I'll do that, but you never know. One thing is for sure, GMRS in my part of San Diego is pretty nearly dead.

In 48-72 hours, I typically hear zero conversations. Maybe someone keying for a sec, but that's about it. Guess we're just not all that chatty.

Still dead in and around San Diego. Barely turn the thing on, as I was going full days without hearing a thing on any channel.

Now that I've had GMRS set up for a bit, one thing I've noted is that it is really quiet. I'm in the San Diego area and can hit a number of local repeaters, but it seems that there's basically close to zero activity on GMRS. It's not as if I have the need or time to do a lot of chatting, but I was surprised at just how quiet it is. I can scan channels for a day and hear essentially nothing, or close to it. Is this pretty typical?

Here's another question. I found some info on a repeater (not sure I can hit it) and it shows a DLP code of D245 (no letter after that code). When I program my radio, there is an option under DLP for D245N and D245I, but I don't see just D245. Anyone knows what the difference is or how to properly input their code/tone?

Disregard for now. The software can read from the radio. I was holding down transmit and the button under it while turning the radio on. Turns out I only needed to hold down the button under transmit.

Appreciate the article. Cable was provided recently by Baofeng and shows in device manager as Prolific, but no yellow triangle. However, could not read from the radio. Following instructions, downgraded driver to 3.2.0.0. with the same problem. Plug is pushed in fully and radio is in programming mode. Correct port selected (Com 3). Not sure what the issue is. Let me know if you have any thoughts or recommendations. One more thing is that even though it was not reading with driver version 3.2.0.0., when I unplug the USB cable and plug it in again, it seems to revert to the newer 3.6.81.357, which also doesn't work. The specific error I get on 3.2.0.0 is "please check all connections and communication port settings", but from what I can tell, they seem to be good.

Thanks. Chilling w/a glass of wine, so I'll check this out tomorrow.

Thanks! I have 2 Windows laptops. One (Dell) won't work, for whatever reason. I'm currently updating the other (Alienware), which I haven't used in ages, to see if it will work. But I probably will ultimately have a few questions...

I'm using a MacBook Air (current version) running Big Sur 11.5.2 with 8gb of RAM.

Looks like it doesn't work on Mac. Tried to open using an older Window computer, but not reading from the radio. Using a Baofeng programming cable. Only 1 communications port is not greyed out (COM3). Tried a different port which shows as COM4 and that cannot read from the radio either. Let me know if you can figure out what I'm missing, if anything. Getting the error "Please check all connections and communication port settings".

So just to be clear, if the repeater is transmitting a code, and you do not have a receive code set, you will hear that repeater and any other repeater on the same frequency. But if you have that receive code, you can use it to isolate the conversation to only the output from the repeater that you are interested in hearing. Is that correct?

I mentioned that I received the Pofung P15UV, which seems to be identical, or nearly so, to the Radioddity GM-30 and the Tidradio TD-H5, so I thought I'd share the review. On a side note, I had ordered a Nagoya 771 antenna, but they sent me one with a SMA female rather than the SMA male ordered (and let me keep the Nagoya), so I instead ordered the Comet SMA-24 antenna, which seemed to work pretty well. Here's the review, and of course I'm new to this, so let me know if you see any errors... 5.0 out of 5 stars Great value at the current price. Performs quite well. Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2021 I am not new to radios and telecommunication, but I am fairly new to GMRS, having been recently licensed. For those unaware, a license is required to transmit on the GMRS (General Mobile Radio Service) bands with this radio. An outstanding resource is mygmrs (do a search) and I've found the folks there to be very helpful. The radio is similar and nearly identical to the Radioddity GM-30. Not sure what the differences are, other than having slightly different key labelling. The basic menu, case and function appear to be identical. This radio charges with a USB C cable, which is nice. A cradle-type charger is also provided, although there is only a standard USB connector on the other side of the cradle's cable, not an actual AC plug itself. That didn't pose a problem for me. The unit can receive a great many frequencies, but it can only transmit on the 22 GMRS channels and the 8 additional GMRS repeater channels, so 30 channels in total. Output is typically at or near 5 watts, although channels 8-14 are shared with FRS and in accordance with FCC rules, the power is limited to low or 0.5 watts on those channels only. I did see that one person couldn't switch from low to high, and not sure if his radio is defective or not, but on those channels only you can only transmit on the lower power due to said power limitations. So to my knowledge, you cannot manually override the low power setting on channels 8-14. The volume output is less than my Baofeng, but still just fine for my purposes. Battery life is good, although some radios have higher-capacity batteries included. Display is pretty easy to read, although I wish there was a way to dim the display. It's either really bright, or off. All channels were set to narrow band, and in my view, you'll want to set them to wide band. The owner's manual will tell you how to adjust the settings and it is written in surprisingly good English. The antenna provides very good range and I was able to hit quite a few repeaters once I figured out how to do that. There is a learning curve, but it's not rocket science. Still, there may be fewer repeaters than you might expect, and many of them are private and require permission to use. Speaking of the antenna, unlike most of the Baofeng radios, which need an SMA-Female antenna connector, this one requires an SMA-Male antenna connector and yes the antenna can be changed. There is a tiny hex screw at the base of the antenna, so once you loosen that, you can easily unscrew the antenna if you have the need to. Not sure if that's allowable or not, so I won't comment on that aspect, other than to say that it's easily possible. Nitpicks? Not many. The squelch isn't very effective. I already told you I'd prefer a dimming option for the display. I wish the USB C port was on the side or back of the radio rather than on the bottom, as you cannot keep the radio upright while charging with USB C (but that is not an issue if charging with the cradle). I'd also like to see it waterproof or water-resistant (it isn't). And a higher capacity battery would be groovy. I would also like to see an ability to store more than one CTCSS code per channel, as is possible on some other radios. To my knowledge (correct me if I am wrong) you are limited to one per CTCSS code per channel in memory. Sometimes/often multiple repeaters operate on the same repeater channels, but they'll usually use different CTCSS access codes, so with this one (and most others), you have to manually change the code each time, which is inconvenient. But for this price, there really isn't much room for complaint. I like the radio a lot, actually. And despite a few nitpicks here and there, it's a 5 star radio at this price, in my view. It works great, feels good in my hand and seems well-built. Still, there is room for improvement, so hopefully the manufacturer will incorporate some of my suggestions into future revisions.