dosw

I wouldn't know, anymore.

There shouldn't be "digital repeaters" on GMRS, at least it's highly unlikely to find one. What method are you using to test? Please share specifics, such as the radio model, antenna configuration, where you (the transmitter) are located relative to the repeater, where your listening/test radio is set up, and how it's being monitored. How do you know it's not working? Do you have a positive offset of 5MHz set in CHIRP? Do you have access to a radio that can listen on repeater inputs? For example, if you are using a repeater on 462.5500 (15R, or 1R, or 23R depending on your radio's naming conventions), if you take another radio and set it to listen on 467.5500, do you hear yourself on that radio?

The fan appears to be a rather standard-sized commodity PCM fan. You could probably replace or upgrade it with one from Amazon. With the TDR function on the 'C' key you can pretty quickly switch off the second band, but you're right, automatic muting as an option would be nice.

Right, and that's what I did. It was a little harder than I would have preferred because the masthead doesn't provide its own good ground plane, the forestay, backstay, and upper shrouds can actually influence the apparent ground plane in weird ways, too. A mobile antenna such as the Comet CA2X4SR would have been broad-band enough, but not compatible with the wonky ground plane 30 feet up the mast. I ended up with a base-station broad band dual-band antenna that provided acceptable SWR from 2m through GMRS, including Marine VHF. I don't remember the model I went with, but at this point it works nicely. I prefer keeping a dedicated Marine VHF radio, as they offer marine-specific features not found in amateur radios. So that rig will always be a Marine VHF / GMRS dual radio setup.

Right, I've done one version of this on a sailboat; At first I considered putting one diplexer at the top of the mast, and one at the base, to allow a single LMR400 run up the mast to drive a dedicated marine VHF antenna, and a dedicated GMRS antenna. And then the one at the bottom to feed a dedicated Marine VHF radio, and dedicated GMRS radio. But then I ended up going with a broad band dual-band antenna at the top, eliminating the need for the top diplexer (and its associated signal loss), while still allowing two radios at the bottom. Inside a sailboat mast, space for coax is rather limited, and the weight of running two separate coax lines is also not desirable.

Yeah, for that you'd either need one of those crazy looking antennas that supports quad bands (they often have a short vertical half-way up the main vertical, standing off about an inch), or a diplexer. I see the Diamond MX62M that has a 1.6MHz-56MHz branch, and a 76MHz-470MHz branch. That would be almost perfect. Then for antennas you would need a 2m/70cm, and a 10m/6m.

Good info. Thanks. I may have to give it a try next time I'm in less congested RF-space.

Single. So if you are going to crossband with it I imagine you would feed an inexpensive diplexer. I don't know how successful crossband repeater mode would be with a single dual band antenna. Seems like that would be rather hard to test without a posse of people who can hit the repeater and listen while you tinker with settings. Another thing to mention: I'm not sure if this is standard, but the power cable on mine came with Anderson connectors on the end. It could be the previous owner installed them. But fortunately my PSU has an Anderson port, and I've installed one under the hood in my truck, as well.

Download the PDF from online. The manual has been updated. Your version was an early translation that was missing pages. The current PDF version online (I think on the Retevis website) has all the pages.

