WQXJ685

Ok, so another question. MURS is over VHF and GMRS is over UHF but GMRS can do higher power (5W) than MURS (2W). Which one would do a greater range over normal terrain (houses, trees, ...)?

Hah! I just ordered a 701 antenna - should be here on Wednesday! Thanks everyone! Very helpful (and educational)!

So if the repeater is 25+ miles away, it has to be a 40-50 watt transmitter or something really powerful, right? I can hear it just fine but with the UV5R since it's only a 3 watt transmitter, will I be able to transmit the 25+ miles back to that repeater if I were to get access to it? Another way to ask I guess is if I can hear them, can I assume that I can also transmit to them no matter what power I'm transmitting at?

WQWG565: Thanks for the invitation! I'll check it out when I'm in the area. Logan5: Good to know. I didn't know the difference and I'm still in the learning phase. Just got a UV-5R and I can transmit substantially further than with the 888s so that's pretty interesting too. I'll probably get some more powerful radios in the near future. I heard some talk on 462.575 last night while I was driving (I have a 1/4 wave roof-mount antenna now too) from Lafayette to Longmont which I thought was either a repeater or someone on the road going the same direction as me. I heard them when I got home in Longmont for a couple of hours and it was also sending out morse code every 10 minutes so I figured that it was a strong repeater. I downloaded an android app that decodes morse code and found that the owner of the repeater is in Loveland (WQCN756). I didn't see a repeater on mygmrs.com though, so this may be a new one.

Q: Is a simplex repeater legal on GMRS frequencies in the US? Do I need any sort of additional license or anything other than the extra radio and the controller to operate one?

Hey there. I'm a noob GMRS guy in the Colorado area. Still learning (these forums are a great resource, BTW). I started out with the 888s's and started out using them wrong. I reprogrammed the radios to just use the GMRS frequencies and turned all of the fancy stuff on (different (random) CTSS and DTS (?) and channels) and did everything wrong of course: I turned on the scrambler function - I didn't realize that we couldn't transmit encoded transmissions - doah! Also, my kids were using the radios to mess around with, so they didn't ID themselves - now I have my ID on the back of the radios and I'm trying to train them to use it once per conversation. The radios are good from home to car for about a mile or two on a clear day with houses, trees and stuff in the way, but the transmission quality is really static-y at more than a few blocks of distance. There is supposed to be a repeater in my area, so I've requested access. We'll see how that turns out. Anyway, just thought that I'd say, "hi" and let people know my initial startup experience. These forums have been much more informative than googling around or watching youtube for instructions and rules for GMRS by far! I'm impressed with the helpfulness and non-condescending attitudes (HAM > GMRS) on this forum!