SteveShannon

Correct. In “Tone” mode you transmits a tone to open the receiver, but you don’t listen for one, so you hear everything transmitted on the channel. Correct. In “Tone Squelch” mode you send a tone to open the repeater and you only break squelch on your receiver if you receive the same tone. DTCS is just a digital code instead of an actual analog tone, but as a digital code it can be transmitted either in “normal” or “inverted” polarity where the bits are flipped. The polarity is whether the bits are inverted or normal. Yes, you have the choice of leaving RX DTCS unset, which will result in no filtering. Everything gets through. I’d say you’re doing fine. Welcome to the forum.

Everything always devolves to fart jokes.

Cmon! That’s Foxtrot Romeo Romeo!

But he doesn’t bash all hams. Yes, he rails against sad hams, but he has said numerous times that that describes only a subset of ham radio operators. Unfortunately, there are ham radio operators who are jerks. They are rude or judgmental or impatient or too full of themselves or whatever and it comes through in how they treat others. Like bad news everywhere they’re the ones who make memorable impressions on people who are simply trying to understand a pretty technical hobby. His intentional use of the acronym H.A.M.S. is kind of a dog whistle They exist in GMRS, shooting, probably quilting also. Every hobby that has a social aspect has them. The one thing that binds these people together is that they become convinced that their hobby will cease to exist without their eternal vigilance as gatekeepers.

No, there are posts in this thread from 2018 that include quotes of the rules which clearly show that the phrase “any other networks” existed years ago.

Without knowing exactly which repeater you’re asking about I’ll give a hypothetical and long winded answer. Different radio manufacturers use different conventions for their channel numbers. One company uses 15 through 22 as their simplex channels and then 23 through 30 as their repeater channels. Another company numbers their repeater channels as 15RP through 22RP. But there are also “simplex repeaters” where the repeater receives and transmits on the same frequency without an offset. Because there’s no frequency offset, receiving and transmitting may not be done simultaneously. Instead, a simplex repeater stores the received message and then retransmits it afterwards on the same frequency. As far as tones, there are tones, which are called CTCSS or PL or similar names. The frequency of the tone will be expressed in Hertz (Hz). Or there are binary codes called DCS, DTCSS, DPL etc. All the names mean the same. The codes can be inverted or normal.

Once they worked for me on my W10 pc, but not now.

After AT&T’s outage today, I predict more radios in trucks.

I had to go look it up, but I was thinking that the SBB-7NMO might be a good choice also, but I’m not sure how it looks on GMRS frequencies. It’s about 55 inches long. I think you’re right that the CA-2x4SR has a better wideband response.

My anecdotal understanding of posts on this forum is that chirp works fine with the Baofeng uv5g and the Radioddity uv5g, but not with the uv5g plus.

Look into the Diesel antenna mount that screws into place between the third brake light and the cab. Then just use something like one of the SBB series long enough to get above the trailer.

No, it means you will hear everything transmitted on the frequency your radio is receiving. Both repeaters and radios using simplex transmit on the same frequencies.

1. This isn’t a new rule, and 2. Why would you want to hurt ham radio repeaters? They didn’t do this to you, and 3. Of course you can talk to your friends. You still have a phone right?

The repeater outputs that tone but it’s received by your radio. However, if you leave the receive tone empty (or choose TONE instead of TSQL) then your radio will reproduce everything, not just transmissions with the tone.

Definitely check out the clubs to find out when they hold tests. You don’t need a license for that and in fact the clubs are usually pretty welcoming to anyone with a pulse and who is interested in ham radio. As far as studying, clubs can help with that also, or you can do it on your own using printed materials, YouTube videos or my personal favorite HamStudy.org. It’s free unless you buy the application which allows you to study anytime and anywhere on your personal device.

Ha!

You bet!

DN is normal. DI is inverted. Unless it says inverted use the normal. DPL is just Motorola marketing language for what others call DCS or DTCSS. PL is just CTCSS. Again marketing crap.

Amen!

As others have already commented, the only frequencies that GMRS operators are licensed to use are the 30 listed in the regulations. All of the in-between frequencies are off limits to us for GMRS. That’s unlike most of ham radio where ranges of frequencies are available. For the authoritative reference, here are the official regulations: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-D/part-95/subpart-E

Our two meter repeater has a phone patch.

It sure makes it easier to replace.

I don’t know that it makes any difference to battery life, but there is no appreciable benefit. Now if you filtered on different tones for the two different channels it would make a difference. For instance, if you know that the repeater uses 100 Hz as it’s CTCSS output tone you might want to program that tone into 26. If you discovered that there were people transmitting on 18 using 143.3 Hz and you set that tone for 18 then you could tell which is which, usually.

I suspect your receiver is listening on both channels (18 and 26). If it’s a dual VFO receiver the two VFO’s are sequentially polled at a brisk rate. If your radio is on 18 when the signal is detected it identifies the signal as being on 18. If it’s on the other VFO at the time it identifies it as 26, but in reality unless you know two different transmitters use different tones or transmit signals with different characteristics, like a Roger beep on one or ANI on one, it’s probably not possible to distinguish.