SteveShannon

HRO for the win!

Astron makes really good (but not inexpensive) power supplies and they have a line of different ones with radio enclosures. 
https://www.astroncorp.com/slim-line-w-housing

I just ordered an Astron 50 amp linear power supply. From Gigaparts or DX Engineering it’s $200 more than from Ham Radio Outlet. 

I just ordered an Astron 50 amp linear power supply. From Gigaparts or DX Engineering it’s $200 more than from Ham Radio Outlet. 

Astron makes really good (but not inexpensive) power supplies and they have a line of different ones with radio enclosures. 
https://www.astroncorp.com/slim-line-w-housing

Astron makes really good (but not inexpensive) power supplies and they have a line of different ones with radio enclosures. 
https://www.astroncorp.com/slim-line-w-housing

It's not hitting out here in the West Coast of Califailure.  🤣..   But I'll keep my ears posted.  

Astron makes really good (but not inexpensive) power supplies and they have a line of different ones with radio enclosures. 
https://www.astroncorp.com/slim-line-w-housing

Used these at my previous employer with our Kenwood Nexedge radios. Rock solid, as you'd expect from both brands!

Exactly!

It's like the "Do Not Disturb" sign on your hotel room door. It won't keep people from knowing you're in there or hearing you having noisy s*x, but hopefully it will keep them from interrupting you. 🤣

If at first you don't succeed, try try again...

I think of it like a private party across the street or a private pool at a hotel, sure you can see and hear what’s happening but if you don’t have an invitation or the code for the gate you’re not part of it. 

I've seen a couple of these style 'base station' kits that let you mount your radio into a housing containing the power supply to make for a nice clean setup. This one is for an ICOM radio but I've seen them for other brands too. Any mobile radio should fit as long as the dimensions are the same! 

https://www.buytwowayradios.com/ict-cs120-20ag-ic04.html
 
Goodluck and happy radioing!

As Steve mentioned, most transceivers require an external dc power source. Even dedicated 100/200 watt amateur base transceivers require a 12v power supply.
Part of the reason is that internal power supplies need to be small enough to fit into the case along with everything else which means using a switching power supply. Switching power supplies can cause electromagnetic interference - EMI and radio frequency interference - RFI. Having the AC to DC power supply separate and in an all metal enclosure will help shield the radios from EMI and RFI. Though that is not a guarantee.
Take a standard ATX computer power supply out of the computer case and it can/will cause EMI/RFI issues with nearby transceivers and other electronics. The EMI/RFI gets even worse if you remove the case.

I’ve never seen one. Even most ham radios designed to be used as base stations require an external power supply. 

I’ve never seen one. Even most ham radios designed to be used as base stations require an external power supply. 

Warning the following was composed pre morning coffee!!!
Kristonapony! I’m sure glad there’s people keeping up the fight on whether or not a 15” antenna will fit in a box and if said box is standard or not.
I was up all night worrying about it (was too). We need a slogan. Antenna Gate 2025? Free the whip? Feel free to post your ideas and be sure to pick a side.
For the record if I order something and it doesn’t come, I take the novel approach of contacting who I got it from and say excuse me, can I get that thing I bought. Amazon is pretty good about returns in my experience. 
 
Speaking of Amazon lol, I found this. I can’t say if it ships in a standard box or not. Who knew there was so much dislike for the eggplant that they have shirts?.
Affiliate link below? 

I now return you to the forum already in progress. Where my coffee? 🥱

The band used to include 220-222 MHz. That portion was lost to ham radio so UPS could have it. They never did. 

The main issue with commercial radios is the usual lack of front panel programming. There are some, but it's usually a paid-for option. I have one of current manufacture that the option is included for free. However after reading the procedure in the service manual I concluded it was fare easier to use the programming software.
https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/290-nx-1300duk5/?context=new
These are very nice radios, but sort of expensive. The cost could be anywhere from $200 to $300 plus for used to new condition. If you get one stick to the display models. Don't get anything with "ProTalk" in the description or a "P" somewhere in the model code!  Those have a fixed list of frequencies you have to choose from and are not "freely" programmable. Verify the model by looking at the rear side of the radio for the FCC ID and model tags before bidding or buying a used radio. Sellers of used radios frequently get the descriptions wrong!
I haven't found the lack of front panel programming to be a deal breaker for me. I have the local repeaters all programmed in so all I need is to recall them from memory. 
I prefer Kenwood since I've had a far easier time finding the software. Also most, a few won't, of the programming software allows one to "push" the radio outside of it's official band split. A favorite Kenwood HT, TK-3170, has an official band split of 450 to 490 MHz. I have a bunch of Ham 70cm repeaters programmed into it in the 440 to 450 MHz range along with the GMRS stuff. The software generates a warning about the out of band frequency but accepts it anyway after clicking OK.
https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/263-tk-3170jpg/?context=new
You can usually find these used for under $100 in good condition.

Even with an InReach, you need to evaluate the situation and decide if it's the best solution in any given situation. 

[Trigger warning - really graphic gory stuff follows.]

