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.

Well, by now we've deviated quite far from the OPs original post. In the case of the Midland MXT275 that does not currently appear to be true. None for it from Midland. Chirp does not support it, they only support Midland's CT-210 and DBR2500 (both using a different radio model so likely just a rebranded radio sold under Midland name) and RT Systems also does not support the MXT275, they only support the DBR2500... wait, their page likely has a typo showing it as DRB2500 in the bold print under the image. This radio is so simple that there is no need for software, just the chart in the manual so you can convert CTCSS freq/DCS code to the index number. I think offering software on it with how simple it is would only make it more complicated. I could not leave advice to use software with this radio unchallenged. First, if the information is wrong the thread needed that clear up so a new user doesn't start chasing options they simple do not have. Second, if there is software for it that I was unaware of, I want to know. That is why my first post was asking how does one do as suggested with the subject radio. I may have been in a mood later that day after OffroaderX replied. And in the future should some software be released I would attempt to update my post to state that "Now" at the time of edit software xyz is an option for doing this. I've had to edit my posts for being inaccurate before, such as when I posted that the MXT275 was narrow band only on all channels and was corrected by WRQB993. Prior to being corrected on that matter I had reached out to Midland about this and was told by them there was no wide band option with this radio, so I was going off of "official" word from Midland support. But, that information was clearly a couple months out of date.

If it's a new user looking for radio suggestions, yes I would definitely mention Chirp and that there are radios that support it and leave the decision for them to find radio a radio meeting their needs, and if they want Chirp support that would be part of their selection. I agree Chirp is awesome, use it for my HTs But if a user were to post stating which radio they already have, if it doesn't support that feature I'm probably not going to mention it to them simply because it's not relevant to the conversation concerning their radio. If you were to ask me, to bring up a feature known to not be supported on their radio that feels a little Hammish, as in "you need a better radio that supports this" way. Mentioning features on a thread about a specific radio that doesn't support those features also causes confusion for new users. Say you said use Chirp, oh I can program with Chirp, they download Chirp, try to use it to program their radio, can't figure out how to make it work, they think they're doing something wrong because somebody on the internet said oh this software is great for programming radios in a thread they made about their radio.

@MichaelLAXWell, they are very much plug and "play", especially the kits that include the antenna and all in the box. Their "simplicity" also includes what I think of as marketing goals or driven by polls of non-radio users. I see no release with modern displays that they would not just add a 3rd large digit and show CTCSS and DCS setting as the actual Frequency/code. The only "reason" I see is that if you have a Midland and you get your friends to buy them to, you can even sell them on getting a Midland too because then you don't worry about the actual freqs/codes, you all just share that indexed value for the freq/code and your set. It is likely that if they went to a bunch of non-radio people surveying them on how they would prefer to setup the CTCSS/DCS between them and friends, those people do agree that just a 1-124 value is way easier to handle and share than what to them are randomly selected freqs/codes. I would venture to say that most Midland buyers are not looking for repeater support, I think this is supported by that option being disabled in the default config of their radios. And "those people" likely will never care, nor miss, those niceties as they are way beyond their goals for using the radio to simply talk to friends/family. And that is perfectly fine with me. Let those that don't want much have a radio that works for them, I prefer that over hundreds of posts where people can't get their radio working at all because the manual is +100 pages and has several options that impact other options and they by mistake changed something they should not have. It doesn't not impact those of us that want more from our systems from buying the nicer radio/bigger antenna or such. I have different goals for my radio use based on where I am and what I'm doing. At home for my base I just use a Midland, I have set the local repeater and it just works. In my truck I'm working installing the KG-1000G, I like that I can store repeaters from the various areas I end up with my truck, and I can listen to way more than GMRS, I can run in a reverse repeater setup for testing, or if really in an odd mood set RX&TX to a 467.xxx repeater frequency in a congested radio area where there are no repeaters on the frequency I'm using and have that all to ourselves. My HTs are about as capable as the KG-1000G, but just 4W output.

