WRTT642

One other point no one broached is to talk to the local PD. They will help your school with interoperability issues and may even have some units they can provide your administration for use in a situation requiring police presence. You won't use their radios for bus duty and the like as they would be for emergencies only.
I would steer away from FRS radios because of the issues with possible interference. Talk to a local radio supplier and get some business band units. Yes the brand name ones like Motorola, Kenwood and ICOM are expensive but others like RCA, Hytera and a few others are reasonable. 

Well that model of Hytera is only 3watt and has a very small antenna. Probably not even transmitting 3w with battery age/use. In any event they will be outclassed by a 5watt radio with a bigger antenna like what the UV-9G has. So, the test result you've seen has plausibility. The real question is what type of building & topographical interference is in the area that is causing the need for larger radios?
GMRS is a licensed service. So, as long as everyone gets a license, you have some GMRS radio options out there, but really a full keypad radio is not a good option in your setting and end users.
Thus, here are some business radios that make sense for you.
Look at the Hytera TC-508 (dual band), PD402i-U1 or BD502i-U1 which are much better alternatives for your environment. Also look at Motorola CP100D, Motorola RM RMU2080, Icom F4001, Kenwood NX-P1302AU.

There are lots of funds available for schools under the Safe Schools funding & government grants for security. Take a look here: schoolsafety.gov
I'm not sure why those compact digital Hytera radios are being out-performed by Baofengs, but I'd definitely try out some other radios with better durability & performance specifications. Radios used for safety & security at a school should not be purchased based upon cheapest price. Repeaters are not necessary for most smaller sized buildings, but I've seen some strange stuff with newer construction with low-E glass. There are also advantages to using digital repeaters for a district-wide network that allows
I'd call in a local wireless company & have them survey the building to see what works. They might also be able to help you out with some direction on grants and funding options available to schools in your State.

Oh, ok, I understand, yeah that makes sense. Yet, for individuals like myself, which are probably many, why would I need a commercial radio for if I am only using radio for personal and educational use? I looked into P25/NXDN and to be honest, it's just too much for me personally and seems pretty restrictive. I could just be totally misunderstanding its purpose and use, but for the general market DStar, YSF, and even DMR are more viable options for the average user with my much better pricing and accessibility. So, I definitely get your point and you explained it very clearly for a slow person like myself, but I still don't see the practical use for the average consumer to get into the commercial side of radio and maybe that is why Kenwood stuck with DStar.  

Let me say thank you for all you do. I became a premium member shortly after joining because personally I felt like I was stealing from you guys with as much resources you have on here. All the help and info I have received on this site and then even being able to start a page for my state has been great. We have some really good guys up here in Alaska and they are really getting us caught up with the rest of the states which I am so grateful for. I don't mind volunteering and helping you with whatever you need, but I don't know how much help I can be still being so new to radios, but I'm always willing to help others if I can. Thank you again sir!

Also for my GMRS HTs I sometimes use a Nagoya NA-771G, or a Nagoya NA-701G when I get tired of poking myself in the eye.  These both are optimized for GMRS, like the previous antennas I mentioned.
Notarubicon has good videos on YouTube if you want to get ideas without breaking the bank, but @OffRoaderX will tell you that you are his favorite viewer.  Don't fall for it ?

Thanks for the reply. I look forward to chatting with you. 