I picked up a Wouxun KG-UV980P, like new in box, on ebay, and thought I'd give some of my impressions now that I've used it a few days. The KG-UV980P is a quad band amateur radio, featuring 10m, 6m, 2m, and 70cm bands. It will also receive in the CB range, airband, and with proper CHIRP configuration, MURS, Marine VHF, and GMRS. The KG-UV980P is the amateur radio version of the well known (in these circles) KG-1000G GMRS radio. The KG-UV980P will transmit with 10w in the 10m and 6m bands. And it is advertised as 50w in the 2m band VHF band, and 40w in the 70cm UHF band. In testing with a dummy load, my unit comes in at a little over 10w in the 10m and 6m bands, about 46w in the 2m VHF band, and around 43-45w in the 70cm UHF band. So its marketing may be slightly overstating the VHF power, and understating the UHF power. However, it doesn't matter. For practical purposes, it's an ample mobile and base station radio in the UHF and 2m VHF bands. First obvious question: Will it work for me, a person reading posts on a GMRS website? And the answer is that through some simple configuration adjustments of the band ranges in CHIRP, yes, this will work for you. You might also ask if it will work for those people who prefer more of a Smokey and the Bandit radio band, the answer is sort of, with caveats. And some might ask if it will work for them on a band that has five VHF channels numbered 1-3,Green,Blue. The answer is somewhat, with a caveat. The caveats: On the smokey and the bandit band the radio can listen in AM mode, but I think only transmit in FM, and would need to set the power to L or M. But at "M" you're only putting out about 2.6w in the 11m band, whereas this band is FCC restricted to 4w maximum for AM and FM transmission, so you come up a little short. On the other hand, at "H" power, you're way over the limit, at 10w, so don't do that. In other words, if you're buying this for the Superbowl band, it's not ideal; only FM, and wrong power levels. As for the 5-channel VHF band starting with the letter M, there is no power setting that brings you down to compliance, as the lowest setting is a little over 5w in the 144+ VHF band, and the M band is limited to 2w. So if you're buying this for the M band you're making a mistake; it cannot meet the technical limitations required for that band. The final caveat is this radio is an amateur radio, not type approved for bands that require type approved equipment. If you have your amateur license, it's useful. If not, radios specific to your license make more sense. About our on-topic band: Low power will comply with the technical restrictions of channels 1-7 -- narrow band or wide. Medium and High power will comply with the technical restrictions of channels 15-22 and the repeater inputs -- narrow band or wide. The radio's lowest power setting in UHF is about 5w, and it's a mobile radio, so, like all mobile radios, it will not meet the restrictions for channels 8-14, which must transmit below a half watt. The radio: it's two in one. This radio has two radios inside. It has two volume knobs. Its display has a left side and a right side, each of which corresponds to one of the radios. It literally can play both sides at the same time. It can function as a full-duplex repeater, and as a full-duplex cross-band repeater. It can receive and transmit at the same time, in repeater mode. Some radios have a left and right side, but only one radio on the inside. Those radios achieve this trick by rapidly shifting the one internal radio to listen on the channel set on the left, and then on the channel set on the right. This is how the RA87 works. This is how the UV-5G or UV-5G Plus work. But the Wouxun KG-UV980P doesn't need such a trick; it has two transceivers in it. This is a really nice feature for some people. The mic: It's well balanced, and weighted. My RA87 mic feels like it's mostly air -- like a hollow chocolate bunny. The KG-UV980P mic feels like a MaBell desk phone from the 80s. It feels nice. Its keypad works well, and has all the features you would want on it (better so than the faceplate even). There is a speaker in the mic handset, and there are two speakers on the base unit. There is a volume control on the mic, a monitor button, menu button, band selection, direct frequency input, and a lot more. It's a good mic, and from what people who have heard my voice over this radio say, it sounds awesome. The speakers: With a speaker in the mic, and two speakers on the base unit, it sounds good and offers nice options for listening. There are also two external speaker outputs. Remember, it has two radios in it. And this is why. I've used the radio indoors, and in my super quiet 2014 F150. In those environments, the speakers are plenty loud. I have not tried it out in my old Bronco with a 5.8L v8, 3" exhaust, every rattle known to man, and a thin shell of a roof. I suspect that just like my RA87, which is mounted in the Bronco, its speaker will be almost adequate unless I'm at highway speeds. However, the fact that it has a mic speaker may help in noisy environments. The faceplate: The radio's faceplate is removable, and can be mounted separately from the base unit. It comes with a short connector for mounting the face plate on the base unit, and it comes with a long connecting cord, as well as a dash mount to allow the faceplate to be located a few feet away from the base unit. CHIRP: This unit can be programmed with Wouxun's kooky Windows software, or it can be programmed very easily from CHIRP. You will need to purchase a data cable, as it doesn't come with one. The cable is not expensive. With CHIRP you can program its 999 channels, set the band limits, set many other options, and even allocate channels to ten different scan groups, of user-defined size. This allows you to set it to scan only 2m repeaters, or only GMRS, or whatever other scan groups you can imagine that fall within its band capabilities. On my Linux laptop, the cable required no additional drivers; just download and install CHIRP, which I already had, plug in the cable, download the code plug from the radio, modify it, and upload it back to the radio. Modes: The "left side" radio supports AM and FM. The "right side" is FM only. Despite supporting 10m, it doesn't have SSB. It also doesn't have any digital modes. Transmit bands: 10m(&11m), 6m, 2m(+...), 70cm(65cm). Receive bands: 11m, 10m, 6m, VHF from 144-179, UHF from 420-470, plus airband (123), and 33cm. Heat: I don't talk nearly as much as I type, so I haven't really gotten it hot. It has a fan, and the fan can be set to always on, on while keyed up, or on when it reaches a certain temperature or is keyed up. Heat dissipation doesn't seem to be a problem. I keyed it up for 90 seconds into a 50w dummy load at high power, and it got warm enough to feel the warmth, but not hot. Nevertheless, dash-mounting the radio and then rag chewing in southern Arizona may not be a great plan. If you're going to dash mount it, dash mount the faceplate, and put the base unit somewhere shady in the vehicle, with sufficient ventilation. Programming: The menu is not too difficult to understand, but it's sure easier using CHIRP to get the radio configured, and then to just rely on the menu system for a little tweaking here and there. That goes for programming channels, too. Just do it in CHIRP, upload, done. Overall quality impressions: The radio is hefty, solid, has nice sound, close-enough power, good venting, great features, and great mounting options. Antenna choices: The closest I have to an antenna that will cover this radio's capabilities is a Comet CA2X4SR-NMO. I don't have a General class license, so I don't spend time in the 10m band. And nobody uses 6m in my area, from what I can tell. The CA2X4SR-NMO covers the 2m, 70cm, and closely adjacent bands nicely, so that's what I use. Odds and ends: Independently configurable Tx and Rx tones, compander, over-temp detection, high/low power input detection, scan groups, CTCSS and DCS scanning/detection, and very important to some, a roger beep. Very important to others, the roger beep can be disabled. DTMF, call groups, lots of features you'll never use. Should you consider this radio? Well, it depends. It's not cheap, at about $380-$400. There are far cheaper ham radios out there, and far cheaper GMRS radios. You might even find less expensive quad-band radios. But the build quality and sound quality are pretty darn good. If you are only GMRS licensed, get the KG-1000G Plus. It's the same radio but type approved for, and configured for GMRS. You'll be very happy with that radio. If you're a CB person, no, get a proper CB because it will have the appropriate power levels available, and will be type approved. If you're a MURS person, no, get the KG-1000M radio (which is serious overkill -- so really get an inexpensive MURS radio). If you're an amateur who operates in the SSB portions of the 10m band, get a proper HF radio so you can also enjoy 12m, 15m, 17m, 20m, and 40m. But if you're like me -- rather addicted to nice equipment, enjoying both amateur and GMRS, needing flexible installation options, and appreciating the features this radio offers, it's a pretty decent choice.

