WROZ250

No Worries! ?

WOW! The only time I said always was in conjunction with the word exceptions. Likewise, I have never (uh oh using that word) used the word 'never' in anything I wrote regarding range. I likewise do not purport myself to be a "expert". "What is the exception for someone who lives in the city is the norm for someone who lives in the mountains." Yes Marcspaz, that is absolutely a valid statement. At the end of the day (oh god here I go with that untrustworthy 'expert talk'), there is, nevertheless, some relatively hard science behind RF paths. A transmitter has a given power output and an antenna with either some gain, or in the case of the average duck, some loss. Ultimately the actual radiated power is at some level. At the other end of that link you have an antenna system, hopefully with some gain and a receiver with a given sensitivity. So in order to communicate, the radiated energy of the transmitting radio has to be, upon arrival at the receiving antenna, has to have enough energy to overcome all the losses and hopefully still be high enough to enter the receiver at a level it can process. So ultimately, whether one can or cannot access a repeater at a given distance comes down to all of the above. Whether or not that occurs, depends on many environmental factors, especially terrain. Again, and as I alluded to, it isn't typical for a 5W hand held radio using a duck antenna to be able to access a repeater 80 miles away, just unlikely. Could it happen? Absolutely. So 'untrustworthy expert' jargon aside, in simple terms the answer is more accurately stated as 'it depends', not never, not always. ?

There are always exceptions when it comes to range. I can go up on the mountain down the road and probably hit a ton or repeaters with a 5W HT (and the duck antenna) some nearly 100 miles away. That said, just because there are exceptions that doesn't make it the norm. Typical 5W HT range with the duck antenna is at most, 8-10 miles. Again, there are terrain issues and other factors that can make or break a path between a base/repeater and an HT. Just saying...

And even if you can hear the repeater, at 80 miles you are simply not going to access it with a 5W HT and a duck. Doubtful you could even bring it up with a directional gain antenna (not necessarily impossible, but...) Also, as OffroaderX noted, some repeaters use 'reverse burst' which causes your radio to quickly mute and, not all repeaters use a hang time/tail (dead air after a user unkeys), so again, even of you were in range, you might not hear anything when you unkey.

Thanks Michael! Actually , I am pretty familiar with Wouxun radios. While I only have one other, a UVD1P I picked up at a hamfest years ago, my other half, however, seems to collect them and really struggles with the programming. LOL! I'm pretty sure I wasn't using the menu incorrectly, but I totally agree with your comments on entering data that way. Kinda funny, when I picked up the UVD1P, the guy selling them had no idea how to program anything into it and was stunned when after a few seconds I had figured out the menu system. They really are not that difficult, but then I've been in radio for over 50 years (retired now). Thanks for the heads up on the UV8D. I have been reading through the manual and watching reviews. Quite frankly, I really don't need another Ham HT, so it's not like I'm ready to buy one (yet). I really do like the 935G though, it is a really decent radio for the money and, as I noted before, I wanted to have a 'completely legal' radio for GMRS. I am not one for doing the 'MARS' mods on my ham rigs. Besides, I have a couple of commercial HTs that don't need the mods anyway. In any event, Thanks Again for the comments!

Well, after watching many reviews on this radio, I decided to get one, actually two of them. Both radios arrived intact, but oddly enough one (radio) box was moderately damaged, yet the bigger box that the two radios were shipped in was undamaged. I can only surmise that somebody at the dealer packed a damaged, or actually damaged, the one radio box. Enough about that, the radio itself was again, undamaged (Thankfully). Shipping issues aside, my first impression of this radio is "WOW". I have owned many different radios in my days, but this one is extremely nice. So much so, I wanted to see if Wouxun makes a version of this radio for amateur radio (they do!) and I am thinking about it. To be sure, I have not been a fan of Chinese radios, but this one is, IMHO, a standout exception. I dunno, perhaps after the big FCC stink about Chinese radios, Wouxun at least, seems to have their act together on this one. I did do a power output check, but rather than say something stupid that isn't true, I'm going to rerun the test with better equipment before saying anything, as I don't trust the meter I used at the time. Programming is straightforward using either the menu system on the radio or the software. I did however, find some quirks with programming. Some items, such as the programmable function (side) buttons can be changed through the menu system on the radio. However, those changes only seem to take with the PC software. Some did take, but then could not be reverted back to their previous settings via the menu system. Not all the settings to be sure and, it isn't (to me) a big deal as I prefer the PC software to the menu. But it is a quirk just the same IMHO. Additionally, and perhaps it is something with Windows, the PC software only recognizes/lets the user select com port 1, despite having a listing of choices of com port. I don't know if it the software, or yet another Microsoft bug. Nevertheless, this issue was easily overcome by manually changing the assigned com port in windows. All that said, this is a damn good radio for the price! I wanted a 'legal' GMRS radio, but this one's features leave me wishing it could transmit throughout the receiving range! It really is that nice. ?