Just got a new Retevis RT97 up and running in East Anchorage. Location is near Boniface and Reflection Dr. Using 3 element Yagi pointed south from my Condo balcony. Transmissions to the west are mostly blocked. Hopefully, this will work most of East Anchorage and possibly toward Eagle River if mobile or base is used. Best reception should be good on the Hill Side. Will need testing to see what the actual coverage is?
The initial tone setting is 141.3 for input/output. At some point I plan to change to a DCS Tone. Please be mindful of other users of the frequency. All GMRS frequencies are used on a shared basis. No one owns any particular frequency. So, before you transmit to access the repeater determine the frequency is not already in use. If you use Tone Squelch you may not hear other uses of the frequency. In order to determine if the frequency is clear you will need to open your squelch in some way. Use your Monitor feature if your radio has it or use another channel on your radio that has carrier squelch. If possible, just set your repeater channel to use carrier squelch instead of tone squelch.
Also, remember you are required by FCC regulations to use your FCC issued GMRS call sign when you are finished with a conversation. There's no need to repeat your call sign after every transmission. If you are in a long conversation, you must repeat your call sign every 15 minutes. However, let's not tie up a repeater for that length of time. Others may be waiting to use the repeater. Try using a simplex channel, if you are close enough to the other station, to continue a conversation.
If you have an urgent need or emergency you may break into a conversation by saying "break, break, break". Others on the channel should yield to you. If you would like to join a conversation just you drop you call sign during a break in the ongoing conversation. 
Let's keep all conversations family friendly. And above all be courteous.
One last thing. If you are running a business don't use this repeater (to run your business).  There are licensed frequencies available specifically for businesses. You can obtain a frequency that is not shared by others. There are other license free frequencies available on a shared basis in the MURS or Multi-Use Radio Service. These fall under Part 95 rules but are not likely to be used by the general public. 
If you are not familiar with the rules governing the GMRS please refer to FCC Part 95 subpart A. CFR-2009-title47-vol5-part95.pdf (govinfo.gov)

Generally, we'd want to stick to the "GMRS" frequencies from channel 15 to 22, since all GMRS radios can transmit on those channels regardless of power level.
In Eagle River and the Valley, channel 16 probably gets the most use between the repeater here and the Golden Eagle folks in the Valley. Channel 20 gets more activity on weekends, particularly amongst offroaders out on the Moose Range trail system in Palmer.

It goes deeper than that. They're not even watching.

There is a level of overthinking here I didn't think was actually possible.
1. First off, these are rules, not laws. Secondly (and legally - wife is a lawyer) hidden meaning can only be determined on a case by case basis. I could say "Be sure to deliver the package where it will be seen" and literally mean leave the damn box where the idiot recipient will see it this time. Or I could mean leave the explosives where they would have the most effect. Until something has happened and the audio (just example) is played in court, it's just words spoken OTA. Those rules and regs are specifically there and constructed the way they are so that Uncle Sam can haul your ass off to Gitmo if you decided to use GMRS for terrorist purposes. Again though, until said terrorists do something or are placed under investigation, it's just words OTA.
2. The FCC does not have a 10 codes list because they are regional in nature and are not even uniform across counties, let alone the USA as a whole. They mean if you're using your 10-codes list, then that's OK, it's allowed.
3. At any time, you are not assumed to be hiding anything unless there's proof beyond a reasonable doubt you are. See #1. You can use any 10 codes list you want, including your own, without publishing it anywhere. No one will assume you're hiding something. They will assume you're some type of weirdo nerd radio person though, so be prepared for that.
In conclusion, this is just a whole other kind of over analysis. @OffRoaderX made an excellent point in one of his videos: The number of GMRS rule enforcement actions by the FCC is 0. "They don't care." This is something folks who have used 11m band know all too well. 4W main/12W SSB PEP is the legal limit for power there. I can point you to countless FB groups, forums, YT channels, etc. of folks who not only know this, but flaunt it. We're talking 10,000W+ amplifiers, both tube and pill. Giant 7+ element, high gain beam antennas making their ERP 30,000+ watts. Let's make up a number of 100 for example purposes here. Every year, of those 100 wattmongers, maybe 5 will get busted and even then most times it's a fine issued ($5k+ so it does sting). No equipment confiscation, just a fine and a "don't do that again, please". Most times these folks make amps for sale and a "nice" one (one that has a decent LPF) that's say, 2000W will run about $2500-$3000. You can now just imagine how much they care about a $5k fine.
"They don't care."

You've come across archaic sections of the FCC rules. Imagine someone telling you that you can't say, "Meet you at the rendezvous, over." vs explicitly saying where and what you are doing. You have a brain. Its okay to use your brain. Its okay to think and reason. You are better, and always will be than ChatGPT and its endless database entries of biased entries.

And clowns.  They’re terrifying.

