Need Tech help in choosing a radio. Newbie!

[Guest David]

Hello

I'm new to the GMRS community and new to owning a GMRS.  I actually haven't purchased equipment yet because I'm over whelmed with the choices.  This is what I want.  Handheld radios for my family to use. They will be used locally in town to communicate with when other sources are not working or available (national emergency or weather related emergency). I want something easy to use and has power to get out further than typical box store walkie talkies.  I am looking at the Baofeng manufacturer.  Thank you in advance for any help or suggestions you can provide.

 

David H.

dharri2@cox.net

[Lscott]

If you want a radio you can depend on in an emergency I would not recommend any of the cheap Chinese radios. The really cheap ones have no real resistance to drops, rain, dust etc. I dropped a cheap BTECH tri-band radio on a cement floor. The speaker died. Yeah it’s ok for a glove box radio or cheap scanner on the desk but it won’t hold up to hard use.

 

I have a collection of Kenwood, commercial grade, hand held radios I purchased used. Some had busted cases from being dropped, dirt packed into the speaker grill from being used extensively outdoors etc. when I got them. The radios still worked after cleaning them up and replacing the busted case parts. They were designed and tested for that kind of usage. You get what you pay for.

[mbrun]

Hello David and Welcome to GMRS.

 

I own, use, and would buy again, the Wouxun KG-805G. It is a good starter radio. I use it with an after-market antenna and the higher capacity battery back and other accessories. I use it with an external antenna in the car. It will cost you more than twice the price of the more costly bubble pack radios (e.g. Midland GXT1000) while remaining affordable enough to allow for one for each family member (IMO) if needed.

 

The radio is repeater capable, audio quality is good, has more than sufficient memories, and is software programmable. It has all the features you will need to have a good initial GMRS experience.

 

Do not get your hopes set to high on distance. Compared side-by-side against the best bubble rack radios you are likely to only see a 10-25% range increase when operating simplex and that is because of the added power and upgrade antenna. But, because it is repeater capable, if you have any local high-profile repeaters in your area that are within your intended area of use you can the expect much greater effective usable range.

 

I expect I will upgrade one or two of my radios in the future, but only when I find one with notably better radio performance and a few additional features that I would like. Until them, I am content with this radio.

 

 

Michael

WRHS965

KE8PLM

[MacJack]

Welcome to the group...

 

I have the same handheld as Michael and as my first step into GMRS, I too got information overload.  One thing I wanted is flexible use in car/Jeep/hiking/RV and home.  Also wanted radio certified by FCC to be legal.  I have kids and GMRS fits my needs to teach them.

 

Check out other posts made for whatever radio you are looking at.  You see radio is a personal thing and a lot of "IMHO".  

https://forums.mygmrs.com/topic/2373-type-accepted-transceiver/

 

Jack

[BoxCar]

The key question is your budget and the number of units (radios) needed. CCRs or Cheap Chinese Radios vary greatly from model to model. The Woxuns have a better user rating than a great many of the Baofengs but again, they do have some good units as well. Flea Bay is a good source for used high grade radios from manufacturers like Motorola, ICOM. Vertex-Standard, Kenwood and others. Many of these are not certified under Part 95 of the FCC regulations but are certified under Part 90 which has tighter specifications. That doesn't make it all right to use them on GMRS but many do. Amateur or Ham radios are also not certified for GMRS, but again, many do use them.

 

The best of the bunch will be a commercial or public safety grade unit, but those are typically limited in the number of channels available and require some expertise in setting up the channels for use. Many are best programmed by a radio shop for a fee but you also need to know before hand exactly what you need for each channel. BTech offers a good GMRS handheld that can be programmed from the front panel or through a PC/MAC using a free program. The Midland units are fair but both they and the BTech along with the Woxuns work better with upgrade antennas. The best advice is to do your homework first, build a needs list and the search for radios that come closest to meeting all your needs along with the nice-to-have features.

[MacJack]

Nice reply... I agree.  Now on a funny note... you said CCRs or Cheap Chinese Radios and here all the this time I was thinking it was Communist Chinese Republic because my adopted Chinese twin daughters are so happy being an American.  I have to loosen up and not get to correct so to see the humor in it.  