In 2019 I fell while hiking on a mountain in the Mojave Desert in California. To be specific, I was standing on a rock that decided to disintegrate. I lost my balance, windmilled wildly for a few seconds, realized the situation wasn't salvageable and that I was falling into a jumble of large boulders. I instinctively put my right hand (I'm nominally right-handed) on my neck to guard my spine. After I landed, I took stock of where I was and the condition I was in.

I had fully broken both bones (radius and ulna) in my right forearm, with the bones sticking out. My knuckles were pretty scraped up and I wasn't sure if I'd broken anything there, either. I was not losing blood (although there was a lot of bleeding) and I could both feel my fingers and move them, so there was no risk of bleeding out and no apparent nerve / muscle damage. If you remember the Harry Potter movie where Harry breaks his arm and the crackpot wizard 'fixes' it by removing all the bones in his arm, that's about it, but with more blood and protruding bones.

I got some of my army surplus emergency clotting powder (the yellowish stuff) out of my pack and dumped it on the spots where I was leaking blood. I snapped one of my hiking poles (I wasn't going to be able to use both of them, anyway) to create a makeshift splint and used one of those giant Target plastic bags (that they used to give out when shopping, and which I carried to port out any trash I made or found), poked a hole across the bottom to put my arm in, and put the handles over my head. FWIW, in the late 1970's I was on the volunteer first aid squad in the town I grew up in, and have also had more recent survival training).
With the immediate emergency taken care of, I drank some water and took a pain pill from my pack and sat down on a less defective rock to take stock of the situation. I was WAY up on the side of a mountain, hours from the nearest hospital (as part of my pre-hike planning, I always take note of where the nearest urgent care / hospital / regional trauma center is).

I had an InReach (and the SAR 50 plan that covers up to $50K in rescue costs) with me. However, I was in the middle of nowhere (Inyo County is twice the size of the state of Connecticut and has 18,500 people living it, none near me). I figured if I pushed the button, LifeFlight would send a helicopter from Pahrump, NV (the closest medical facility), land down on the flatlands near where the Jeep was parked, look up the mountain and go "NFW" and call out mutual aid from San Bernardino Mountain Rescue. Which, aside from being in another county and several hours away, I know those guys well and it would have been pretty embarrassing. They would have to carry a litter from the helicopter up the mountain to me, strap me into it, and have the helicopter fly up over me and drop a line down to hook onto the litter. So I decided to self-rescue.

An hour and an half to get down the mountain to the Jeep, an hour across open desert and dirt roads, and another hour on paved roads to get to Pahrump. So, 3.5 hours total. I decided I could do that in less time than being rescued via the InReach, so that's what I did. With a fair amount of screaming in pain as I drove over bumpy areas. I was proven right about 6 months later when someone had a similar accident nearby, but closer to the nearest place where people lived (calling it a town would be vastly overstating things) and it took over 9 hours for LifeFlight and SB mutual aid to get that person to the same hospital I drove to.

The moral of the story is that you need to be self-sufficient in the wilderness, and also be able to evaluate your situation and make the best decision possible based on the information you have and your training. If you're alone and unconscious or pinned and unable to move, nothing will save you.

If you enlarge the attached picture, you can see red captions for "Where I Fell" and "Jeep" to get a feel for the situation I was in.

No. Absolutely not. The inventor (Motorola) named the technology Private Line, aka privacy codes. It was done to provide the operators privacy, meaning a lack of interruption from unwanted signals. Its the same concept as a privacy sign at a home or a hotel... privacy and it's literal term means to be left alone. A lot of people misunderstand the definition of privacy, confusing it with secrecy.

It’s hard to beat commercial grade radios. The mobiles are designed with the idea of them operating in all kinds of environments so the audio is usually loud and of good quality. 

Nothing you said has been offensive but I don’t understand why you don’t want to be an eggplant. 😁

Terri, that’s an impressive stack of uniformly sized boxes.  At least through BTech, it appears that Baofeng has a standard single radio box.  That makes sense from a cost standpoint.  I wouldn’t want either a small rattler or a long antenna bent nearly double in one of those boxes.
Randy, let Terri be.  She’s one of the good ones we really want to keep.  She doesn’t come here and act like one of the several resident assholes we’ve had.  She backs up her points with facts, figures, and photos.  I have no idea whether the boxes you’ve experienced are differently printed but same size (as her photos indicate happens) or whether you have received 34 different sizes, but the argument isn’t really important enough to drive one of the good ones away. I don’t doubt that some sellers bend 15” flexible antennas to fit the boxes, but one time it happened to me the antenna took on a bit of a permanent arch. A friend gifted me a Wouxun and couldn’t find the original rubber duck so he bent his 15” antenna into the outer shipping box and sent it instead. 
The other time I received a 15” antenna it was in my packaged with my very first Baofeng, in a larger box with a “covert earpiece”, a PTT microphone, a charger, etc.  some of the pieces, like the antenna, were marked TidRadio, and others said Baofeng.  Perhaps some value added reseller put together a special package of accessories as so many on the Amazon Marketplace do.  
In any case, it’s not important enough to berate people over.