Amateur radio spans almost the entirety of the RF spectrum, and LW, MW, and HF propagation are vastly different from VHF, UHF, and other much higher frequency band propagation. GMRS uses 65cm, which is very close to amateur 70cm. For those, propagation will be virtually identical; UHF 70cm and UHF 65cm GMRS will be identical. GMRS doesn't extend into VHF. Amateur radio has bands in 2m and 6m that can be described as VHF. VHF requires bigger antennas than UHF for similar gain characteristics. VHF suffers less from attenuation by foliage. But UHF is a little better at getting through walls. Both are "line of sight." Amateur offers 10m (a lot like CB propagation -- pretty long range during periods of high sunspot activity, line of sight at other times). Amateur offers 20m, 40m, 80m, 160m. These are the bands people use to talk all over the world, but they're subject to seasonal changes, day/night changes, sunspot activity, and so on. They achieve these long distances by bouncing the radio waves off the ionosphere -- layers in our atmosphere. Requires knowledge and good technique for knowing when to use which band. Very large antennas are common, and high power levels. Not entirely reliable. You're probably asking about 2m/70cm amateur vs GMRS. And again, there, 70cm vs GMRS there's no practical propagation difference. 2m vs GMRS there can be some advantages to 2m if you have comparable gain antennas, which will be bigger. But the advantages are subtle. The fine print: I skipped over the following amateur bands: 1.25m, which is less used, but close in propagation to 2m. I skipped 900MHz and GHz bands because they're uncommon for simplex over any distance. And I skipped LW/MW, as well as 17m, 15m, and 12m amateur. 17,15,12 are going to share characteristics of 10m and 20m, but are less common bands. LW and MW require much larger equipment and are relatively niche bands. 160m is pretty close to MW though. I also skipped over MURS, because its power requirements are more limited, despite propagation being similar to 2m. 30m is useful in the same way that 20 and 40m are useful, but less common. And 60m is relatively niche. I skipped CB because at 11m, its propagation is similar to 10m, but it's a dumpster fire of crazy traffic. However, people do use CB. It's limited to 4w for AM transmissions, and 12w for SSB transmissions.

