SteveShannon

Unless you do something incredibly stupid with your radio, nobody will know and almost nobody will care, not even the FCC.

People usually announce it on public forums.

I have only tried one, but I suspect nearly all use the same chipsets at that price level. No. How could they? The antennas will be different depending on which band you want to listen to. A discone would be nice because of its wide coverage though. Plan on spending many times the cost of the SDR for the antenna. Yes. Both free and commercial software is available. Software is available for all of the more popular operating systems.

Not according to the regulations, but from a technical standpoint yes, and many people do.

support@tidradio.com

I would contact Baofeng to see if they will warrant them. Honestly I haven’t seen many Baofeng failures like you describe. I have seen microphone jack failures. Have you tried doing a full factory reset? Might not hurt. Otherwise I would recommend taking them to someone who has some experience to see it they think they’re bad or incorrectly configured.

That’ll do it. So when you tested the cable and antenna before was the adapter out of the circuit?

Did this problem just suddenly happen or was it gradual?

Yeah, don’t do that. Did this just suddenly happen or was it gradual? Have you had much rain lately? Moisture can ruin the ends of coax.

No, not necessarily, but there are differences. 1-7 are limited to 5 watts and maybe wideband. 8-14 are limited to 0.5 watts and narrow band. 15-22 are limited to 50 watts and may be wide.

I doubt that the antenna itself is bad. It’s much more likely that the coax or a connector is bad. Do you have a different piece of coax to try? You know that the shield and center conductor are not shorted together when measured from the radio end. That’s good. Take the coax off the antenna and see if there’s continuity from one end of the center conductor to the other end of the coax. There should be. Do the same for the shield. It should show very little resistance from end to end. Let us know what you find.

Change tone mode to Tone, rather than TSQL. When you transmit it should show that you’re transmitting on 467.675 MHz.

I’m not sure who you think defecated in your direction, but very few people here act that way. But for the reasons I posted above, I think the premise of your statement “Now that APRS is available to us…” is incorrect. APRS isn’t available to us GMRS users. But it is available to us amateur radio users. That’s not a put down, just a statement of how APRS works. I think some people see that location data is available in some GMRS radios and confuse that with APRS.

You’re probably trying to use APRSdroid. As you have discovered, that is a viewer that allows you to see APRS data that has been placed on the internet. A similar app for Apple exists, called APRS.fi, after the website where the data is available. It makes it very convenient to see where someone is if they’re carrying an APRS capable device that is sending information to an APRS digipeater on 144.390 MHz. The digipeaters and APRS capable radios are all ham radios. They can talk to each other directly or through digipeaters, but they use amateur radio. That should not be surprising; the founder Bob Bruninga, was a ham. APRS does not exist on GMRS. It just doesn’t. There are no GMRS digipeaters and there’s no regulatory compliant path to place location data from a GMRS onto APRS. But there some certified GMRS radios that pass location or text data between each other. Garmin was the first and BTech is another more recent one. This is why I keep asking if you really want APRS or if you just want some of the features of APRS. The features are possible. To actually fully implement APRS while remaining compliant with the regulations is not. The regulations prohibit sending digital data to a repeater and the FCC currently interprets the regulations as prohibiting connecting GMRS radios to a network of any kind, so I don’t know how you’re going to put the data on a server.

Okay, first, APRS has no need for the internet. It’s possible to use the internet to see APRS data that has been connected to the internet, but by no means is the internet necessary. Second, APRS absolutely works radio to radio. You just make sure both radios are set to the same frequency and turn on APRS. But, you typically must have a radio with APRS functionality built in or you must connect a TNC to your radio. Do you really want APRS or are you just looking for position reporting and short text messages? It’s like asking do you want to be a Boy Scout or do you just want to camp.

It’s easy to include partial quotes. Simply select the text you want to quote and then click where it says “Quote Selection”

DTMF tones are frequently used to control repeater functions. Or someone simply doesn’t know how to use their handheld radio.

maybe not

DTMF are the same tones you hear when you dial a phone.

Could be as @BoxCar suggested, but maybe a user is sending dtmf tones.

Switch to a channel between 15-22 and try again. Some channels are limited for power. Others are limited to narrow band. Those limitations should be applied automatically by the radio. 15-22 are high power allowed and wide band. And turn your squelch down, not all the way, but 1 or 2. And I don’t know what’s up with the setting for UHF/VHF. All GMRS channels are UHF.

I’m guessing you have some settings wrong. GMRS should never work worse than FRS. But without more information it’s difficult to say. What channels are you trying to use to talk to each other? What’s your power output? Are you on wide band or narrow? How do they work outside of the cars? How far apart were you? Try to isolate whatever problems you’re having. Do others hear a poor signal coming from both of your radios or one in particular?

We really don’t know if he/she still is.

Yes, your idea of moving the radio between your vehicle and your house is sound, but I would recommend a larger power supply. The manual recommends at least 10 amp output. My experience using a lower current power supply indicates that the 5 amp power supply you asked about would be underpowered. I have tried using a 45 year old Cobra CB linear power supply (pictured below) for my DB20G. It’s listed at 13.8 volts, but only 3 amps output. It will run all day long if I stay at medium power output (10 watts) on the radio but it doesn’t have enough continuous current carrying capacity if I switch to high power output (20 watts output). After a half minute or so the power supply thermal circuit breaker opens up. Then I have to wait for a minute or so for the thermal to reset. As @BoxCar said, a decent 10 amp power supply is sufficient unless you intend to someday get a 50 watt output GMRS radio or even a 100 watt output ham radio. A typical ham radio power supply for a modern 100 watt output ham radio doesn’t need to be rated higher than 30-35 amps. I never see my ham radio use more than 23 amps at 100 watt output, but I also have chargers for my handhelds and my antenna tuner connected to the power supply and having a higher output rating may keep the fan from running more frequently. You definitely don’t need an 80 amp power supply, but if you have one already there’s nothing wrong with using it. @WRYZ926 didn’t steer you wrong either. A decent linear power supply is generally electrically (RF noise) quieter than a switch mode power supply, but there are very quiet switch mode power supplies made by Samlex or Astron. Linear power supplies are heavy. There are cheaper ones for both linear and switch mode as well, but they often are RF noisy. In fact some of them have an adjustment so you can tune the RF noise to a frequency that doesn’t bother your radio. One of the members here really likes the Meanwell power supplies on Amazon. They’re made for server or medical equipment usage, and they reportedly put out very clean power. I wouldn’t hesitate to use one. They are very attractively priced. Just be sure to get 13.8 volt DC output and at least 10 amperes of current. The antenna and coax for a home installation are very important as well. The type of cable really depends on the length your installation needs. It’s generally not wrong to go with better cable or a higher antenna, but if you’re only running 10 feet and your budget is already maxed out and you already have RG8x, use it, at least until you can afford something better. Similarly, higher gain antennas are usually better for reaching out further, but only in certain directions. If you’re in very hilly terrain a lower gain antenna might work better for you. A Midland MXTA26, on a magnetic mount stuck to a steel cookie sheet outside of your attic window can work well enough while you’re learning. Most importantly, have fun. Try different things.

This is wisdom earned the hard way.