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Hi, I've got some UV-5G Plus radios to program. I already know how to use CHIRP and have successfully programmed a bunch of good old UV-5R radios. My issue is that my family is near the Canadian border zone. We're not allowed to transmit on 462.6500, 467.6500, 462.7000 and 467.7000. (I understand that as a practical matter with a 5W walkie talkie the feds aren't going to chase me down, but I have folks in my family concerned about the law.) For my UV-5R radios, it's trivial to disable transmitting on a programmed channel. But for the UV-5G Plus, I can't seem to do it in CHIRP, or the program downloaded from Baofeng. The pre-set channels that come on the radio for those frequencies do not allow me to remove the transmit frequency in CHIRP. Now for the NOAA weather channels I added, disabling transmission was easy. It works just like it does for the UV-5R. Anyone have any tips? Thanks!

This is a bit of a off beat topic. In the past week or so a new GMRS repeater went operational. https://mygmrs.com/repeater/6815 As you can see it has wide coverage zone, including the Windsor Canada area. The issue here are the Canadians also have a GMRS service, BUT it's unlicensed and they have NO access to repeaters. If you read the rules it's more like our FRS service. With the coverage zone of the US repeater reaching most of the city of Windsor Canada sooner or later I expect some stations from the Canadian side will try to access the repeater. They would have to use non Industry Canada approved radios to do this. My questions are several. First, if this does occur will the Canadian government go after the stations in Canada, or just ignore it since it's not really their problem? After all the repeater is in the US. Second, do we as legal GMRS operators in the US allow it and even engage in communications with Canadians? To facilitate their use what do we do if anything when a Canadian station tries to spoof a US call sign in an attempt to make it appear the communications are on the US side? Third, as legal GMRS operators in the US when in Canada do we bet against the house and try to use the repeater too? There is no cross licensing agreement for GMRS with Canada, there is one for Ham Radio, since their service is unlicensed. I'm pretty sure what the legal answers are, but from a piratical point of view what do you think?

Howdy, all! So glad the kids have taken to carrying their radios with them when they bike around town and are off with friends; getting the GMRS license is a no-brainer for active families. I'm looking to add a mobile unit to my car -- I'm looking at the Midland MXT400 -- and since we live in a rural area near Lake Erie and the Canadian Border, I'm confused as to what's permitted from a power standpoint North of Line A. Are mobile units limited to 5, 15, or 50 Watts? Is the MXT400 legal for use if the Power output can be reduced? Can it be reduced? Aside from well-known frequency restrictions, what are the power requirements north of Line A? Thanks in advance!