UncleYoda

OK, thanks. But transmitting an inaudible tone is still using the transmit frequency the radio is set to. I wonder if that would be considered a form of encryption. And what about the ID requirement? I don't think an inaudible ID would suffice. It seems to me to be an inappropriate use of the normal voice bands, but maybe it would be OK on a designated frequency like they do with 144.390 in HAM. I don't think there is anywhere in the limited GMRS frequencies where that would be appropriate. Even audible scrambling would be better and that is mostly not allowed either.

Huh? 20.1 KHz on a Baofeng - what model RX's that? (I have no idea what a Talkpod is, and probably don't care.) In any case, frequency of a radio transmission does not equate to sound wave frequency (as I said in my comment above). An RF signal has to be converted to sound by a radio for us to hear it; otherwise, we'd hear constant noise or static coming through the air, like a radio with open squelch. I'm not sure that I, or you for that matter, know what you are trying to do. Are you producing a tone on the Talkpod and having a Baofeng "hear it" with the PTT pressed down? If nothing else, that would at least result in an open carrier even if the tone isn't audible.

Maybe I'm not thinking clearly (not enough coffee yet perhaps), but aren't y'all mixing up 2 different things? We don't hear radio waves. We hear the sound waves that the receiver converts the radio waves into. When we say we hear digital noise we are hearing the sound the radio puts out not the radio waves themselves. So all that matters for what we hear is can the radio receive it and convert it to audio. For example, AM broadcasts don't cause any recognizable signal on my 2m radios. (Out of band signals like that may contribute to the background static/white noise but not in a distinguishable way.)

As far as I know there were no GMRS UV-5Rs on the market when I got my UV-5Gs, which were sold in pairs. Anybody know what the differences are between those types?

I remember someone suggesting to call it an over beep. Or we could call it an Elmer beep just to annoy them more. But that begs another question: why is Roger the term for understood? And why is it Elmer (who was he)? Elder would make a little more sense. But then HAM is not a good term either, unless it's short for High frequency AM. (I've heard the ham-fisted story.)

It's different programming from the radio. There is no offset or TX frequency setting available (menu options related to repeaters are disabled/missing). So from the radio I could only do simplex for ch 39. And from the software it's only with the repeater offset when entered from scratch. I actually like having that one simplex channel with tones for my base station. When I was dealing with Radioddity support, that was my suggestion, that they add more channels or preferably limit by frequency and not by channel number. Most of these vendors seem to think they have to limit us to a few channels to get GMRS certification. But there's nothing in the regs that say we can't have a bunch of channels using the same frequency. I may not be able to transmit to many from home but having them programmed in is good for travel.

Yes, I saw that. But I have v2.02. It may just be a quirk with mine that was preventing entry. I had previously programmed that channel manually with a simplex channel with tones. So now I just deleted that channel entry and added a new one. This time it gives me the repeater offset for transmit and TX off is check-able again. But now I can't enter simplex there in the software like I did from the radio. A bit quirky but not a big deal.

Yea, we already solved this over in the Anytone thread even though mine is the DB20-G.

@Sshannon The driver worked. It was a long trip to get here but I have arrived. Thanks for helping, because I gave up more than once before trying again.

Yea, I found the manufacturers site yesterday from the info in the image you posted of the driver properties. But I didn't want to download from a Chinese site (they're known to be high risk for viruses). Anyway, this morning I decided to go for it. Driver installed OK. I'll try it later when I find my cable. @WRUE962 I downloaded the zip file instead of the exe but either would probably work. There's a setup.exe you need to run after extracting the zip.

What radioddity model worked?

@JohnnyQ1964 It's not clear to me what you're saying. 2 meter and 70cm HAM are good for local area but need to go through repeater to get more distance. You don't have to do shortwave (HF) just because you get a HAM license. Mostly, the difference is HAM is only for talking to other HAMs. GMRS does have a license too but no test and it can be used to talk to unlicensed FRS users as well. You could do what a lot of us do and use/have all of them including CB.

Windows 10 is not all the same. Mine is from September 2017, the Home version. All/most updates have been blocked. No thanks on the loan of your cable. I would only want to use the software if I have the ability to update channels when needed. All this could be avoided if there was a way to identify both the chip and the available installed drivers BEFORE you buy something. There is no logic to the process as it exists.

yes - never found compatible cable, and no idea where to find that driver you mention (but I would not want to install a driver that messes up the prolific driver I use with the others)

I'm on Windows 10, an older version, and the Radioddity DB20-G cable is not recognized. I've never seen that driver you show. (And the cables I use with the UV-5R models do work, so pretty sure the chip is not the same.) I suspect that Anytone is distributing these counterfeit chip cables because this problem has been reported for both models.

Duplex off means transmit is still allowed on the receiving frequency, which could still get him in trouble. EDIT: I am not sure; "off" may be different than blank, if you trust that but I can't test right now. EDIT2: I checked one radio with "off" and the TX indicator lights do come on, but that's as far as I would go. AFAIK, Chirp's special settings included, the "major PITA" way is the only way because regular UV5Rs do not support separate frequency ranges for TX and RX. There are UV-5R-ish models like the GT-5R that only transmit on HAM while allowing you to put in non-HAM frequencies for receive only. p.s. I looked and I don't see a setting for VFO TX. There is one for VHF and one for UHF, but it isn't clear if that just applies to VFO or channels as well.

The "don't listen to them" idea ignores that they are tying up one of the frequencies that is also used for high power simplex. Also, I cannot block by tone on any of my GMRS radios. Even my dual band HTs don't have that.

There's a nationwide linked repeater near me. And I hear the same thing. I see no real benefit to wide area linking. Local area or statewide linking is the most I'd want. But really standalone is probably the best so we can choose which repeaters we talk on.

This image may give an idea of how to enter the tones. The ones with TSQL set have both transmit and receive tones. DTCS includes TX and RX with the same tone. You would only have a value in RX DTCS if the tones are different (that would be Cross mode).

It wasn't high enough, not even close, to cover a large area. And yes I saw it, and 2 fighter jets that approached it.

I tested an ammo box using radios (2m HT with rubber duck antenna) and it still RXed. I figured it was because of the rubber gasket. Old gutted microwave worked though.

I just went through a troubleshooting comparison of the cable I received with the DB20-G (with knock-off chip) and someone who has the Wouxun cable. The pins are not wired the same, so IMO it's not safe to try as well as not likely to work. I have been unable to find a good alternative cable.

I don't think you understand; do you even have this radio? Channels 31-38 cannot be selected for adding from the radio. 39 can but it is only for simplex because the repeater functions are disabled. 40 and above are receive only. Anyway, I got the software to run! But now the cable isn't recognized. The manual's instructions for installing the driver are nonsense. And as far as I can tell, the driver is not included with the software. So now I have to go search for the driver. Just a big mess. (If I find the driver, I hope installing it doesn't mess up my other programming cables that are working for other radios.)

You're still stating both of those wrong. Putting up a tower is subject to the height restrictions. And the ERP applies to the 462 MHz interstitial frequencies at 5.0 W too.

Base station, which is well understood by HAMs, is setup at a fixed location (typically antenna on pole, tower or tree). Fixed station is some mysterious type (not used in HAM) named but not properly defined in the GMRS regs (definition given is not valid) that no one can explain including FCC.