n4gix

Fair enough for simplex; but you have to remember that if you're using a repeater you don't own yourself you're actually actively using someone else's radio in addition to your own. This is why repeater owners may have their own rules and practices they want followed when using their hardware; sometimes these rules include not having roger beeps.
Since on repeaters you have people monitoring for traffic from others and are often dependent on them for communications, aside from the fact that they tend to be watering holes for radio traffic - you are forcing other operators to listen to you. Simplex, not so much a problem because you can tune out and not miss anything as you mentioned.

Radials and bonded grounding are two unrelated concepts.

Radials and bonded grounding are two unrelated concepts.

That's great they are working on at least providing a 'hook' for ID and/or external controller. I believe it will greatly increase the appeal. I do not need it for my own use, it's family only. 
 
That's basically how I have it mounted now! 

Coverage maps are hard because GMRS is a line-of-sight communications service. There will be spots where you can be less than 5 miles away from a hilltop repeater and not be able to open its squelch, and there are spots where you're scratchy into a repeater that's 100 miles away. Coverage maps can be very reliable tools if both the mobile station and repeater's powers, losses, and thresholds are properly entered; the correct antenna patterns and heights are used; proper statistical losses are taken into account; and an effort is taken to ensure the topography in the mapping software matches real topography. In my experience, none or very few of these tasks are done when generating a coverage map. Real coverage tends to be much less than the modeled coverage, typically because statistical loss has a huge effect (mobile coverage requires staying above the signal threshold more than n% of the time (I usually model at 70% or 87% depending on band), while spot coverage (often used by default) assumes you're standing still in the peak of a fluttery signal), your antenna (especially if portable) probably has less net gain than whatever mobile station the map-maker simulated coverage with, site noise is a very real thing that will reduce repeater sensitivity, repeater owners may not realize that they are using a directional antenna or tower mounting position, and not many repeater owners are willing to admit that it's possible to have 4 dB of loss between the transmitter and the antenna. Repeater owners and users also like to see good coverage come out of the simulations, regardless of actual coverage, so there's even incentive for misleading coverage maps. So, there's a lot of ways to alter the coverage depicted on a coverage map, and there's so much room for variation (about 25 dB worth) that it's not possible to make repeater-to-repeater comparisons unless the same person made all the maps with correct information.
And unfortunately, it isn't possible for MyGMRS to generate the coverage maps accurately, as there's a lot of room for variation with repeater hardware (dinky little solar power repeater running 5W into a counterfeit Nagoya antenna duct-taped to a chain-link fence, vs. someone running 50 watts into a solid duplexer with preamplified receive and a 10 dBd gain antenna) and repeater locations on the map are not always accurate for various reasons. So, we just generalize coverage into a circle around the repeater's map position. It's easier for a repeater owner to estimate how far their repeater can cover towards population centers than for the owner to generate coverage maps that are correctly parameterized. It's easier for MyGMRS to handle circular coverage patterns than the rasterized geo-referenced images outputted by coverage mapping software.
Radio coverage in general should be taken with a heaping handful of salt due to the wide degrees of variability that are out there, and instead test your actual coverage with a second radio or a friend. And if you know or learn mapping software such as Radio Mobile, you can even make your own coverage maps for estimation if there's enough information about a repeater's location in its MyGMRS listing.

I received my new amateur call sign yesterday. I was able to get my dad's call sign, WB9VLW. The photo is one of his old tags.

Wow, that's terrific performance for ~5 watts!  It certainly proves the claim that "height make right..." 

RIPPER238 I just can't understand some of the jerky response... Hey I got a new radio and want to see it it works... give us a break.. I'm sure these jerks did a radio check on there first radios... grow up and be professional and encourage others into GMRS...
Jack

I would use these for my feed through connections.
https://www.wiredco.com/UHF-BULKHEAD-Adapter-connector-through-wall-so239-p/uhfbulkhead1.htm:

Sean, like most "commercial" radios, the display is either the frequency programmed, or a 12 character Alpha label of your choice. With 512 channels split among 128 zones, you won't have any issue with having FAR more than you'll ever need in flexibility. None of this silly "Channel Number" nonsense unless you choose to use them for your Alpha tag of course.
A "Zone" is a way of segregating your frequencies rationally. For example you could have one Zone strictly for GMRS frequencies (which you could label "Channel 1," etc. You could also create another Zone with only frequencies used for another town... 