@Lscottthanks for sharing the info. I'm still not sure if that "can" be applied to GMRS. I'm sure the version that uses a channel for dedicated control data is not allowed. The decentralized setup that sends the data with voice audio, I'm not sure. I don't really have that much time to research that at the time, also little interest since I highly doubt that is a feature any of my radio would support. Offhand it feels like a commercial function and since only grandfathered businesses have GMRS licenses I'm not sure there is much value there to even look into getting a radio with those features. I would guess those majority radios are a bit older, from when businesses could obtain GMRS, for top of the business class pricing.

For jamming no trucking (I've not heard of this on GMRS, but I'm new to anything more than a basic radio) or CTCSS/DCS is going to matter if they have the wattage and duty cycle to hold the input frequency open. For clowns it sounds like a trunked setup could work, but I'm not familiar with how that would be setup on a simple GMRS radio, so perhaps that affects more than the clown losing access. Also, if they have the wattage and antenna, they could just talk around, so unless every user's radio supported trucked input (not sure I'm saying that right, but I think you'll understand) the clown can still troll some or all of the repeaters' users depending on location and range of output the clown has. Heck, even unplugging as the OP did the repeater the clown can keep going... even my most basic HT can monitor 467.xxx and TX on 462.xxx, so any user that wasn't aware of the repeater getting turned off is now in a one on one with a clown.

Yeah, but anyone with a scanner, or a decent radio can get any code you set it to as soon as you start using it. So you can stop them from using it, as long as you go silent as well.

I already knew the answer. I was hoping for them to learn something, or acknowledge they were so eager to assert their knowledge superiority that they neglected to keep the model radio the OP stated they have in mind. ?

How does one go about using CHIRP with a Midland MXT275? I've found no way to.

But, IBM just relabeled the product Lucas sells in the UK.

Welcome Bumper, First, do you plan to use repeaters? If so, there are two related items I'll go over next, if not skip them. If you plan to use repeaters, you will need to enable that through the menus on the radio's mic. The best place to learn how to do this is the manual as there is a lot of useful information in there in addition to how to enable the repeater channels, so it's worth at least one read through. Next, most repeaters are wide band, if your radio is narrow band on the repeater channels you may sound quiet to other users if that repeater is using wide band. If your MXT275 has a USB-A port, it's narrow band only, sorry. If it has the updated hardware with the USB-C port, it may be using narrow or wide band on the repeater channels. The only way I know to determine which way it is setup is to do a reset and observer the versions that will flash on the screen. The radio is so simple that a reset is not a big deal. To reset the radio: Start with the radio off. Press and hold the PTT and WX buttons Press and hold the Power button until it comes on I released the buttons at this point, though Midland didn't really direct me on when to release them. Watch for the two version codes to appear and note the Rx number that will appear after Ux. The Ux version is not important for this. If the Rx number is R8 the radio is using narrow band on the repeater channels. If the Rx number is R9 it's using wide band on the repeater channels, all non-repeater channels are still narrow band. My understanding is that Midland does this so that the mobile radios have the best compatibility with FRS and GMRS HTs and keeping the radio controls as simple as possible. If you want the mode your radio doesn't have for the repeater channels the only way to change it is to contact Midland and mail the radio in for them to update it. I know they will update from R8 to R9, I'm not sure about the other way around. I had my upgraded from R8 to R9. And the above information I got directly from Midland support. ************** Skip to here if no interest in repeaters ************ Second, the most annoying thing about the radio is that the CTCSS and DSC codes are not in a readable format on the radio. Once you know the CTCSS or DCS code you need to use, you then have to look it up on the chart in the manual to determine that frequency/code's number. The best thing you can do for yourself here is either take a picture of that manual page and tag it as a favorite on your phone so you can find it easily or download the manual/image of the chart to the phone. John.