Another Newbie Question

[WRKP292]

Hello all, I apologize in advance for my ignorance. I have been a member of MyGMRS for a short time and I have been doing as much research as I can to diagnose my problem. I know a lot of people are going to roll their eyes at this one, so again, please excuse my ignorance.

I purchased 2 Baofeng GMRS radios (yes I know, gross), and my brother and I were trying them out during a short caravan trip. With him being about 1 car's length behind me, we could not reliably communicate, simply due to noisy transmission. 

Note: I have not messed around with the DCS nor the CTCS settings, so in theory they should be able to communicate with one another at <30 yards reliably.

Any and all advice is much appreciated. 

[OffRoaderX]

Something is very wrong.  Those radios, right out of the box should be loud and clear at up to at least 1/2 mile or more, assuming no mountains/hills between the cars.

I would try more testing outside to rule out a problem with the radios or something in one/both of the cars causing the problem.

[WRQC527]

1 hour ago, WRKP292 said:

Hello all, I apologize in advance for my ignorance. I have been a member of MyGMRS for a short time and I have been doing as much research as I can to diagnose my problem. I know a lot of people are going to roll their eyes at this one, so again, please excuse my ignorance.

I purchased 2 Baofeng GMRS radios (yes I know, gross), and my brother and I were trying them out during a short caravan trip. With him being about 1 car's length behind me, we could not reliably communicate, simply due to noisy transmission. 

Note: I have not messed around with the DCS nor the CTCS settings, so in theory they should be able to communicate with one another at <30 yards reliably.

Any and all advice is much appreciated. 

First of all, there's nothing gross about Baofengs. There's probably more Baofengs in use than any other handheld radio ever made. Second, transmitting from inside one car to the inside of another car is an exercise in frustration. Radio waves have a hard time penetrating in or out. Get yourself a couple of magnet mount antennas and stick them on the roofs of the cars and I betcha you do a lot better. 

[amaff]

Were they set on high power? What antenna were you using? But regardless, that doesn't sound right.

When you say "noisy transmission" do you mean you were hearing your brother but cutting in and out? Or do you mean "there was a whole bunch of other people trying to talk on the channel we were using"? Tones will fix the latter, but won't fix the former.

A handheld in the car isn't ideal (you're inside a Faraday cage with a few holes cut in it), having antennas on the exterior helps, but for just road trip use (car to car, <1 mile range), a 5W handheld should do just fine.

What specific radios are they?

[WRKP292]

1 hour ago, amaff said:

Were they set on high power? What antenna were you using? But regardless, that doesn't sound right.

When you say "noisy transmission" do you mean you were hearing your brother but cutting in and out? Or do you mean "there was a whole bunch of other people trying to talk on the channel we were using"? Tones will fix the latter, but won't fix the former.

A handheld in the car isn't ideal (you're inside a Faraday cage with a few holes cut in it), having antennas on the exterior helps, but for just road trip use (car to car, <1 mile range), a 5W handheld should do just fine.

What specific radios are they?

I apologize for not specifying in my original post. I'm using the GMRS version of the UV-5R. I haven't adjusted any power settings, but we tested four 5W channels and one 50W channel. Using the stock antennas that came with the radios.

The noise was when we would transmit to each other. It was extremely difficult to understand what each other were saying. 

I figured the stock hardware out of the box would work at least up to a mile on the freeway given there aren't 5 18-wheelers between us or something. 

Please excuse the silly question, but when you ask if they were set on high power, would that be a setting or just a specific channel (5W, 0.5W or 50W)?

[WRXR255]

1 hour ago, WRQC527 said:

First of all, there's nothing gross about Baofengs. There's probably more Baofengs in use than any other handheld radio ever made. Second, transmitting from inside one car to the inside of another car is an exercise in frustration. Radio waves have a hard time penetrating in or out. Get yourself a couple of magnet mount antennas and stick them on the roofs of the cars and I betcha you do a lot better. 

