Screech

I'm putting a fuse box on the platform as well. I'll be adding lighting in the bed of the truck from there. Also plan to have room to add more later, only using 4 of 6 fuses in the box. using good heavy power wire and 50A up front just saves me from having to disassemble the truck for a while to add more things later. Thinking in time I may look into a higher rated inverter than the truck came with too. Also, fuses in the engine bay area may blow at lower Amps depending on temp. At 180F a midi 2 hole fuse may only be rated for 41A.

As mentioned, I have the XMT275, but I also have a KG1000G. I'm still working on the install in my truck, but one of my requirements is the radio behind the seat and for it to support both radios, just not at the same time. I've run a straight through Cat5 to the dash from a RJ45 jack on the radio mount platform to a RJ45 jack behind where the KG face plate mounts. With the faceplate removed I can plug my 275 mic in right there and use the patch in the back between the radio and the radio mount platform. I've thought about running 2 cat5 Cables so that connect to the programing port on the KG so I can just plug the laptop into it for programming up front. I understand the speaker too quiet issue, to try and counter this is I'm installing the OE dash speaker into the dash of my truck that was not there for my trim level and connecting that speaker to the radio in the back. I just got a used high current battery junction box (HCBJB) from eBay to pull some parts from so I can add the 50A fuse for the radio to a blank location in my truck's HCBJB for a very OE looking install.

I like the samlex power SEC-1235M I'm using with mine.

Scanners can monitor the repeater input freq just as easy. I have repeater input freq programmed on my radio for RX as I can then scan for the tone/dsc for that repeater input as well.

I just renewed, now half the price for twice as long compared to when I requested the license, it's like 4 times the value now!

Nothing wrong with the MXT575. I still use the little brother to it (275).

Lots of trails away from populated areas the cell phones will not work due to no coverage. With a decent sat phone you're likely to buy more in service cost to use that than you can buy a decent entry level radio for. I've rented sat phones and BGAN satellite internet devices before, neither are cheap. I would consider the internet again, though I would likely check out the newer star link option.

You're welcome.

Has the radio worked in the past or is this issue on first setup? What brand/model antennas have you tried? Were the antennas using the same antenna mount? How are you powering it?

Maybe program a channel with a blank name and set B to that channel with names showing there could achieve your goal without a direct setting to do that.

@moonpup are any of those repeaters you plan to use on the same channel with different squelch controls on the repeater input? If so, I would not advise getting the Midlands as you'll have to change those setting when going between those repeaters instead of just changing the channel. Also, if I read another members interactions with Midland concerning the MXT275 wide band update correctly, you can order direct from Midland and request the update be flashed before they ship it so that you don't need to send it back in. You being a Ham operator, if you plan to mount the radio in a visible area I would suggest finding one that you can program with software, assuming you've done this as a HAM with other radios, and setting the repeater names to show when on those. I'm not sure the other radio (Wouxun KG-1000G) I'm familiar with is a good recommendation either, it's got a lot of features and power, but if you already have a Ham radio a lot of those features are likely redundant to a degree, maybe redundant RX is a good thing though, I like that I can monitor HAM/Comm/Gov with my KG-1000G on one side and the other be active with GMRS on the other. The price is right up there with the MXT575 radios, likely more once you add the antenna, but the features completely shadow the MIdland MXTxxx radios. I feel like there is a better radio between the MXT275 and the KG-1000G for you, I'm just not familiar enough with other radios to make suggestions in that area. I'd almost say an HT with a mag mount mobile antenna connected to it while in the car/truck, but then you can put the stock antenna on it and be mobile. And you could be in it for under $100. I have really cheap UV-5G HTs ($60 for a pair) that I program using Chirp, these HTs are based very much on the UV-5R amateur radios.

Hello, Glad to be of entertainment, I guess. Anyway, you mentioned that you enabled the repeater feature of the radio. Did you go to the repeater channel? If the same as the 275 (I've not read the manual for that radio, but the interface at a glance looks very similar): After you set rP to oN you will then find 15rp-22rp channel after channel 22. You must be on one of the repeater channels, displays the "RP" next to the channel number, to get the +5Mhz offset to talk into the repeater. You will likely need to also set the proper input squelch control for that repeater in the tC setting. If you don't know what repeater you are hearing the tones from you can get an app on your phone that can translate the morse code for you, then you can look up the callsign on the map and see if you can determine which of their repeaters, if listed, you hear.

When you press the VFO/MR (6) button it cycles through a few modes (frequency, Channel Mode (CM) Channel number displayed, CM channel RX frequency displayed, and CM channel name displayed). Just press that button until it cycles to your desired mode.

You can check if AM is supported on a channel/Freq by bringing up the menu and enter 0-5-4 on the keypad, if you see AM-SW option that channel/freq supports it. To quickly test you can press menu again and toggle it on/off as normal and press menu again to confirm selection. As @FrostyFruits points out, when you set this on the radio it will reset when you change channels, but when set in the programming software it is persistent to what was set there (now if you disable it on the radio, it will be set again when you leave the channel and return). As for the Aut.AM 053 menu item, I don't know my radio never auto switched to AM, maybe the signals were not strong enough in my area to auto switch to AM. The local airports use AM, setting it in the programming software was the best option for me.

I didn't take offense, just stating how I see it. Regardless, there is no public software option for this radio that anyone had been able to show me. To suggest any programming software, or suggesting they find one for this radio is misinformation and would likely only end up frustrating the user looking for options that don't exists for their current hardware. I've been using Chirp as that was the by name example marcspaz gave. If I was discussing options for reconfiguring a module in a Ford I may say "you'll need to flash the updated configuration to that unit using software such as Ford's IDS", but the named software is one that will work, and there are others if that user wanted to look more into it. I wouldn't name a software that didn't work with the car, so I wouldn't expect a user to name software they didn't know, or at least thought, would work with the radio in this case. As far as how I read your post: First, I'm no English major, I was a solid D in English 28 years ago in HS. How I read that is that "At least one of three types programming software options are available for every GMRS radio". If you wrote it as "for most GMRS radios", that would have been easier for my D English to comprehend as you seem to be saying you intended it. Let see, "recently got license", "got a Midland MXT275", "been reading up and watching videos" (not sure if about GMRS in general or that radio in particular), "feels overwhelmed", "got GMRS based on suggestions from other(s)", "looking for step by step guide or chart (maybe a flow chart)". Sorry I don't see that, where exactly did they mention software or programming? When you go on saying it's "radio-malpractice if they sold it without one or more of the foregoing options", to me you are implying it's a bad radio for not having one of those options and is not worthy to be used without them. In contrast, I think it is a great starter radio because it is so simple it doesn't need any of those options.