SteveShannon

I looked it up earlier this year and there were something like 13 thousand more active ham licenses last year than the year before. That doesn’t point to it going away. Basic testing is necessary in order to ensure that people have learned the bare minimum regulations and a small amount of the science. Many of the most basic questions that people ask when they become involved in radio are those things that a person learns while studying to pass the Technician test. Not only that but the questions are all publicly available. Eight year old children pass the test. Some ham clubs even have one day cram and test days where a person goes through the material for a while and then immediately tests on it. The test is truly not a barrier unless a person is unwilling to put forth any effort at all.

I’d like to suggest that you provide a new screenshot of just the dialog box. The resolution on this one is not legible even when zoomed in. Someone intimately familiar with the software might be able to answer your question without referring to the dialog box, but for the rest of us that would be great.

Just another thought: see if there’s a local ham radio club (I bet there is) and attend one of their meetings. Many of the members of my club are also GMRS members. They exist to help others become hams.

No, just molded in thick heat sink fins on the bottom and back. You might have to point a fan at them. How long do you transmit at a time anyway? Or are you hoping to buy two and make a repeater? Based on past forum posts I’ve read that doesn’t seem to be a very effective way to put up a repeater.

I agree with Gortex that asking the repeater owner before creating a net. Be sure the net has a purpose that will keep it going, because otherwise it will eventually die on the vine. If you are just doing it to have someone to talk to, you might want to consider becoming an amateur radio operator. There’s more of that in ham radio.

Pi’s are much easier to get now. I got two of them at the right prices (not scalpers). But you can only order one at a time. First, watch rpilocator to see when they come in. Second, sign up at the official resellers like Adafruit to be notified when the models you want are in stock. You’ll get one notification; order it immediately. Do not dilly-dally. Quantities are limited. I got another notification just a couple days ago, but I don’t need any more.

A taller antenna will make more difference than raising your power.

Being slightly off frequency can bring out the Charlie Brown teacher voice.

That’s just the way it is. FRS radios are toys and regulations allow unlicensed children to use them. Pitting us against each other will not help; it just exacerbates the frustration and resentment.

That’s also true of any GMRS user using those channels for simplex. But that’s not “jamming“ the frequency. That’s just sharing the frequency as regulations require.

I'll recheck the same radio on GMRS but with a different antenna to see how it does. I'll also check my other DB20G radio to see how much they differ. That'll have to wait for a dry day though. ?

Depending on terrain 55 miles isn't far at all for a tall antenna. UHF, even at low power, can go hundreds of miles as long as nothing interrupts the path.

Did you ever go look at the interactive map? Different repeaters appear depending on zoom level. You never told us more specifically than SW Missouri. How far away is POSY? Repeaters are limited to 50 watts, same as your mobile radio, so I doubt that’s a real difference, but POSY could have a pretty tall antenna tower.

They could, but that’s their right. Not to intentionally interfere of course, but as @wrci350 said:

No apology needed for that. It was an honest mistake.

How do they cause problems for repeater owners? FRS radios are blocked from transmitting on the 467 main channels that are the repeater inputs.

What about the buttons on the factory mike?

I just tested the power output on 146.940 MHz of my dB20g and the radio, which is rated for 20 watts on GMRS, put out a solid 30 watts. I had to double check it, but that’s what it said. I wish now that I had another wattmeter for VHF to compare.

I haven’t seen any reports here of the Db20g failing. I have two of them. One I opened up and connected to a Comet dual band SB5 antenna. I use it for 2 meter and 70 cm in my 4Runner. The other is factory configured for GMRS and is connected to a Midland MXTA26 GMRS antenna in my pickup. Neither have acted up. For the price they seem very capable little radios.

What about the POSY 625 repeater on the map?

Look in Device Manager for any issues.

I get that a lot! It sounds like you’ve got a good one!

Thanks, Marc; you’re right. I went down the wrong path. I appreciate the correction.

? Having lower output is a feature!

I think that misses his question. For some repeaters the status in the database changes from “Active” to “Stale” (or some such language) after a period of time with no updates to the database, generally thought to be a year. Why does the database continue to reflect that these repeaters are active?