WRQC527

Is it just me or does the notion of a "dual band" GMRS handheld seem a bit odd? GMRS is one band. ?

Odd. The Nagoya Ut-72G shows up as a dual-band in some places, but just GMRS in other places, including its own packaging.

That's a question with a ton of answers. It depends on what kind of vehicle, what the vehicle is made of (aluminum, fiberglass, etc), what kind of mounting options (magnet mount, lip mount, drilling into the roof, etc), where you park (garage, outside), what kind of driving (on or off off road with lots of overhead branches or wide open desert), etc. Pretty much everyone here will tell you something different, not because they're right or wrong, but because their use-case is unique. I run a Diamond AZ504 on my van because it (barely) fits in the garage and it works very well where I am in Southern California. Many others use taller antennas because they have more gain. It all depends on what works best for you.

First, welcome. Second, GMRS and 2m/70cm antennas are not really interchangeable. A 2m/70cm dual band antenna works fine for ham radio but won't tune properly for GMRS, and vice-versa. It's unlikely you'd find an antenna that will cover all three frequency ranges.

Welcome to GMRS!

How close to the antenna is the nearest aluminum siding? Slim Jim antennas (and their J-pole cousins) do not like anything near them that can absorb or interfere with RF, especially metal. Not just the aluminum siding, either. If you have any insulation in the attic that has a metallic (foil-like) backing, it can cause problems too, as can metal window frames, etc. These antennas need to be completely in the clear to work best. Transmitting from inside a house with aluminum siding is no different than transmitting from inside a car.

I've also found that dropped screws defy the laws of physics. If you drop one from three feet, it bounces 18 feet. And when you're looking for it, you won't find it, but you'll find the one you dropped last year.

My guess is that with a 1.3:1 SWR your antenna and coax are fine. If you can get the antenna on the roof, it may work better. Some of that RF energy may be blocked or impeded by the roof and roof pillars.

What kind of "club" is this? The radio clubs I belong to don't post anything, in fact we do almost all our communicating by radio. I'm the trustee of one amateur repeater group and an associate member of another GMRS repeater group. We pay for the upkeep of the repeaters.

I'm going to toss in one thing here. Some antennas have a matching network in the base that consists of a capacitor, an inductor, or both. So connecting an ohmmeter at the radio end of the coax across the center pin and the shield *may* give you a false short with good coax. This is how both my ham and GMRS antennas on my van work. If you can completely disconnect the coax at both ends, you will have a more reliable test. Let us know what kind of mount you have.

Welcome to GMRS! The input should go on the TX side. Thats the tone that the repeater hears, telling it to open. The output should go on the RX side. If there's no output tone listed on that repeater, leave it blank on the RX side of your radio.

There's a whole lot of theory behind it, I'm sure someone will try to explain it. Bottom line, it's a half-wave vertical antenna with a matching circuit in the base. It doesn't need a special type of coax. Just 50-ohm coax like RG-58, RG-8x, something like that.

Frankly, I wish the ancients would have just left it alone. I don't know who's bright idea it was to tamper with it in the first place. Ben Franklin, George Hudson, William Willett, some dude in Canada, whatever. I like having more daylight after work but I'd be just as happy with standard time as long as we just pick one.

I would venture to guess that in spite of all the controversy they generate, the Baofeng UV5R and its GMRS variants are the most popular handheld transceivers in history. Haters gonna hate.

I would much rather stay on DST permanently. It's the abrupt change, especially in the spring, that throws me off.

Yes. Any more questions?

Yep, the only real complaint I have is the reduction of power on GMRS even into a good mobile GMRS antenna.

Welcome!

I don't want to incriminate myself, but I will anyway. The MARS/CAP mod on my FT70 resulted in successfully being able to transmit in the GMRS portion of the spectrum, but at reduced power. Like by almost half. The stock antenna doesn't support the higher frequencies, but a Signal Stick does. Also, the automatic repeater shift doesn't work out of the amateur bands, so you need to manually set it up. In an emergency situation, (where we can leeeeeeeagally use our beloved UV5Rs on GMRS), I prefer my UV5R because the power doesn't seem to fold back.

Exactly. Which is why I don't generally recommend using radios on services they're not certified for. I will say they do work, but I stop short of actually saying "It's OK to use a UV5R on GMRS".

There has never been a better description of the forums on this site.

Awesome! You've mastered the art of setting up a repeater in a handheld radio! Lots of folks have trouble at first. As you can see, there are some folks who will inevitably bring up the fact that technically, the UV5R isn't certified for GMRS, but there are others, me included, who bring up the fact that hardly anyone cares. It's the subject of multiple unresolved threads and posts here. My advice, and probably the advice of others as well, don't ask, don't tell, and definitely don't get suckered in to endless debates about it. Have fun with GMRS.

Welcome! Key up the repeater, say your call sign, and say "monitoring" or "listening" or "testing". If the repeater responds, you should hear a courtesy tone come back. Ask for a signal report, (not a radio check, that's how you pay for radios), and if anyone is listening they may come back to you. Just make sure you ID properly when you are conversing on a repeater, and speak normally like you're on the phone or in person. No silly jargon. I have a Baofeng UV5R and a pair of UV82s that work fine on repeaters.

I run Windows 10 on a desktop. I have several 30-40 year old Motorola Quantar repeaters. I just installed the "old" software on the desktop that loaded in a compatibility mode and using a 9-pin null modem cable, I successfully programmed one of the Quantars. We'll need to use an RS232-to USB adapter with a laptop for remote work.

Actually, we would be getting rid of standard time, not daylight savings time, if any of a number of attempts to make daylight savings time permanent ever succeed. We tried it in 1974 and for a variety of reasons, folks didn't like it. Although we thought it was cool walking to school in the dark. It didn't last a year. All indications are that we're stuck with it for the foreseeable future.