You got the acronym correct, but not the actual use. VFO mode allows one to set a frequency from the keyboard, and use the Menu function to set a PL tone, etc.
For a real example, last Saturday morning our District 1 ARES team was called upon to assist in locating a 12 year old autistic boy who'd wandered away from the hotel where he and his parents were staying while visiting relatives in the area.
Since the search area was so large, we chose to use an extremely wide-area 2m repeater, and I do mean WIDE area! It covers six counties in NW Indiana and a very large part of the Chicagoland area via two additional linked repeaters in Illinois.
As I did not have the N9IAA repeater programmed into my AT-D868UV portable, it took less than 2 minutes for me to tap in the frequency, and set the PL tone needed. After a quick radio check, I was prepared for the search. I was assigned to one of the 12 person teams to provide communications between the team leader and the incident command center.
Sadly, we did not manage to locate the boy, and they are continuing the search now along the Little Calumet River thinking he may have fallen in and drowned.

Maybe time for me to list my 880 and 840 then...

I highly recommend the Bridgecom repeater. It comes fully tuned and programmed to your specs. Put up a DB-404 antenna on that tower, some half-inch heliax and you will be ready to go on the air. 

Mine's been up on my roof tripod for almost 10 years now and still working just great!
 

I need adapters so often that I broke down and bought a "universal" set of adapters. With these I can quickly create nearly any type of "adapter" I need. The center row are 'barrel connectors' to which you couple the end connectors you need:
https://www.amazon.com/ConnectoRF-Coaxial-Connector-Universal-Mini-UHF/dp/B079K65LHK/ref=pd_lpo_23_t_0/140-4570640-4443552?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B079K65LHK&pd_rd_r=db665e20-f51b-49f8-b7d6-a9267569d48f&pd_rd_w=KxI8P&pd_rd_wg=qaIOK&pf_rd_p=a0d6e967-6561-454c-84f8-2ce2c92b79a6&pf_rd_r=SAZWX4YT39N8BF8JRSFB&psc=1&refRID=SAZWX4YT39N8BF8JRSFB

I don't know about Vertex or Motorola radios how the frequency range is verified, but with Kenwood I do. Maybe Vertex or Motorola radios are similar.
The radio programming software reads the code plug which has the radio's model number and sub type embedded in it. When the software tries to write the code plug to the radio it first queries the radio for model and sub-type. If the two don't match the software generates an error message. One version of the software with the license key I used for installation even offered to let me change the "market code" changing a radio from a European or Asian model to a US type! The service manual claimed if you used the wrong model type, and the associated market code, to program the radio "the first time" it can't be changed later. Apparently that's not true if you have the right software.
Some of the Kenwood radios use "XOR" encryption on the code plug contents I discovered, for example the popular TK-3170 and TK-3173 radios. After some lucky guesses and looking I found where in the code plug the encryption key is stored. It seems to be located in the same place even between totally different radio models. I suspect the software programmers used the same code plug file structure for the beginning section across model types. The key however can vary from code plug to code plug even for the same model type.
After decrypting the code plug the version of the radio software, radio model type and the installation license key, used to install the software which created the code plug, was found. The frequency was stored in little Endian integer BCD  format. For example 462.67500 MHz was stored as 00 75 26 46, two BCD digits packed into each byte.
Any passwords set in the radio, such as power up enable, radio read or radio over write are also stored in the code plug. Without the engineer's license key for example even if you loaded the code plug in to the programming software the radio over write password is blanked out with asterisks. If you know where to look in the decrypted code plug even that password is in the clear and can be recovered allowing a radio to be reprogrammed. The software will prompt the user for the password if one is used and will refuse to either read the radio or over write the current code plug depending on which passwords are set.
The channel names, group names, strings in general, are stored in normal ASCII format.
Other options and features are likely stored as bit fields or some other type packed data structure. Since none of this will ever be documented by the manufacture so a good deal of experimenting has to be done to reverse engineer the code plug further.

If you are consistently getting 80% or higher on practice test... just go take it. You'll do fine.

It's not like people are going to say omg.. you only got 75٪... we will never know. All the fcc cares about is pass or fail.

