dosw

The 701 was nothing special when I had one. 771s are great.

And it must also have a 200 mile range any time, rain or shine.

This is great information. I have a Ghost antenna (MXTA25) that I don't really use, but this would be ideal for a boat or RV where ground planes are difficult. Laird TE TRA4500N. Thanks for sharing that.

You weren't trying to call your minions in his part of the country to coordinate their burglarizing efforts, since his X post made him obviously not home to defend the place?

I have the Surecom SW102, and the NanoVNA. Advantages to the NanoVNA: You don't just get SWR, you can get an SWR curve showing you where the dip in the curve is, and can identify immediately whether the antenna is too long or too short. With just an SWR meter you have to take multiple samples and plot your own curve. Also the NanoVNA does a LOT more than just SWR. Advantage of the SW102 - It tells you the power level being transmitted. And it's very simple to use. But for accurate power, and to avoid annoying people you'll need a dummy load, too.

From The Importance of Being Earnest: It seems like whether one is a rag chewer on an amateur repeater, or on a GMRS repeater, or a rag chewer here in online forums, we're talking about the fools clever people, of course, which makes us all clever fools.

Exactly. The people with "skin in the game" are the ones who adopt this. And they're relying on someone's layman theory, not iron clad findings.

But you're experimenting with other peoples' liability, without an actual legal consultation on the issue, and other associated due diligence. That is irresponsible. And people are justified in being skeptical. People who adopt are trusting your discussion with a friend who practices law not pertaining to communications law, putting themselves at risk.

I've re-read the FCC Part 95 Subpart E language several times over. I've watched the video twice. I've re-read the FCC language, and followed all the references in Subpart E through to the other documents they refer to. And still I don't see any new information here that would change my mind that the FCC has explicitly disallowed what the video is claiming to be legal.

It's a ham radio, and your technician's amateur license would allow you to transmit with that radio in the 2m (144-148MHz), 1.25m (222-225MHz), and the 70cm (420-450MHz) bands. Dual-band antennas are pretty common. Tri-band are less common but still available. Unless you specifically need it to work on some other band, a common dual-band 2m/70cm, or 144/430MHz, or VHF/UHF antenna is probably what you want. I thought that radio comes with an Abbree dual-band antenna. If you're looking for an external dual-band antenna, there are many options out there.

Every {condo,online,otherwise-fun} association has one.

If I recall from when I was looking this up a few hours ago, neither of this person's radios were CHIRP compatible. But the advice is solid otherwise; since the Samcom isn't marketed as a GMRS radio, nor type approved for GMRS, it probably comes with programming that all over the spectrum.

On Amazon I see two versions of the K12. Both state 22 channels, but one claims to be 136-174MHz, and the other claims to be FRS. Did you get the correct set? Let's assume you did. Then your problem is probably on the Samcom side: The Samcom FPCN30A aren't GMRS, they're more general UHF radios. Their test certification through the FCC was for LMR, though they have a frequency coverage of 400MHz to 470MHz. Additionally they have 20 channels, where a typical GMRS radio would have 22 (plus repeaters). That evidence is enough to tell me that your FPCN30A radios don't come, from the factory, programmed to GMRS frequencies. So if you set channel 7, you might actually be on a frequency totally unrelated to FRS / GMRS. For example, the "how to program your SAMCOM Two Way Radio" guide shows channel 7 being set to 446.5000 at 25kHz bandwidth and with CTCSS/DCS turned off. These aren't type approved GMRS / FRS radios. Installation guide: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81Y1Nhp44qL.pdf If you're visually receiving a signal but not hearing anything, that's usually an indication that you have a CTCSS or DCS tone set in the receiving radio that is not being transmitted by the transmitting radio. So your step-by-step troubleshooting guide should be: Verify that the FRS radios are set to channel 7, and that the samcom is set to the correct frequency for channel 7: 462.7125. Verify that the FRS radio has no CTCSS or DCS tone set. Verify that the Samcom radio has no CTCSS or DCS tone set. Verify the volume is set to about middle on both. Key up the FRS radio and listen to the Samcom. Did you hear something? Key up the Samcom radio and listen to the FRS radio. Did you hear something? I know you said you have the frequencies set the same, and the tones turned off. But this isn't rocket science; either they are misconfigured (in which case, double-checking should reveal the problem), or one or the other of them is defective. Those are the only two possibilities. In either case if you didn't hear anything, then you have to test with other radios to see which radio is failing to transmit, or failing to receive. The point is to isolate the culprit. If you found the culprit, either it's still misconfigured, or it's defective and should be sent back. If it's the Samcom that is defective, send them back and get actual FRS or GMRS radios, just to simplify your life.

Well, I use it for keeping track of each other skiing, communicating with friends and family back on land when out of cell tower range sailing (marine VHF doesn't really have repeaters in my area), hiking, camping, and even quick things like backing up to the trailer with someone guiding me back. But it doesn't really bother me that there are those who like to chat with strangers. Diverse use cases is probably what "general" means in GMRS.

No... it's not necessarily a problem. Comet antennas have the washer inside the NMO mount. Other antennas I've seen have the washer on the outer ring of the antenna instead of inside. I actually prefer Comet's approach. But either one will work. The Comet approach is more solid. Putting the o-ring on the outer flange of the antenna is going to work fine for some mounts, and not work for other mounts. But I haven't seen a mount that wouldn't work with the washer on the inside, assuming the antenna is also designed to work that way. Many antennas, inside the threads it's not water proof. The comets are.