SWR is the Standing Wave Ratio, and is a function of your antenna, cabling, connectors, antenna mount, ground plane effectiveness, and environment. As power is reflected back into the radio rather than efficiently disappating it in the form of RF output, the reflection back into your radio is the standing wave. This is a bit of an oversimplification, but accurate enough to explain that if you see a higher SWR your radio is usually the last place to look, the last thing to blame. And into a dummy load -- it would be a terrible dummy load if it were reflecting power back into the radio. Their purpose is to absorb power with the proper ohm load to avoid elevated SWR that could damage the radio. Anyway, the RA87 has been very reliable for me over the past year or so. Unfortunately it fits in great with the utilitarian interior of my old Bronco, but not as well with the cushy interior of my newer F150. I'll probably go with something with a remote faceplate if I can figure out where i want to mount it, and how to route the antenna cable in this newer truck. In the old Bronco a few visible wires and a big radio under the dash just ads character.

Confirming: You hear them but they don't hear you, and you don't hear the kerchunk when you key up the repeater? How are you verifying they can't hear you? Is it by asking for a radio check while you know people are active? Or are you listening for the kerchunk on the radio you transmitted with? Or do you have two radios in close proximity, one to transmit and one to listen? Different troubleshooting tactics apply to each.

The GMRS version of the 5RM series is the UV-5G Plus. Type-approval aside, the 5RM variants (with the exception of the UV-5G Plus) cannot be set to power levels below about 2w. That makes them incapable of meeting the technical requirements for operating on GMRS/FRS channels 8-14, since those channels are supposed to be constrained to 0.5w or less. Aside from that they can be correctly configured for 1-7 and 15-22, though they would still not be type-approved, so still in violation of the FCC rules, which not even the FCC has enforced against individuals historically. It would be impossible to distinguish a 5RM series configured technically correctly on channels 1-7 and 15-22 from a UV-5G Plus. Nobody could tell the difference. And on 8-14 it would be hard to know, though transmitting at 2w when you're supposed to stay under 0.5w is more likely to interfere with nearby repeater mains, so not a good practice. <update> If there is now a 5RM GMRS variant, that is probably going to be something very similar to the UV-5G Plus. And it may even be a type-approved radio. You could look it up in the FCC filing but it's a lot of work to find, and ultimately not worth the bother.

This is a topic you could search for hours on and not come up with a clearly definitive answer. In fact, there's almost no argument, even. The advantages and disadvantages of each are so minor people don't really seem to be all that passionate about it. CTCSS will behave with older equipment that doesn't support DCS. But who are we protecting? There aren't a lot of people operating 20 year old blister pack GMRS radios lacking DCS support on repeaters. Both are subaudable tones or sequences that have to be filtered out by the radio's high pass filter. Both have different reasons for behaving a little oddly at fringe-reception areas. DCS *may* take a little longer for the sequence to be transmitted completely enough for a radio to open squelch, but we're talking tenths of a second at most. CTCSS may be a little more crowded (you may have a slightly harder time finding a channel and tone pair that isn't in use). But the fact that we have both systems really is a product of the evolution of marketing bullet points from vendors. One or more vendors claimed they had a new and improved system, and they pushed it to the point that it gained adoption. But the fact that DCS and CTCSS have continued to co-exist for decades, filling the exact same purpose, without a clear winner pushing the other out of the way kind of indicates there's not a clear winner.

GMRS repeaters have the same exact propagation characteristics as 70cm. I'm aware of this as you are. But 70cm doesn't have a prohibition against linking. The point I was making was that it's possible the OP was hearing a 70cm repeater that was legally linked -- a very common practice -- as opposed to hearing a GMRS repeater that is illegitimately linked -- a much less common practice nowadays.

Are you sure you were listening on GMRS frequencies? Could the radio have been set to pick up 70cm amateur? It's a lot more common to find repeater networks in the amateur bands. It still happens in GMRS despite the FCC clarification. But if you were picking up 70cm amateur it would be less surprising.

We all value knowledge and experience here, but the way you're treating newcomers is out of line. Everyone starts somewhere, and being dismissive, impatient, or outright rude doesn't make you look more knowledgeable—it just makes this community less welcoming. If your goal is to actually help people learn and grow, then your attitude needs to reflect that. Otherwise, you're not building anything—you're just gatekeeping. You were new once too. Try to remember that.