Before we send them off to spend more money perhaps, as @OffRoaderX said, perhaps just trying to see if one or both radios has an issue first, K I S S, is the route to start at.  be aware if your testing too close, there is a possibility of an over-saturation that makes you think one or both are bad.  Get at least a good 50 foot away with a clear line of sight and go from there.

[amaff]

2 hours ago, WRKP292 said:

Please excuse the silly question, but when you ask if they were set on high power, would that be a setting or just a specific channel (5W, 0.5W or 50W)?

No worries. I know I wasn't born knowing how any of this worked.

So, GMRS radios will have certain rules for certain channel sets. But even then, on a "high" power channel (for a hand held, let's say, 6) it can be set to lower than the allowed limit. Some channels will obviously force the low power setting.

[WRKP292]

3 hours ago, OffRoaderX said:

Something is very wrong.  Those radios, right out of the box should be loud and clear at up to at least 1/2 mile or more, assuming no mountains/hills between the cars.

I would try more testing outside to rule out a problem with the radios or something in one/both of the cars causing the problem.

Neither of the two vehicles have any kind of accessories (radar detector, cell booster, etc.). I figured I could have issues with a radar detector interfering as I noticed when I transmit it sets off K-Band, however I did not have a radar detector during this trip.

I'll try testing them at 50 yards or so and then go from there. 

[WRKP292]

3 hours ago, WRQC527 said:

First of all, there's nothing gross about Baofengs. There's probably more Baofengs in use than any other handheld radio ever made. Second, transmitting from inside one car to the inside of another car is an exercise in frustration. Radio waves have a hard time penetrating in or out. Get yourself a couple of magnet mount antennas and stick them on the roofs of the cars and I betcha you do a lot better. 

Thanks for the recommendation and for the encouraging words when it comes to Baofengs. Wanted to dip my toes without breaking the bank. Now that I see the handhelds with stock antennas are struggling I'll most likely be getting a couple magnet mount antennas (and maybe even upgrading to a car unit in the future). 

[WRKP292]

2 hours ago, WRXR255 said:

Before we send them off to spend more money perhaps, as @OffRoaderX said, perhaps just trying to see if one or both radios has an issue first, K I S S, is the route to start at.  be aware if your testing too close, there is a possibility of an over-saturation that makes you think one or both are bad.  Get at least a good 50 foot away with a clear line of sight and go from there.

Can you please expand on K I S S? Sorry, I tried a quick search and I saw the mention of the KISS method, but no explanation of what it entails. TYIA

[WRKP292]

1 hour ago, amaff said:

No worries. I know I wasn't born knowing how any of this worked.

So, GMRS radios will have certain rules for certain channel sets. But even then, on a "high" power channel (for a hand held, let's say, 6) it can be set to lower than the allowed limit. Some channels will obviously force the low power setting.

Is there any benefit to adjusting the allowed limit down? I would have assumed the higher power the better, but again I'm still green when it comes to radio comms

[amaff]

2 minutes ago, WRKP292 said:

Is there any benefit to adjusting the allowed limit down? I would have assumed the higher power the better, but again I'm still green when it comes to radio comms

Saves battery. For fairly close ranges like you describe, you shouldn't *need* 5W. But if the radios aren't working right...

4 minutes ago, WRKP292 said:

Can you please expand on K I S S? Sorry, I tried a quick search and I saw the mention of the KISS method, but no explanation of what it entails. TYIA

"Keep It Simple, Stupid."
Eliminate variables if you can until you get down to what's not working right.

[WRUU653]

I would support @OffRoaderX's statement of testing the radios outside. Make sure the radios work and it's not some interference from one or both vehicles taking place.  Also try different channels (frequencies) and see if that makes a difference. As an example my fathers Subaru Forester hates 444.100 (local ham repeater) for some reason, but just that frequency. One of these days I may see if I can figure out what causes it, maybe.