WRQC527

I had a friend in junior high who would have given his left n... I mean he would have given anything to have Wonder Woman's email address. Oh... Wait. That was Lynda Carter, not Linda Carter. And it was 1975.

The folks who say they don't work are the folks who have probably never tried them.

Ask for a signal report. Radio checks are what you ask your wife for when you want yet another radio.

How far are you from the repeater? What kind of radio? Are you outside where your signal isn't trapped in a building or a vehicle? Are there buildings, trees or other obstructions blocking you from the repeater?

The grindr app will definitely help you decide.

A few other questions: What make and model of antenna and radio, how is the antenna mounted, (you say it's a mag mount on a metal pole, perhaps a photograph to show us how), what kind of coax (RG-58, RG-8X, RG-8, LMR-400, that kind of thing.)

Also, ignore @WRYS709. Not only does this person not speak for the rest of us, this person definitely does not speak for mygmrs. Welcome to the site.

Same here. Ours was down here in Fullerton.

I'll bet a hundred million dollars cash that there are probably hundreds of ways you could have answered this person that wouldn't alienate them from further interactions with mygmrs.com.

Come on man, don't leave us hanging.

I firmly believe Echolink is a solution in search of a problem. Same with Allstar. That's just me though.

Well, the ratings look pretty good, the complaints say the hardware is junk but it looks like folks on Amazon are getting good SWR readings, so I wouldn't worry too much about it as long as your received signals are good and people can hear you. You can get yourself a relatively cheap Surecom SWR meter like this one for about $60 if you want to be more confident in the SWR. Lots of people here use it with good results. https://www.amazon.com/Surecom-125-525Mhz-Digital-Antenna-connector/dp/B01MUZISB8/ref=asc_df_B01MUZISB8/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=693308325721&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9330456624222961711&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9031587&hvtargid=pla-566905769976&psc=1&mcid=9a5732268fb53f9ab49d41ad31efb7cb&gad_source=1

What about the antenna?

What make and model? Also, what kind of coax are you using to connect the HT to the antenna, and how long? (RG-58, RG-8X, RG8, LMR-400, etc.) There may be folks out here who have the same antenna setup and can tell you how theirs performed "out of the box".

He's looking for a mobile antenna.

It's possible with some antennas. I have a Jetstream JTM3B antenna that works quite well on both. Other folks here have similar stories with other antennas. But there's also a lot of dual band amateur radio antennas that won't work well on GMRS. Perhaps others here will chime in with their experience with dual band amateur radio antennas like my Jetstream JTM3B that also work on GMRS.

Love that toy grenade. Sometimes I miss my childhood. Quite often, actually.

OK that's good. But here's the deal. In the very first post I made to contribute an answer your question, I quoted the FCC rule that stated ERP. So to sort of quote a previous post, follow along. FCC Part 95 is often the best place to answer many questions, so if I know there is an answer to a question that resides in Part 95, I (and others here too) will quote them. That's not to say we obey them, but the answers are there. As for obeying them, I don't own a certified GMRS radio. But I am still active on GMRS.

I guess he's not "following along".

Another issue is that it would be pretty tough to get a mobile radio to emit half a watt ERP, especially when it's powered by a car battery or alternator and has a high gain antenna. They're more interested in compliance than with your ability to modify channels.

Just remember who these manufacturers are marketing to. There's a huge market for people who just want to buy a radio and use it out of the box with as little drama as possible. There's a much smaller market that wants to buy a radio and immediately connect it to their favorite software and change everything. The money is in the huge market.

The Wouxun KG-905G you mentioned is a handheld radio. Handheld GMRS radios have no restrictions on what channels they can transmit on. Mobile radios do. It's not lazy programming, it's firmware that the manufacturer has produced in order to stay within the FCC's regulations and sell compliant GMRS radios.

It looks like in the manufacturer's efforts to maintain compliance with the FCC and channel number consistency with other GMRS and FRS radios, the firmware is looking at only the channel numbers when you press the PTT, and doesn't care about what the frequencies are. From a firmware simplicity standpoint, it's probably easier for them to just lock out those seven channels instead of programming the firmware to look for specific frequencies, bandwidth and power levels.

That's because for FRS, those frequencies are FCC-limited to a half a watt narrowband, and for GMRS, FCC-limited to handheld radios only and the same half watt narrowband. So on mobile radios, the manufacturer simply blocks them from transmitting, but still allows receiving. § 95.567 FRS transmit power. Each FRS transmitter type must be designed such that the effective radiated power (ERP) on channels 8 through 14 does not exceed 0.5 Watts and the ERP on channels 1 through 7 and 15 through 22 does not exceed 2.0 Watts. § 95.1763 GMRS channels. (d) 467 MHz interstitial channels. Only hand-held portable units may transmit on these 7 channels. The channel center frequencies are: 467.5625, 467.5875, 467.6125, 467.6375, 467.6625, 467.6875, and 467.7125 MHz.