Thanks,

Jack

 

The key question is your budget and the number of units (radios) needed. CCRs or Cheap Chinese Radios vary greatly from model to model. The Woxuns have a better user rating than a great many of the Baofengs but again, they do have some good units as well. Flea Bay is a good source for used high grade radios from manufacturers like Motorola, ICOM. Vertex-Standard, Kenwood and others. Many of these are not certified under Part 95 of the FCC regulations but are certified under Part 90 which has tighter specifications. That doesn't make it all right to use them on GMRS but many do. Amateur or Ham radios are also not certified for GMRS, but again, many do use them.

 

The best of the bunch will be a commercial or public safety grade unit, but those are typically limited in the number of channels available and require some expertise in setting up the channels for use. Many are best programmed by a radio shop for a fee but you also need to know before hand exactly what you need for each channel. BTech offers a good GMRS handheld that can be programmed from the front panel or through a PC/MAC using a free program. The Midland units are fair but both they and the BTech along with the Woxuns work better with upgrade antennas. The best advice is to do your homework first, build a needs list and the search for radios that come closest to meeting all your needs along with the nice-to-have features.

[gman1971]

I'll bite.

 

So, if you are going to use repeaters to chat with other GMRS licensed operators, then any UHF radio will work. If you want something just to get started then go with a Baofeng BF-888s. It doesn't get any cheaper than 9 dollars, which is, if IIRC, what I paid for one of those last time. Don't expect to break any simplex long range contexts with it... but it will communicate with GMRS repeaters just fine.

 

After playing around with GMRS for a while, then evaluate what you really want, and what the typical usage scenario would be. Is simplex range what you want? or you prefer chatting with other GMRS owners in repeaters? Maybe what you want is Ham radio, and not GMRS, which is a very different license than GMRS. In GMRS there are just 22 channels, so things like VFO, etc... are not needed, you only need to scan 22 channels. Most hams, used to VFO on their radios like to have one, which was probably the thing to have 20 years ago, when everything was FM..., nowadays, however, most, if not all radio communications in UHF are digital modulation (P25, DMR, NDXN, D-Star), which most of these FM radios won't do... so having the ability to scan the entire UHF band won't be of much use when all you'll hear is bleep bleep, thunk thunk thunk thunk (DMR) or a hissing noise like a good old modem (P25, D-star) etc.. So, again, for ham operation a VFO comes in handy since most of the ham stuff is all FM analog. but the rest of the world is moving away from analogue communications.

 

Keep in mind, though, that if its long simplex GMRS range what you seek, you'll need to pay to play.

 

G.

[Guest David Harrison]

Thank you very much all parties above! Very useful and encouraging information.  I'll replay back and update on what I've decided.  Again, thanks for all your help. 

 

David H.

[Extreme]

My owned list:

 

Wouxun 805G (2)

Kenwood TK-3170

Retivis 76P (2)

 

IMO of course:

 

I prefer the Wouxun because I can adjust from the front panel.  Software is ok but Kenwood is superior.

 

Kenwood is great but needs to be laptop/software programmed unless modified for FPP and I'm not sure that's possible on their HT.  Not field adjustable for CTCSS, etc.  Software is excellent.

 

Retivis 76 is ok but I seem to prefer single-band GMRS for simplicity's sake.  I just got these so only one day wheelin' with them.

 

Just finished programming Baofang 5Rs for a friend and hated Chirp.  Mostly because of my ineptitude maybe but other software was more straight-forward for me.

5R is not FCC cert. and is discontinued, but I think they have new models that are compliant.

[Lscott]

Kenwood is great but needs to be laptop/software programmed unless modified for FPP and I'm not sure that's possible on their HT.  Not field adjustable for CTCSS, etc.  Software is excellent.

 

You should be able to set the tones in the 3170. In the software look for "Operator Selectable Tones". That should pop up a window that lets you enter up to 16 tones, yes it allows split tones too for each entry. Yeah, its a bit limiting but better than nothing. Pick the ones that are fairly common. Normally I never enter a decode tone in my radios so I don't care if the repeater uses the same one as the RX, a different one or none at all on the TX output.

