WRQC527

That's kind of a losing battle. Your signal gets eaten by the structure of your house. Try it outside where there are few(er) obstructions. If it works better, a better outside antenna mounted higher with decent coax should help. I'm sure others will pontificate further.

I heard two guys one day arguing about how tall a tower was. I told them to lay it down and measure it. They said we don't care how long it is, we want to know how high it is.

Are you trying to access the repeater from inside your house with the HT and just the stock antenna?

"It's easy to become confused by these questions. Before we take action we need to talk about this some more at another time." ~ Ten Bears, Dances with Wolves

More like a dogma.

Honestly, I think more information is needed. Unless this is a thought experiment, like Schrödinger's Cat.

Dude asks about hearing Morse code on GMRS. 23 hours later an argument breaks out on the same thread about who pulls cable for HP.

Use 50 ohm coax like RG58, RG8X, etc with PL259 connectors. RG7 and RG11 are 75 ohm and have the wrong connectors. As for the radio, nothing wrong with the ones you linked. There's lots of switching power supplies out there. Samlex, Powerwerx, MFJ, etc. Make sure you get one that puts out enough amps to supply the radio on high power. I use a 35 ah AGM battery on a battery maintainer to power my radios, so that's another option that will give you some run time if the power is out.

I did for a while. To be honest with my answer, as you requested, which, by the way, I always am, I had a pair if Midland handhelds, GTX 1000s, I think. I found them to be junk. They went to Goodwill. I have since moved on to better radios.

Lol yes it's a mystery to me why CB keydown contests are a thing. But hey maybe that's what's missing from GMRS.

If you want more range, perhaps an antenna upgrade... Like this. 1

I can assure you that's not me, and there are plenty of people that would love to back me up on that. Although I would be a worthy competitor in a swimsuit if it comes to that.

How will we know? Will there be a bathing suit competition to break the stalemate?

What if it's homeschooling?

I think you two missed the point of what I was saying. But that's ok. People miss points all the time. The idea is that FRS radios are supposed to be low power with no license required, but with removable antennas, that purpose would effectively be defeated. Carry on.

I wouldn't say there's a "rule of thumb". Too many variables. Most definitely the height of the antenna is a major factor. My 2-meter amateur radio repeater is at 6,000 feet in Southern California and covers from Mexico to Santa Barbara on 80 watts. If it were lower altitude, it would reduce the range because of terrain. Line of sight and antenna height are critical.

Part of the issue I think is because FRS radios are low power and short range and are required to have a fixed antenna, likely to keep people from using bigger antennas and amplifiers to increase what is supposed to be low power and short range. Lots of GMRS and amateur radios have removable antennas specifically to enable users to increase range and power using upgraded antennas and amplifiers. Imagine a world where someone could jack up the power and coverage of FRS that way. That's one reason for a rule not allowing multi-service radios.

I'm going out on a limb here that the FCC puts a very low priority on anything to do with GMRS, MURS, FRS, CB and amateur radio. I keep thinking they're saying "Look. We finally dropped your license fee to under a penny a day. Heck, we don't even charge you for some of the services. Now stop bothering us and go outside and play with your radios."

It took the FCC years to discuss and implement a simple fee change just to drop the GMRS license fee to $35. I cannot imagine how long it would take to hash out rule changes that affect multiple radio services.

I would think it's important to explain the use cases for GMRS. There's quite a few disillusioned new users here who get a GMRS license and a radio and find no one to talk to on either simplex or repeaters, one of the reasons being that GMRS is not like amateur radio in that there's not oodles of people listening and calling CQ. But if you ask "seasoned operators" who use it for off-road trail comms, RV caravans, hikers and campers using it to keep track of each other, public service groups coordinating special events, etc, it's the greatest thing since cold ice cream. My two cents, which adjusted for inflation is about a penny. Thanks for putting this together.

I'm not sure what the question is here, other than maybe when you put all this programming into your Icom, you're not able to access the repeater. Sometimes modding a radio allows it to transmit out of band, but settings like offset are not programmed by Icom to carry over to frequencies outside the amateur radio frequencies. The owner of such a radio would need to enter transmit and receive frequencies separately and not rely on the + and - settings that are factory-programmed for amateur radio frequencies.

This is roughly the setup I use on my Sienna so I can fit in the garage. In order to connect this to your HT you would also need the adapter. This is certainly not the only setup you could use, I'm sure others will chime in. This, as I like I say about instruction manuals, is just how one guy does it. https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/cma-cp-5nmo https://www.ruggedradios.com/collections/mobile-antennas/products/point5-gmrs-antenna https://www.amazon.com/DHT-Electronics-Handheld-Antenna-Quasheng/dp/B00COKNKS8/ref=asc_df_B00COKNKS8/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309707619534&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=18152382270226592541&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9031580&hvtargid=pla-569717079243&psc=1

https://tenor.com/view/muggy-fishing-gif-11290854

It's good to hear that your grandpa did both. As a grandpa, I also do both and I hope my grandchildren have at least some interest in radio because of me. You'll no doubt see some stupid arguments and snide comments here about ham vs GMRS. Ignore them. It's mostly some people stirring the pot to get a reaction. Ham radio and GMRS have a lot of differences in how they are used, but a lot of similarities in how they work. Enjoy both. Welcome in.