MarkInTampa

I tend to think of how Wouxun compares to the others is how you want to use the radio. For a program and forget it's hard to beat a Motorola or other commercial radios but for the most part they don't do what a KG-1000g does nor were they designed to. Things like tone scan, program from the radio itself, listen to VHF, dual VFO/Scan or airband and such that a KG-1000 does do. I got a KG-1000g+ the week they came out and to me is was an attempt of Wouxun to clone or emulate a Yaesu/Icom style Ham radio for the GMRS market, not a commercial style radio and they did a fair job at it. It missed a few things that a Yaesu FTM series or Icom ID series have but may not be important to you. The Yaesu and Icom both have two button access to drop a channel from scan for 5 minutes and the Wouxun doesn't. A feature I like if there is a bunch of garbage on one frequency when scanning. The Wouxun scan speed also sucked - at least 75% slower than my Icom or Yaesu but did work fine. Again, not a issue if you are only scanning a few frequencies but it was definitely noticeable. The digital volume was also a bit annoying on the KG-1000, at the lowest volume setting of 1 when used as a base station the volume could be heard in the other room (annoying the wife) so had to use the speaker in the mic at night. In a mobile situation I doubt you would ever notice. My Icom and Yaesu doesn't have that issue. I sold off my KG-1000g+ after getting my ham license and it's now on its third owner. The second sold it off after getting something different as well. I lost maybe $25 after original purchase and the second owner sold it for the same he paid me for it. So at least it holds it's value.

My Comet GP-6NC was labeled that way. The package said GP-6 witch a NC sticker added to the end of it. The standard (2m/70cm ham) GP-6 has SO-239 connectors and the GMRS/MURS version has a type-N connector.

I talked to a couple of county code enforcement guys at lunch about putting up a 30-40ft tower for ham use and if I needed a permit a month or two ago. They told me that if it has a concrete foundation, technically it needs a permit. It didn't matter if it was ham or not. One of them also told me in 25 years he has never checked permitting or gigged anybody for a small tower so take that for what it's worth. I'd guess it depends on how anal your code enforcement is where you live.

One of our local repeaters has two input frequencies do to occasional interference on the primary. A few weeks ago they put a high-low beep on end of transmission on one input and a low-high beep on the other so he could figure out what input was being used. It's still causing a bit of chaos, users blaming other users of have their roger beep turned or thinking their own roger beep is turned on. What's even funnier is if they do have a roger beep enabled, then you hear at least 3 tones at the end of each transmission. It's finally calmed down a bit - instead of of ten folks a a day asking what the tones are it's down to one or two.

If the drivers for the communication cable isn't working in Windows, it isn't going to work in Chirp.

This article should help on installing the driver... https://www.buytwowayradios.com/blog/2021/06/how-to-install-the-wouxun-programming-cable-and-driver.html

Are you connected to the right port for programming? The programming port is the same connector size as the microphone plug but on the SIDE of the radio, not on front.

Right-click on the installer/setup program, select "properties", check "Unblock" next to the security warning "This file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer", click "OK" then try installing again.

You can download the software from Buy Two Way Radios website: https://www.buytwowayradios.com/wouxun-kg-1000g-plus.html click on the downloads tab at the bottom of the description and then the KG-1000G-Plus-Programming-Software file. Within the downloaded file you will have two files, one has (64) at the end of it, the other one does not. The one with (64) at the end of it is for 64bit Windows, the other is 32bit. You only need one and most likely the 64bit version. The Wouxun software is not digitally signed from the manufacturer. This will more than likely trigger a "Windows protected your PC" if running Windows Defender antivirus with a "Unknown publisher" message and a option buttons to "Run anyway" or "Don't run" and click on "Run anyway". That should start the install process with another warning message that the software is not signed. If you are running under a restricted/limited account on Windows or using a 3rd party antivirus, chances are you won't be able to install the software because it's not signed. Try disabling your antivirus during install and right click on the install file and "run as administrator" to get it installed Good luck with the install - also remember the programming port is on the SIDE of the radio, not the front (same connectors). You would be surprised how many people I've talked to having trouble programming this radio that use the wrong port.

Sorry, thought you were talking about the N9TAX slim-jim that has a 6ft long or so pigtail. Here's a SWR plot of my KB9VBR GMRS J-Pole. Around 1.8 SWR on the low end of GMRS and around 1.3 SWR on the high end. I stopped using it awhile back, just didn't work as well as other antenna's I have.

Have you tried checking the SWR on the slim-jim without the additional coax? Just to rule out possible bad coax to the antenna. Here's a SWR sweep of my N9TAX GMRS slim-jim, around 1.3 SWR on both sides of GMRS

Go to MyGMRS.com and click on "REPEATERS" on the top of the page Click on "Advanced Search" Select the state you want in the middle field Select 50 on the "Rows per page:" option on the bottom of the page if you want more than 10 listed at a time

I'd suggest programming all 8 repeater channels for a tone of 141.3, the national travel tone and setup scan for all 8 channels. A good majority of public repeaters use this tone and is usually a good way to tell if a repeater is public or not. If you hear something that's not on 141.3 then scan for the tone if you want.

That doesn't surprise me at all. The RRDB listings for talkgroups are user gathered and updated are are known to be incorrect or way outdated. There are a couple of guys in my area that run banks of SDS200 scanners logging gigabytes of data a week and keep RRDB somewhat up to date for my area.