WRQC527

If there was ever a place for the old Venn Diagrams we learned when we were kids, this would be the place. It would be fascinating to have everyone here draw their own diagram of GMRS, Ham, FRS, CB and MURS.

In theory, nothing in the base should be loose, but to determine the problem, you might need to peel off the Mylar film. It could be some kind of glue holding the magnet, or maybe the antenna mount itself secures the magnet. Or both. Or if you can, send it back and get one that didn't fail quality control.

My two cents, which adjusted for inflation has dropped to a penny, is that roger beeps can get annoying, especially if they're loud. A lot of repeaters have courtesy tones, so if you add in roger beeps, it can get more annoying. The courtesy tone is not working on the ham repeater I use, so you need to listen for the repeater to drop or watch your S-meter. So in those cases, maybe a roger beep would help. Same with simplex. But using a roger beep on a repeater with a courtesy tone may ruffle some feathers. Especially if it's a loud one. Personally, I don't really care, and I've never heard of roger beeps damaging equipment.

Turn off the receive tone completely and see if that changes anything.

You might try taking off the receive tone. Maybe they don't use it, or it's not the correct one. Just a shot in the dark. And no, you're not an idiot.

No wrist straps for me. It's either on my belt or a side pocket on my backpack with a speaker microphone.

You mean like my Pofung UV-82's that self-identify as ham, GMRS and MURS?

As far as GMRS vs MURS for hiking goes, I would definitely go with GMRS because of repeaters. MURS has decent-enough range for simplex, but that's it. Simplex only. From a safety standpoint, access to repeaters is a major advantage, whether it's GMRS or ham. In a real emergency, whether a repeater is paid or not is irrelevant, so load up that radio with every repeater you can. Just don't use them unless it's a real emergency. My ham friends and I use 2 meter HTs with both simplex and repeaters, because we are often blocked from the repeater or each other by terrain. On those same hikes, I reach my wife through a GMRS repeater. While it's good to have multiple services available, I would kick MURS to the curb and keep ham and GMRS with me. And that is indeed what I do. On another note, we sometimes practice by giving our coordinates as displayed on our phones with no cell service on Google Maps by radio through a repeater to the folks back home so they can pinpoint us on the map. Huge plus when God forbid SAR is looking for us.

I have a Yaesu FT-70 HT and two Yaesu FTM-7250 mobiles. I only use C4FM on a couple of local repeaters. The majority of my activity is analog.

Our repeater group strongly discourages politics on the repeater, but we have our own people who can't help themselves. Personally I don't like discussing politics with anyone anywhere because it's divisive and depressing. But yes, the jammers are in the wrong. Catching and prosecuting them is a whole different story.

It's very common to hear political banter on our ham repeaters, and the problem is that as soon as it happens, jammers come out of the woodwork. We have one who plays endless Trump recordings, and some who simply key down when politics comes up. We often avoid politics simply to avoid being jammed. It's a harsh reality when someone interferes with our freedom of speech, but anyone with a $20 Baofeng can cause no end of mayhem.

My wife and I go by Olive Oyl and Popeye.

Before you make any conclusions, try separating the radios like they would normally be used, like a hundred yards or something, and see how they work. Radios aren't really designed to work that well that close together.

Lol ya I should have clarified, because I had one too. There's a new crop of AM/FM CB HTs from President and Wouxun, and probably other clones.

I would say that user knowledge is required from a standpoint of how much power can be used on various frequencies, antenna height, identifying by call sign, usage rules (business vs personal, etc), who is covered by a license, etc. Not that everyone goes by all the rules, but by having a GMRS license, you have entered into an agreement with the FCC that you at least know the rules.

Yes, SAT phones are an excellent option. A little pricy to buy, but they can be rented for short-term use if I remember correctly.

