SteveShannon

I agree with nearly all of this and I especially appreciate the tone much more than the one you typically take against CCRs and “shitty Wouxuns”, which comes across as more of a condemnation of the people who buy them. We should be able to discuss the things that make radios great without needing to constantly denigrate less expensive radios and all who own them. I’d like try a high end Motorola someday to see what it’s like. Instead I have a really nice Garmin that works best for my purposes with it’s built in mapping of other Garmin users and I have Yaesu and Alinco analog/digital handhelds for 2m/70cm. I did buy a couple Baofengs to see what all the hoopla was about and learn Chirp, and they work, but I rely more on the other radios. The Baofengs are good to give the grandkids. I also have some older Midland GMRS/FRS handhelds and a pair of Motorola Talkabouts that were their highest power bubble pack radios at the time. But I don’t have a Wouxun, yet. Thanks for the pleasant post.

Watch these two videos. Really the only thing you need to know at first is power, volume, channel, and push to talk. You can find them all in the manual. Don’t change anything else for now. Then practice. Don’t wait until you need them. Eventually you’ll need to know about tones, but you shouldn’t change them right away.

No. Argentina is in South America (a continent). Argentina is in the Americas (a land mass consisting of two connected continents: North and South America and their surrounding islands. Argentina is not in “America” as the term is commonly accepted. When you hear other countries refer to the USA they frequently interchange “the United States” or “America”, specifically meaning the United States of America.

America is also commonly used to mean the United States of America. From Wikipedia: The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States(U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America.

So here’s the official answer to this question. The only two Yaesu handhelds that support different tones for transmit and receive are the FT-4x and the FT-65R. It’s at about 5:43 or so in this video. https://youtube.com/nyF1bXAAX6Q

Just buy two yagis, two coax cables, and an antenna switch. It still won’t be cheap but you won’t have to deal with 50% signal losses.

There’s absolutely never been a doubt in my mind that Motorola radios have better receivers than Baofeng. My point was (and remains) that most recreational users of the GMRS would be better off with a set of radios they can just buy off the shelf and use, such as some of the Wouxun models or even Baofeng models. They are not well served by suggestions that they buy a used commercial radio and have it reconfigured to work for GMRS. They may not even know what to request, much less be able to find the right CPS, and certainly not aligning a radio. Now for a person who’s interested in radios, a true radio aficionado and especially if they’ve invested in the tools and software needed, these second hand commercial radios are excellent opportunities.

You can do that but it’s much easier to just log in using your FRN and look at the list of licenses issued to you. It’ll show up there immediately.

Have you been under the weather? The vitriol wasn’t flowing quite as strongly over the past three weeks and I was worried about you. I have heard your rants many times but frequently during our network checkins we hear someone really clearly from 30 miles away and it always makes me smile when the net operator asks what mobile they’re using and they report they only have a Baofeng UV5R with a stock antenna. As Randy pointed out you’re full of your own opinions. Not everyone needs a Motorola and those who don’t have one can get just as much use and enjoyment out of their radios. Good luck to you. Being miserable is its own punishment.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding your phrasing. When I hear “We deploy with professional equipment. This is just for our weekly training” it makes me think that you’re training differently than you expect to actually deploy. Why wouldn’t you train with the exact same equipment you would deploy with? Or am I misunderstanding?

Repeaterbook lists one on 550 and one on 725: https://www.repeaterbook.com/gmrs/location_search.php?state_id=19&type=city&loc=Des Moines

RF repeaters can repeat any type of radio signals, such as television, data, or voice.

I don’t know why, but I’ve seen it most often with old stored equipment, including old new stock UPSes. That may be because it’s very recognizable when you plug in a piece of equipment and a cap fails, whereas when they’re being used it looks like it just wore out.

Most mobile radios like to see 13.8 volts. Transmitting requires more current, sometimes a lot more. If your power supply cannot provide that much current the voltage will drop to the point where the radio will reset. I suspect that’s what’s happening. Watching the input voltage like I suggested above would tell you if that’s happening. PUC 1.00 sounds like it could be a firmware revision, which would seem reasonable to display on startup.

It would be nice to have a listing of error codes, wouldn’t it? It appears to show PUC100 whenever it’s first powered up. Might simply mean that it’s passed its power on self test, or maybe it means something else entirely. I think Screech probably hit on it. Put a voltmeter on the power line input to see what’s happening when you transmit. See if it’s dipping low. Then try adjusting the transmit output power to its lowest setting. Does it still reset when you PTT?

Most hams I know use GMRS and are licensed for it, but most people I know who have GMRS radios are unlicensed and are not hams. I see them as complementary services. Because I have a GMRS license my entire family can talk legally when we go on an outing. My ham activities are for me to learn and explore much more than simply talking on the air. In fact, other than weekly net check ins I do very little actual talking on the air in ham radio.

Recently I’ve been enjoying 40, 20, and 17, but I’d have to pick 20. I got an FT8 qso from Scotland there the other day which was kind of fun for a noob like me.

That sounds very orderly, and it sounds like that’s what your Association needed. May I ask how you restrict access to an analog system? Obviously, if you have the ability to block access to someone who has had it, it must be something more than CTCSS or DCS. Edit: It appears you’re using MDC. Does that simply work with any radio that uses PTT ID or ANI or are your users limited to specific radios?

Here’s the instructions for that Workman 104:

Here’s that thread:

There are also inductively coupled glass mounts that don’t require cutting. There was a guy with a Ferrari a month or so ago. I’ll try to post a link to his thread.

No, unfortunately not. Here’s what the description says: Requires a non-ground-plane (NGP) antenna such as the Rugged Radios VHF-1/2W-SPR and Rugged Radios NMO-MT-U, our most popular NMO Cable Mount option with 13' of cable.

How about a suction mount like this: Rugged Radios NMO-SC Suction Cup Antenna Mount with Swivel Base by Scosche https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08177PQPH/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_EY7P0RD2WGH3PPQ4NFE9

If you’re trying for perfection, you’re fighting a losing battle. Raising the antenna might affect impedance and thus SWR. Lowering the antenna might affect impedance and thus SWR. The size of your ground plane will affect SWR. The length of your feedline can affect SWR. The length of the element isn’t the only variable. You can even have near perfect SWR and still have an antenna that nobody can hear. SWR is important. High SWR is to be avoided because of the power that’s reflected back into your transmitter, but 1.75 isn’t high SWR.

Everything affects everything with antennas. I have no idea if the top can be trimmed. I would stop at 1.75:1 and live with it for a while to see how well it works.