Sounds like maybe you're describing the old Motorola Modar, a VHF marine radio.

Sorry marcspaz, there were so many responses on this I never saw your pictures (I will look though). I was responding to tweiss3's post and I wasn't surprised by what he posted and, took those comments on face value. While I have no direct experience with the X300, I do have the X50NA which does not work well out of ham band. Indeed, at UHF, the ham band performance it isn't really what it should be IMHO. At UHF in general, the vswr of the X50NA (as viewed on 2 different analyzers) seems to waver up and down every few MHz between ~1.4 and 2.5 vswr and the average of that wavering only goes up with frequency. Dual band antennas always seem to be a compromise to some extent, so again, I wasn't surprise at tweiss3's comments. Also, and perhaps to your point, environment (where and how it is installed) can affect antenna performance and of course, there could indeed be something wrong. All that said, I do agree with your comments about tweiss3's situation. Assuming of course that your X300 is typical of that model's performance. As noted above, tweiss3's situation could be caused by where and how the antenna is installed. FWIW, I do use the X50NA for listening to GMRS and while it's only about 20ft AGL, the reception is pretty decent even with the bad vswr, as I can hear repeaters between 90-100 miles away with pretty decent signal strength. This surprised me as my location is surrounded by various mountains which are between my location and the aforementioned repeaters. I can, and have, transmitted on GMRS with the X50NA and it does work and, while I really don't think it's going to 'blow my transmitter up' I just don't like operating into an antenna system with a high vswr. ?

The X300 is a ham band antenna, hence the higher vswr on GMRS. So for whatever additional 'gain' the X300 has compared to the Laird, you're losing energy due to the higher vswr, which is power that isn't being radiated. Stick with the Laird, at least most of the power being sent to it is actually going out over the air. The other thing with the X300, is that because it would be operating out of it's designed frequency range, the antenna pattern may (may) be different than it would be when operated in the ham band.

As mentioned by many, this seems to be an age old topic. If you do a general search, you'll find that 462.675 with a CTCSS of 141.3 has, for many years now, a general status of a "GMRS Travel Channel". That said, just because such a designation exists, doesn't mean anybody is going to do anything to support it/the idea to make it useful to travelers. It's kinda like the old CB Channel 9 thing which was suppose to be for emergencies and for a time back in the CB boom, many police departments monitored Channel 9 and some even had a CB radio in their squad cars. That said, it wasn't a universal buy in on the part of law enforcement nationally. Current era, I don't see law enforcement, especially in these times, getting money to purchase GMRS equipment even for the dispatch centers, let alone police vehicles. Even in Amateur radio, 146.5200 (VHF) and to a lesser extent 446.0000 (UHF) have been considered 'calling/emergency' frequencies, but with the exception of some geographical areas, these frequencies are rarely monitored routinely and so are of little use to a traveler. Indeed, if I were traveling , I'd prefer HF in the vehicle for a variety of reasons, not just emergencies. To be sure, I'm not opposed to the general concept, really I'm not. I just think it isn't practical in the bigger picture. However again, you or (some other interested entity) can designate a GMRS traveler channel which, as previously noted, has sort of been done, but it doesn't mean anyone will support it to the point where it actually serves a useful purpose. Just an opinion...

Let me start by saying that I am aware that BTech/Baofeng's intention is to be fully part 95 compliant. Let me also say that I wished I had watched more reviews on this radio before buying. Yes, it's substantially cheaper than other 50W mobiles, and I can live without a removable control head and some of the other 'fluff' features (FM broadcast?). However, where Baofeng really dropped the ball on this radio, was when they limited the transmit capable channels to just the preprogrammed memories. Even if you program a legitimate GMRS frequency/pair into one of the other available memories, the radio will not transmit, nor will it transmit in VFO mode, again, even if the transmit frequency is a legitimate GMRS frequency. I suppose if you just want a base station radio and only use a few repeaters (on different frequencies) or simplex frequencies, the radio is pretty good. Even then, however, if you live in an area and have access to multiple repeaters, or like many GMRS users I've listened to, you travel a lot and/or are into off road activities, you might find yourself having to change the CTCSS tones in the transmit capable memories frequently. No, it isn't difficult to do that, but it is damn inconvenient. So after doing a deep dive into the capabilities of this radio and, while also considering keeping the radio with hopes for the possibility of a firmware update to at least enable transmit on legitimate (User Entered) GMRS frequencies, I have opted instead on the side of caution and decided to pack it up and return it for a refund. Yes, it was cheaper (and easier) to obtain than, for example, the Wouxun KG-1000G. In hindsight I think the extra bucks might have been the better choice. I think I'm just going to hold off on a mobile for a while and see what the develops in the market.