I'll throw this thought out there. Every year here in southern California, hikers get lost or hurt in our local mountains. Most of them have no way to communicate, because they think their smart phones will save them. Where we go there is limited or no cell service. My ham friends and I never go out without radios. We have pre-arranged simplex frequencies and repeaters so we know that when 20+ people in our group get spread out on the trail, we can always communicate. If these hikers in distress had any kind of radios, ham, GMRS, MURS, FRS, or even one of these new CB HTs, they would have a much better chance of being located sooner, or possibly not getting lost in the first place. Getting hung up in an endless debate is rather counterproductive. Use whatever services you want. They all have pros and cons, so pick what works best for you and the people you want to communicate with.

I'm a ham because I enjoy the technical and experimental aspects of radio, and I enjoy making contacts around the world on H.F. I also like using it locally for communication with my many like-minded ham friends during outdoor activities like fishing and hiking. I use GMRS to communicate with my wife and other non-hams when I'm out hiking. That's why I got a GMRS license and GMRS gear. I'm not moving away from ham radio, I'm including it in my "tool box", as it were. Hopefully I'm not destroying both services by using both services.

Wow.

I mentioned to my wife a few days ago while I was running a net that ham radio was invented by wives to keep their retired husbands out of their hair. I'm 62, not yet retired, and I'm beginning to think she's right. GMRS appears to appeal to a somewhat different demographic than ham radio, although in some ways they do overlap.

I use GMRS because my wife and I can communicate with it. I'm a ham, she's not, so it works for us. I don't use 440 on ham frequencies because there's not much activity on it where I am. My ham friends and I use two meters all the time. There shouldn't be animosity between ham and GMRS, because it's simply two different methods. There's bad eggs on both sides. Don't be one, that's what I think.

That's some top-drawer drone footage right there!

In my experience, if you try to run a 1/4 wave, or especially a 5/8 wave antenna without a ground plane, the SWR is quite high, which at best will kill your signal, and at worst is not good for the radio. There is no real difference in performance between a 1/4 wave and a 1/2 wave if the 1/4 wave has a decent ground plane. In reality, a 1/4 wave without a decent ground plane will "underperform" a 1/2 wave. The 5/8 wave should outperform both the 1/4 and 1/2 wave antennas if it has a good ground plane because it has more gain. Antenna theory is voodoo science at its best.

I have a pair of Baofeng HTs that identify as BTech MURS-V1s. My wife and I use them for short-range comms when we're at our favorite cabin and I go off hiking myself. We're pretty much assured that absolutely no one will hear us or interfere with our comms because so few people know about MURS. It's supposed to be limited to 2 watts. I'm surprised it isn't more popular. There's actually quite a few decent radios out there, mobiles and HTs. Maybe the 2 watt limitation turns people off, but it's surprising what 2 watts on VHF can do. Not sure if I would run out and buy a $370 Wouxun KG-1000M, but a couple of HTs with mag mount antennas make a pretty nifty car-to-car setup, like CB without all the noise and idiocracy.

First, welcome in to the world of radio. It's a lot of fun, you can meet some very interesting people, and as you have already seen, the airwaves (especially repeaters), can be infested with troublemakers. The moderator on the roundtable you were on made the mistake of engaging the troublemaker by issuing "several warnings to stop acting up". This rarely works, the reason being that troublemakers are difficult to locate and they thrive on the attention. They love disrupting communications, and the more people complain, the more they do it. The only way to get them to stop is to ignore them completely, and not even mention the fact that they are making trouble. This comes hard to a lot of people. I've heard troublemakers on roundtables and nets for years on both amateur radio and GMRS, and as a moderator (net control) for some of them myself, it frustrates me to no end when people (especially moderators who should know better) engage them and try to talk them out of making trouble. Taking repeaters off the air when they are being jammed is a necessary evil with linked repeater systems to protect the rest of the users from jammers. Finding troublemakers is a very painstaking, time-consuming process, and it's only possible when the troublemaker is transmitting. And once they're located, there is not much, probably nothing, the FCC or anyone else will do unless it involves jamming of critical communications like law enforcement, emergency services, commercial users, etc. Don't give up though. Listen in, chime in when you can. It's always great when new people get involved. By the way, here's a fun fact, 62 years ago, I was born in the city you live in.