You both got this.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

They are wonderful radios! I have several of them as well as an TK-880-1H and an TK-840(N).
Carefully read and check out the pictures to be sure everything is included: microphone, power cable with fuse(s), mic clip, mounting bracket, etc.
Here is an example of a 'complete' unit:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/303837053371?hash=item46be1981bb:g:gG8AAOSwsOBf9Moa

Sean, like most "commercial" radios, the display is either the frequency programmed, or a 12 character Alpha label of your choice. With 512 channels split among 128 zones, you won't have any issue with having FAR more than you'll ever need in flexibility. None of this silly "Channel Number" nonsense unless you choose to use them for your Alpha tag of course.
A "Zone" is a way of segregating your frequencies rationally. For example you could have one Zone strictly for GMRS frequencies (which you could label "Channel 1," etc. You could also create another Zone with only frequencies used for another town... 

New to GMRS and BTech GMRS 50X-1 myself... I have been using CHIRP to do channel programming and playing with settings, found it to be much easier than trying to cycle through the menus on the radio itself. Give it a look and see if it helps.

Well, I was not able to get on the site at all yesterday, as the system kept wanting to "link" my two accounts...
...when I've never had but one account to begin with. Whatever was 'wrong' seems to have been fixed as I'm able to do a simple login as has always been the case.
As for the forum software, I was not unhappy with how it was, but I expect I'll get used to the "new look" eventually! 

Thanks. Moral of the story. Don't get to ambitious and the more expensive route might be easier and actually cheaper
 
Thought about that ball mount. Too bad the tank is on the right, since that would have been ideal having it on the rear right. 
On the left side I was worried about clipping trees and such. On the right, at least I can move to the center of the lane to clear stuff. Not so much wiggle room with a left rear ball mount. Lots of low hanging trees in Potomac and Tacoma Park, Maryland.

The Antenna.
I really wanted a Laird CWB270b. Well guess what they don't make it anymore. Couldn't find coil numbers or anything. It seemed ideal about 65" and wide banded.
So I started searching.
Found an article from the ORF/3730 Group in Canada. Apparently, they wanted something similar. Hence, a Larsen NMO30 with 64" whip for 11m/CB and NMO34 with 64" whip for 10m. I have those now.
REALLY BIG CON This combo wiggles more then jello. At about 70 MPH the whole thing is canted back almost 30 degrees. Simply getting in and out of the truck the SWR was all over the place on the nano vna, from the jiggling. When tuning for 10m. I couldn't get the SWR lower then 1.6 at 28.540 or so. After talking to folks at MYGMRS and others. I probably went as short as I could with the coil in question. So I ran around with this for a while.
I really wanted 1(one) antenna for both bands. I really took Marc's words about the antennas being too short now a days into consideration. Part of the reason the antenna is not center line roof was due to height.
The NMO30/34 64" whip combo put it after tuning about 4 inches higher then my Larsent2/70b.
In comes my birthday in a couple of days. Wife has been hounding me for weeks as to what radio I want. Well the THD74a is like a gazillion dollars now, due to the shortage. So that is out.
I asked for an MFJ 1610T 10m Hamstick and Hustler quick disconnect on top of a Tram NMO to 3/8 adapter.
Below here she is tuned in at CH20 on the with a beautiful SWR around 1.14. On 10M tuned in at 28.400 at with an SWR of 1.09. Pretty close to under 1.6 across the band width in both bands depending where I have it set on the whip.
Interesting enough, the marks between 10m and 11m are only about 2 inches.
Overall height?
Under a couple inches below 13'. So objectives met.

 

Actually, just about everyone should be fixed now. I ran a script to compare the myGMRS email to the forum email and for anyone that had them different, I copied the myGMRS email over.
Glad you were finally able to link up the accounts!

You are absolutely correct. Were this portable repeater going to be in continuous use its current parameters would be an issue.  However, its intended usage is to be deployed anywhere within our ARES five counties for emergency coverage likely no more than two or three days, it shouldn't be much of a concern.
 
Our plan is to use a unity gain antenna no higher than 20' to reduce any chance of interference with other 70cm operators. I just got it two days ago and haven't had time to bench test yet. I may in fact wind up tightening up the notches on the duplexer if it proves to be a problem. There's a lot of testing yet to be done!
 
EDIT: I have determined that the interference from the Attica repeater was a result of tropospheric ducting. I've not heard the digital 'noise' since around 1500 CST yesterday afternoon.