SteveShannon

There are no FRS exclusive channels that allow you to operate a GMRS radio without identifying. Every FRS channel is a GMRS channel. Technically, if you want to operate without identifying, you must use an FRS certified radio. Whenever you are using a GMRS radio you are required by regulations to follow the GMRS regulations, which require identifying.

Good job! Yes, water could get into the antenna and migrate down into the connection.

@Sonicgott, thanks for the well written and complete review. Also, if you’re new to the site, @Socalgmrs has a social problem that none of us understand. Apparently the only way he can feel self worth is to denigrate others and his most frequent targets are new members. The best way to deal with it is to simply place him on your ignore list until he bails out of this site like he did before. It should be a sticky somewhere for new members.

I was thinking of the kind of regularity that bran flakes help, but okay.

If he goes further in the list he should see D754I (yes, that’s an I) or you can change yours to D754, which is the same as D754n. N stands for Normal. I stands for Inverted. Or there’s a separate choice that asks Normal or Inverted. None of them provide privacy (security).

I don’t understand your question. Are you looking for irregular guys?

Most radios just give either a number, like D1051 which is the same as N, or the Inverse D1051I. You won’t see a D1051N.

That sounds good! Congratulations!

Well, they did change their website to address it….

You don’t have to enter the TX transmit frequency if you’re using a GMRS radio and you have selected one of the repeater channels (which you have!) but you do have to make sure that you have entered the proper CTCSS tone or DCS code that the repeater requires or the repeater wil, just ignore any signal it receives from you. No, kerchunking the repeater is not a very reliable way to confirm that you’re activating the repeater, especially if you’re relatively inexperienced. The best way is to push the PTT, say your call sign, and ask for a radio check.

Would you rather turn it on if it identified as Roger? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. We have a member whose bypass switch was stuck open on the external microphone jack on his handheld, disconnecting the internal microphone. He didn’t know that. We discovered the problem when he tried to check in on our Net. The call went out for check-ins and we heard a full quiet dead silence followed by a beep. Because he was the only one of us who used a Roger beep we had some idea who it might be so one of our senior members called out to him by name with some suggestions. It turned out that by plugging in the external mike we were able to hear his voice. A week or so later he brought his radio to my house and I soldered a bridge across the stuck-open switch. If it hadn’t been for the Roger beep we wouldn’t have known who it was. So maybe we out to require that each radio include a unique Roger or Susan beep. My Alinco (Anytone inside) has the ability to customize the Roger beep with up to four separate tones. This could be fun.

Hello and welcome!

It’s not needed, but fortunately that’s not a criterion we get to impose on each other. Nor do we get to tell you what rules you can have on your repeaters.

I think what you’re saying is that the radio transmits fine on both ham and GMRS frequencies when you use the built in microphone, but when you plug in the external microphone you can only transmit on ham radio frequencies, not GMRS frequencies. Is that right? Because that doesn’t make sense. If it simply doesn’t transmit when using the PTT button on the external microphone, that’s probably a hardware problem. Either your microphone plug isn’t plugged in deeply enough or the jack or cable has an issue. Try a different one to see if the same thing happens.

Use it if you want. It’s your radio and there are no rules prohibiting it. It makes no difference. I don’t understand why anyone is bothered by it, but they should get over it. Edited to add: some repeater owners don’t want Roger beeps on their repeaters. Follow their wishes when using their repeater.

Wouldn’t have happened if Hezbollah had removed the batteries …

Remove the battery.

Either material works well at picking up RF. Of far more importance is matching the design of the antenna to the need.

Copper is excellent from a conductivity perspective, but it’s soft enough that a long length of it can stretch from its own weight. One nice thing about copper is that even if it oxidizes at the connections it still has good conductivity. Aluminum is another excellent material from a conductivity perspective, but aluminum oxide is an insulator, which must be dealt with. For a wire antenna, copper clad steel is one of the very best. At UHF current flows on the surface, rather than throughput the material, so copper clad steel wire sacrifices nothing and resists stretching. But constructing an antenna is about more than just the material. A lot depends on what kind of antenna you want to build and just as much depends on the frequency needed. If you want a really good vertical antenna for a single UHF band like GMRS, you can easily build one using copper pipe or aluminum tubing. The lengths are short so mechanical stresses are almost nil.

We used to say “Shits the beets out of me!”

My hobby is flying big rockets to a few miles high. Hopefully that’s not too boring.

I must be boring as hell, then. No beer at the prom. In fact most of my class didn’t. I graduated in 1973 and one guy in the Junior class had a brand new Chevy Blazer that he rolled in a beet field after having a few beers. I’m sure that was not boring. Another had a chartreuse Ford Mustang and launched it into a beet field. Also not boring. Fortunately nobody died. We boring kids had an alcohol free prom at the school, and an all night party afterwards, followed by breakfast in one of the boring kids Quonset huts.

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Are you trying to transmit on GMRS or ham frequencies? If you are certain it’s not user error send it in. If you are not certain enough to send it in then don’t take it personally if they ask you questions meant to determine whether it is user error. Probably the vast majority of problems they see are.