 

Next program one of the side keys or front side function keys for "Operator Selectable Tones". When you press that key you should be able to scroll through the list of tones you entered in to the table.

 

The radios can be modified for FPP, remove a surface mount part and check the box in the software, but you need the full numeric keypad for that. Those radios are not easy to find. When you do they are pricey even used. The most common ones have just the front panel function keys.

 

When I looked at all of the crazy button press combinations, twisting the selector knob on top, for FPP I quickly concluded it was easier to leave he radio as is and just use the software.

[Lscott]

It figures. I looked at the wrong radio programming software so what I said in the prior post was wrong. What I wrote in the prior post was for a different radio. I must have around 8 to 10 different model Kenwood radios and the software looks similar, easy to make a mistake.

 

For the TK-3170 the software I used is KPG-101D Version 2.40.

 

In the top menu bar navigate from "Edit" -> "Optional Features" ->"Conventional". You'll see a table that will hold up to 40 tones on the last page. If you click the "Standard QT" button on the lower right the table will be auto filled with the standard tones, both encode and decode. If you don't want the decode tones then you have to click each one and select "none". I don't use the decode tones so I don't care what the repeater outputs or passes through or not. Carrier squelch works just fine for RX on repeaters.

 

Next program one of the side keys or front side function keys for "OST", operator selectable tone. When you press that key you should be able to scroll through the list of tones you entered in to the table. On my radios I assigned it to the "AUX" key on the side of the radio.

 

I hope this clears up the confusion due to my mistake.

[NCRick]

I am also new, attracted to this thread mostly because I too don't know the answer.  On the hand held options, I have the 5r CCR, a 805g CCR and used the older top end Midland blister pack CC radios I bought for my son in law.  By far, I like the Wouxun.  Next I like the midlands which while limited by settings and antenna choices but for use in the 4wd convoy scenario for spotters and such, simple, cheap, rugged along decent performance gets it done.  Both a high power (2 W) and low power (0.5 W) PTT buttons are a nice feature. The Ni-mH Midland batteries are junk so AA cells are what we used.  I want some kind of commercial quality HT.  Not because I need one and maybe just because of what I read here.  I'm not a fan of futzing around with various computer software packages but I likely can do that.  I used the Wouxun software which is simple as could be but it is my only experience.  I love the idea of a dual band GMRS -MURS radio but I'm not smart enough to know if that is truly possible under the rules.  If I play nice and keep everything else inside the rules it might be just be fine but as an inexperienced user that sounds like a dance I might screw up.  I'm susceptible to scrutiny from all our "officials". Always have been , teachers, principals, police etc.  I am a worry wort.  So clearly above board is where I'm attracted.  I want the GMRS radios as a tool that I can use with out worrying.

 

as a note: where we live I can count on a 1/4 mile range.  Terrain is the single biggest range factor in simplex (radio to radio) operations. Mobile to mobile in a flatter terrain, local suburban situation, 2 miles maybe.  Repeaters? Fantastic!

[Lscott]

This just came out on YouTube, a review of GMRS hand held radios.

 

https://youtu.be/TYUZJUhVCuk

[jas]

Hello

I'm new to the GMRS community and new to owning a GMRS.  I actually haven't purchased equipment yet because I'm over whelmed with the choices.  This is what I want.  Handheld radios for my family to use. They will be used locally in town to communicate with when other sources are not working or available (national emergency or weather related emergency). I want something easy to use and has power to get out further than typical box store walkie talkies.  I am looking at the Baofeng manufacturer.  Thank you in advance for any help or suggestions you can provide.

 

David H.

dharri2@cox.netaa

If you don't want to use the cheaper handheld radios from companies like Midland (which I do) I would recommend the Wouxun KG-805G. It's just becoming available and is FCC approved. Personally, I've done A LOT of careful tests on GMRS, and putting the ruggedness and durability aside, Handheld radios are all pretty limited - the differences in performance are small. The difference between say 3 watts, as in the Midland radios, and 5 watts on the Baofeng, is negligible in all but the worst environments. If you're on the move, and not walking, you should have both mobiles and hand held radios. Mobiles get out further, and more importantly, can listen from a lot further away. Listening is always good in emergencies.