SteveShannon

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.

You’re making the assumption that it’s a “bad habit.” That’s a value judgement on your part that’s simply not true. If it was true the other choices would not exist. Teaching the OP about them is not wrong, just because you wouldn’t do it. Some people want to hear all transmissions on a particular frequency, especially when traveling. Programming a squelch tone prevents that.

The easiest thing to do is choose Tone for squelch type instead of TSQL. That’s the same as having no tone for your receiver. Then it doesn’t matter what the output tone is, your radio will reproduce it. You still have to match your transmitter tone to the repeater input tone or the repeater will ignore you.

That’s actually a very good path, starting with a UV5R and learning the basics. As you learn you will be able to make more informed decisions about what you want going forward. I commend you for using ham radio studying as a way to learn more about the science and terminology of radio. I used HamStudy to do that and found it very helpful because it allows a person to follow any topic as far as possible.

One way in which it’s possible is that there were several linked repeaters covering all those channels. 15-22 are the same frequencies as repeater transmit channels 23-30. (Repeaters receive about 5 MHz higher.) Another possibility is that you were monitoring two channels simultaneously and changing one channel while hearing the other. Welcome to the hobby and this forum!

He already stated that the used Motorola he would buy rather than a CCR has quality, longevity, and features. But in a real SHTF scenario (rather than a Red Dawn style farce) having the durability and especially the receiver quality of the Motorola far outweighs the inclusion of “face programming, no noaa, no am/fm broadcast radio, no vhf,uhf monitoring”.

My most recent license was in early 2022. I received an email notification that my license had been granted. Also, a year ago I changed the trustees for our ham club licenses and I received an immediate notification. Here’s the screenshot: