Hans

Welcome, Randy Bergen!

Welcome, Ron! I am a native-born Cincinnatian but now live over 50 miles away. Between Cincinnati and Dayton, there are a few repeaters and they tend to be active. I talk on them from my present location with sporadic results. We are awaiting shipment of a tower here which should improve my ability to reliably talk on those repeaters. Radio wave propagation can be complex at times. The best bits of advice I can give you are... Height is king. Some of those antennas might not be tuned to GMRS frequencies (they might be centered at 70cm ham). Wattage doesn't usually make as much of a difference as antenna height and a good antenna. Higher wattage can help blast through some obstruction and perhaps with multipath (signal bouncing around to reach the target). UHF primarily propagates line of sight so that theoretically if you can see the other radio location, you can talk to them and if not, there might be a problem with radio, antenna, or both. You might want to get a hold of Howie at Monix. He can probably point you in some good directions locally for some help. http://monix.net Hope to talk with you on the air in the coming months.

"VHF power: 2W/5.4W, SWR (with J pole): 1.1 to 1.5 across the band" Yeah, that's why I asked the question in my post.

Thanks for the review, WQYA707! I am confused about one thing... For certification, the radio is supposed to be locked to GMRS frequencies. How did you test VHF output or am I misunderstanding the review?

On the several that we currently have deployed, transmitted sound is great and the speaker, with 1W stamped on the back of it, sounds good. We had two bad out of the last batch of five. Both were microphone issues. With the first one, I couldn't get the microphone to work until I plugged in an external speaker mic. Then, I unplugged it and the microphone worked but would buzz when the case was flexed or the radio when shaken while transmitting. The second one acted the same way out of the box. Both work fine with external speaker mic. Those were the only two out of any that we purchase that were bad but make sure you check them over carefully for that specific issue. I suggest micing up and shaking the radio around and tap it while transmitting to observe if the microphone cuts in and out. The board is tightly fitted in the case, so, as long as it doesn't do it straight from the factory, I don't think it will be a problem with the other radios in the future.

Over on MidlandUSA blog, October 31, 2016, MTX400 Micro Mobile 40 watt GMRS mobile radio with repeater offsets. $249, due out in early(?) 2017.

I concur, battery life, sound quality RX & TX is great, and range is nice.

Howdy from Ohio.

The old rules used to read immediate family members in your household. That has since been changed. I think that is where the confusion keeps coming about for people. The rules used to say in the same household but now do not. As long as they are relation specified in the rules, they are good.

[EDITED: I misread the OP. ] Congrats and welcome aboard the General Mobile Radio Service.