Just following up with a few pictures and thoughts: 1R-TZx2sXZtB5VeoNzVYUUdh537kbVpeM 1R4AwUegDgP7ah-gv4selGUVxdnPf5BFR 1QvOYWltKxpcItGcxLZCTJskw-9aolGER One is the old Bronco with an MXTA26 antenna. Inside is an RA-87 mounted under the driver's side console above the driver's right knee. Plenty of room there. The other two are the newer F150. It's in pretty good shape, so I'm a little reluctant to make an amateurish attempt at routing wiring through the headliner to set up a rooftop drilled-through NMO mount. Yet that's probably the best option. I'm thinking I might get in touch with an audio installer and let them go at it. I think the roof is probably my best option, though as you can see from the picture I have a sun roof, and I'm not sure how far back the window equipment goes. Thus I don't know how far back I'll have to put the NMO mount to be out of the way while still having some ground plane available. Inside, things are pretty tight. I like the idea of putting a radio under the center console, and then running the head unit up to the sunglass holder overhead, OR to a seat mounted bracket.

Yeah, the radio doesn't get the love that some of the Wouxuns and other fairly popular models get. But it's really pretty solid. Very close to the full 40w across the GMRS range (within, say, 5% in my most recent testing). Good sound quality. I kind of wish that it had more than six character channel labels. I like the "left" and "right" side option; I set the left up for scanning repeaters, and set the right up for the channels my family is most likely to use, as well as for open scanning. Signal reports are favorable, though that has a lot to do with the antenna and geography. It has some quirks. From the front panel you can only swap between low and high power. But within chirp there are five power options. I usually set "medium" power in the programming using Chirp, knowing that I can push the power button to get to high if I need it, for example. But I've been using it about a year now in my dusty old Bronco and it has held up great.

The things that could be better on the 5RM: It's a little on the large size, particularly when compared to the tiny UV5R. It doesn't have a squelch knob as higher end models often have. It's not weatherproof, but it's so cheap it probably doesn't really matter. It doesn't allow for dividing the 999 channels into scan-banks, as some higher end models allow. The lowest power setting is about 2.2w, which exceeds the power limits of some bands it wasn't explicitly designed to work with (GMRS channels 8-14 are max 0.5w. MURS is max 2.0w). Of course it's not made for those frequencies; it's a ham radio. But people often do use it for those bands. The display is rather hard to read in bright daylight. Some of the menus and secondary functions of the number-pad buttons are counter-intuitive or even mislabeled. However, for approximately $30, it's the best radio I'm aware of. Models that are substantially better tend to cost substantially more. It's my most frequently used handheld.

This is how this thread has gone: OP: Has anyone tried these? Others: Those won't have a very good ground plane, and that will hamper your signal propagation. OP: But this is what I want to do. Others: *shrug* then why did you ask?

You'll maybe need to show a picture demonstrating how an NMO mount on top of the 3rd brake light has a full 360 degree ground plane. Three or four feet below inside the truck bed is not acting as a ground plane. So if that's what you're expecting to consider as your ground plane, no photo needed. It's not doing what you think. Now, it may *work* to have an antenna mounted there. You'll be able to transmit and receive. But your SWR will be a little high, and your propagation in the aft 180 degrees will be relatively lousy.

I have a new-to-me F150 Lariat with SuperCrew cab. It's a 2014. The front console seems pretty full, though there's a "SYNC" panel at the base of the front panel that may have space behind it; I'm not sure. It's possible I could find room under the seat if I use a detachable faceplate style radio such as a KG1000G Plus (GMRS) or the KG -UV980P (amateur). I'm looking for examples of successful installations that seem not too intrusive or not to have that "I bolted this thing to my dashboard" look. Additionally, examples of antenna mounting would be useful. I already can't park the truck in the garage, but would prefer not becoming so tall that I also can't pull into commercial or municipal parking garages. On my 95 Bronco a hood lip-mount works great because the cowling aft of the hood is also metal, so I'm able to achieve a good ground plane. But on the F150 the cowling aft of the hood is plastic, so the ground plane would be poor with that type of mount. Cab-top is probably ideal from a functionality standpoint, but a compromise in terms of what kind of antenna I can put up there (it would pretty much be the Ghost, or frequent swapping to accommodate height obstructions).

When the radio is set in VFO mode, and you turn the knob on the right, it will move up or down through its frequency range. Step is how far it jumps with each click. If you set up the radio for GMRS, you probably wouldn't use this setting much. But it's there in case you want to move around through the frequencies to listen to things, such as in the 70cm amateur band.