SteveShannon

FRS and GMRS channels are the same except for the 467 MHz frequencies that you transmit to a repeater using GMRS. If you have a GMRS radio and license you can transmit at higher power on some of them.

A little known fact is that the toaster doubles as a dummy load…

We get ham points. Every hundred points allow us to describe our medical condition for five minutes.

Both the FT-710 and the IC-7300 are SDR radios. The IC-7300 is a few years older than the FT-710, but it's very popular. It's pretty obvious that Yaesu had the popularity of the IC-7300 in mind when they brought out the FT-710. In fact, a lot of people referred to the FT-710 as the IC-7300 killer. Although I lean more towards the FT-710, I don't think you could go wrong with either.

No, it happens with any company. I bought a Comet SBB-5 that had a high (4.5:1 or so) on one band. Unfortunately I bought it from a private party to save $12 compared to the best retail price I could find. I emailed the Comet distributor and they diagnosed that it sounded like a bad capacitor in the base unit. I could have sent it in to be serviced, but instead I bought a new base for $24. It works perfectly. I like Comet antennas and if I ever figure out how to disassemble this base unit I’ll fix it.

It seems that everyone is assuming that Ethernet level digital signals are being carried between the head unit and the radio body. Do you know that is true?

I don’t know what’s necessary for a masthead antenna, but there are dual band commercial antennas like this Laird that target the right frequencies better than antennas for 2meter/70cm: https://theantennafarm.com/shop-by-categories/antennas-mounts/mobile-antennas/vhf-uhf-dual-band/451-commercial-dual-band/219-high-gain-dual-band-antennas/8909-laird-connectivity-ab150-450cs-detail

Out of curiosity, what frequency pair do they use?

Yes. That’s true. GMRS is intended to be a service using retail products that comply to part 95e. It’s not a service designed to encourage experimentation or require tuning before use.

I have to agree that the Yaesu FT710 Field would be a good choice given your budget. It tunes from 30 kHz to 75 MHz and has a great set of features that enable picking signals out of the noise. It’s $200 off right now ($900 at the major radio dealers) Here’s a link to the Sherwood report which attempts to rank radios by receiver quality. Not everyone thinks it’s perfect but it really does a pretty good job of documenting measurements. It doesn’t discuss features or transmission power or anything else but receiver measurements. Based on this report I would also recommend the FT710. It’s number 4 on the chart. It’s nearly indistinguishable from the FTDX10 which is ranked third. I have the FTDX10 and it is an outstanding receiver. Of course the antenna is possibly the most important part. Fortunately you don’t have to spend a lot of money to build an antenna. I built a 40-10 meter end fed half wave which could be lengthened to 80 meters easily. Even though the antenna isn’t expensive it seems to be very good at receiving. http://www.sherweng.com/table.html https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/ysu-ft-710-field?seid=dxese1&gclid=CjwKCAjwxLKxBhA7EiwAXO0R0DrCK5Hr5po5ilM0GetFkyhA1YqwTg5UulW-DVxwhpJ4JG1rX6AciRoCFv4QAvD_BwE

Definitely a nicer response than mine.

What is wrong with you? People should be able to ask questions without you being a jerk.

This article explores your question. The difference is very slight: https://www.hamradio.me/antennas/when-antenna-tilt-matters.html

With the exception of 146.52, the 2 meter simplex calling frequency, there are no “basic ham frequencies”. Repeaters in one area are programmed differently than others. But by learning to use repeaterbook, you can discover the frequencies in use local to you. Similarly, emergency frequencies differ from place to place. The GMRS frequencies, bandwidth, and power level are fixed by regulations, but from place to place different repeaters use different channels with different tones. So, unless you find someone in your area who has already done it, you’ll need to build your own. Fortunately, I think Chirp has the ability to import settings for local repeaters, emergency frequencies, and even GMRS frequencies. I don’t remember which menu heading it’s under, but Notarubicon probably has a video that covers it. Yup, the menu is Radio-Query Data Source. He explains it well at about 11:55 in the video. The video is here:

2.18:1 is acceptable, but not great; I’ve used worse. 1.50:1 is just fine. I probably would not do much. If 470 MHz is even better SWR then the element is slightly too short.

Trimming would make the 462 MHz channels higher SWR because it’s already higher SWR than the higher frequencies. Without sweeping it using an antenna analyzer it’s difficult to know which way to go for the repeater channels: is the bottom of the dip left or right of the repeater channel you looked at?.

They are, but some people would try to tune them. I think I would not.

The advantage of RX tones is simply that your radio will not break squelch for any radios transmitting with no tone or a different tone. Because the simplex channels receive the same frequencies as the repeater channels that might reduce the amount of traffic. Im sorry, I don’t know how those radios work as far as allowing you to program additional channels.

1. You only need the TX tone. 2. Yes, if your radio allows it, but not all do.

I would still clear out the receive tone to see if you hear anything.

No, you’re correct in using one of the repeater channels instead of the simplex channels. 15-22 are simplex. REPT15 - REPT22 are dedicated to repeaters. Could either of you hear any repeater traffic? At first it’s a good idea to leave the receive tone empty so you can hear everything on the frequency but you must have the correct transmit tone. Also, if you and your wife were too close to each other it’s possible that the receiving radio was desensitized. Normally I would not expect that if you were 100 feet apart but it depends on the radio. Welcome!

They might want to mail them all a letter asking about any interest in forming a GMRS club.

They would seem to be a reasonable suitor, but if such interest were ever expressed MFJ’s announcement would seem to imply that it is unlikely.

The other rumor was that DX Engineering might be interested.