They definitely did not have the authority to do that. In the same way only the FAA regulates airspace over the US, the rules of the airwaves are regulated exclusively by the FCC under authority granted by Congress. The rules say that no one owns any frequency, and all operators work on the premise of first come, first serve. There is nothing that says you can't have a conversation in-between conversations, and it's actually pretty common, as long as no one is causing harmful interference and everyone must yield to emergency traffic.  I love having that conversation with the idiots that tell me to "get off their frequency". LOL 

Thank you @Sshannon I wonder when this was changed? That language is present in the 2017 ruling, I still see some info online that says GMRS commercial use is verboten. Anyway thanks for clearing this up  I am so happy for everyones help and I hope I can make a good contribution to this forum.

Well, a minimum 2 mile range is difficult to guarantee in the mountains.  There will be times you can get 20 miles from five watts and times you can only get one mile from 50 watts.  Power isn't necessarily the predictor.  Terrain has much more to do with it.
Almost any mobile GMRS radio will have similar range.  If your line of sight range is limited to 1 mile because you're going through a bunch of switchbacks, it won't really matter whether you're using 5 watts or 50. Look at a bunch to see what features you like, rather than using range.
 

I understand the CODEC differences. 
 
To make the radio a bit more “universal” Kenwood could have included dPMR which is used in the EU for both their license free and commercial services. It’s a close relative to NXDN. It’s not used in North America in a significant way currently. That could change.
There is the option to use several different CODECS which is encoded in the OTA protocol. That would have allowed the use of the existing one for D-Star.
Certified-Interoperability-Guidance-Paper-2019.pdf

DMR/P25/NXDN (as I recall) all use the /same/ AMBE CODEC; they just wrap the encoded audio in a different set of headers.
D-STAR uses a different, incompatible, AMBE CODEC. Fitting both CODECs into one radio means paying the license fee for both.
D-STAR uses actual call-signs for routing and identification -- which wouldn't be of use in the commercial realm where a system (and all associated radios) operates under a single call-sign (hence the 7-digit IDs used internal to DMR for radio identification).

I see this comment/suggestion a ton, or similar. Its a lot more complicated than that. 
DMR, P25 & NXDN are permitted on amateur radio, however, D-star is not a permitted mode on business/public safety radio. It would honestly be a firmware nightmare. The reason people use commercial digital radios in amateur radio is to get secondary (or primary) use outside of amateur radio. To build a radio that can also do all commercial digital radio, yet acknowledge the amateur bands and permit dstar only in the amateur range will be a pain.
 
You have to realize that besides the few (myself being one of them) nobody is going to pay what they would be forced to ask. Right now, for the NX5000, conventional P25 entitlement is listed at $600 per radio, and DMR is around $100. That would mean, if the D74/D75 hardware is up to the task, the $600 hardware + $600 + $100 + NXDN costs = $ 1300+ radio to be locked down to amateur band. Would you pay that? I wouldn't, and I'm looking at more expensive items as well. Why not make them include YSF as well (this is open source). 
It should also be noted that the brand new VP8000 is the first radio I'm aware of that actually recognizes GMRS & Amateur radio as wideband out the gate in the firmware/software without additional purchases. That radio is going to cost an individual about $4000, well into IC7610 territory for a handheld.
Looking more at this D75, I probably won't get one since I have the D74, unless new features are announced at the Tokyo hamfest end of the year. I'm more excited to see the D710 "replacement" announced at Tokyo than this HT.

You just don’t know what you’ll see here.
 

Sample on display.

Live from Hamvention.
 

I'm planning on getting the D75A. Does do DSTAR  on both vfos simultaneously, and the only one that can do it 220. 

I am personally willing to pay ID52 prices for the new D75, but anything over that will be a no-go for me, yet I find it hard to believe that they will sell this unit for my then 5-600 dollars. With everything coming out on this I am very excited to see more about it. Looks to be a very big contender in the HT market and hopefully will cause the other companies to up their game.

I was thinking along the same lines. Even at or just a ove the same price point of the id52, a new d75 would almost be a no brainer vs a used d74