Absolute noob question(s) about GMRS

Anybody willing to do a "straw purchase" of radios? ;)
Sorry but it won't help. I'm looking right now under my business Azn account and it is now showing at $105 from BTech (Azn shipping)!! So someone is gouging here.


Go to the importer website Baofeng and it is still $55!
 
Sorry but it won't help. I'm looking right now under my business Azn account and it is now showing at $105 from BTech (Azn shipping)!! So someone is gouging here.


Go to the importer website Baofeng and it is still $55!
Done. And done. Let's see how long they take to get here.

Oh, thanks for letting me know this.
 
:(

Just received this from BaoFeng:

Due to the COVID-19 virus your order has been delayed.

We expect to be able to ship your order in 4 weeks.

Orders will also ship in the order that they were received.

Please let us know if you would like to wait for the order or if you wish for this order to be cancelled.

We apologize for any inconvenience.
 
Picked up a couple of BaoFeng radios a few weeks ago. Starting to figure out how to use chirp. Really not a computer guy. I also picked up a book to study for my tech. With no knowledge of wavelengths,frequencies or bands before it Seems like this is going to be a little overwhelming.
 
Picked up a couple of BaoFeng radios a few weeks ago. Starting to figure out how to use chirp. Really not a computer guy. I also picked up a book to study for my tech. With no knowledge of wavelengths,frequencies or bands before it Seems like this is going to be a little overwhelming.
Use the option to DL from the Repeaterbook for a radius from your location. Really simple at that level.

Do ya think that China will disinfect them before they ship?
Honestly I doubt it.
 
Look what Amazon Prime delivered this afternoon. Was poking around looking for some other stuff when this popped up. Price was back down to $74 so I jumped on one. Still not sure when the two I ordered from BaoFengTech will show up.

Guess that there is a bright side to being under house arrest. More time to buy things online.

IMG_0880.JPG
 
Look what Amazon Prime delivered this afternoon. Was poking around looking for some other stuff when this popped up. Price was back down to $74 so I jumped on one. Still not sure when the two I ordered from BaoFengTech will show up.

Guess that there is a bright side to being under house arrest. More time to buy things online.

View attachment 344551
Seems like there's all kinds of prices out there. I lent two out to my grand kids haven't seen them since.
 
For starters you may want to review this thread. Most of it should still be good but updates from other NESers are always welcome.

Instead of reviving that 2011 thread, I'll just bump this month-old thread based on what I researched today.

My last time of doing personal two-way, we still had to buy individual crystals for every channel. That would have been sometime between "Convoy" and "Smokey and the Bandit". I've done a lot professionally since then, but not in bands available to the general public.

Midland's "micro-mobile" line seems to be the hot stuff for GMRS. The FRS channels are limited to FRS wattage, but they have radios with 45W output in the GMRS channels (limit 50W). Being type certified, they won't let you broadcast in the wrong band exceeding power limits.

Antenna tuning and ground plane don't seem to be a thing. Plug and play. Three inch stubby or 26 inch whip, no gain or +6 gain... it's all available.

There doesn't seem to be any such thing as the old CB "call channel" (11) or "emergency channel" (9), or "trucker channel (19). You can't hunt for other users, just inform your group ahead of time what channel you'll be using.

GMRS licensees cannot contact any "foreign station". GMRS is allowed in Canada. For those of us near the border, that might be a problem.

The "privacy" settings like CTCSS are not private. They block out other broadcasts, but anyone else can still hear you while you can't hear them.

For an organized group (offroad crawls, etc.), it looks very useful. But for general communication with randoms? Naw, not at all.
 
Instead of reviving that 2011 thread, I'll just bump this month-old thread based on what I researched today.

My last time of doing personal two-way, we still had to buy individual crystals for every channel. That would have been sometime between "Convoy" and "Smokey and the Bandit". I've done a lot professionally since then, but not in bands available to the general public.

Midland's "micro-mobile" line seems to be the hot stuff for GMRS. The FRS channels are limited to FRS wattage, but they have radios with 45W output in the GMRS channels (limit 50W). Being type certified, they won't let you broadcast in the wrong band exceeding power limits.

Antenna tuning and ground plane don't seem to be a thing. Plug and play. Three inch stubby or 26 inch whip, no gain or +6 gain... it's all available.

There doesn't seem to be any such thing as the old CB "call channel" (11) or "emergency channel" (9), or "trucker channel (19). You can't hunt for other users, just inform your group ahead of time what channel you'll be using.

GMRS licensees cannot contact any "foreign station". GMRS is allowed in Canada. For those of us near the border, that might be a problem.

The "privacy" settings like CTCSS are not private. They block out other broadcasts, but anyone else can still hear you while you can't hear them.

For an organized group (offroad crawls, etc.), it looks very useful. But for general communication with randoms? Naw, not at all.


For an organized group (offroad crawls, etc.), it looks very useful. But for general communication with randoms? Naw, not at all.

Thank you. That's the question I had...
 
I got a GMRS license years ago, before I got my Ham license, and le that GMRS license expire. I have a pair of those Midland GXT1000 radios but never used them other than to be sure they worked. The nearest listed GMRS repeater to me in Bedford, NH is about 25mi North. I can’t get MyGMRS to take my login and changing PWS doesn’t seem to “take” - dang! Writing the Contact an email.

Does a Ham license get you GMRS too? As a General, I should oughta know but don’t.

Anyway, our Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) in Nashua uses those little Midland GXT300 radios (now GXT500) for comms on events. We have 48 of them and they all always show the LowBatt symbol after charging 24hr+. New rechargeable batteries or AAAs, no difference. Red light on charger base is always on when radio are in charger. Never goes out or turns green like the GXT1000s. Anybody seen otherwise?
 
It doesn't
Yeah - turns out Google knew that too. Lazy me for not looking!

I think my MyGMRS account was inactivacted when my license elapsed last year, so I upped for another 10 years. What the heck - once you stop wasting money on radio stuff you don’t need, you don’t know when it will stop. Pretty soon you end up saying you’ve got enough guns. Bad place to go...
 
GMRS legally requires a license and last I looked that license was rather expensive. MURS on the other hand is free to use with no license and probably exceeds GMRS range. An excellent MURS radio is the BTECH MURS-V1 ($55 each) Amazon product ASIN B075VBP9YGView: https://smile.amazon.com/BTECH-MURS-V1-Manufacturing-Personal-Business/dp/B075VBP9YG/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=BTech+Murs&qid=1584108555&sr=8-3


I bought a pair 2 years ago so that my Wife (non Ham) and I could stay in touch at NearFest and Boxboro's ham convention. They worked great and the batteries lasted all day without recharging.
I just got mine in the mail today.15868014473783921619027478467506.jpg
 
I jumped in the truck and had my daughter use one of the radios, went about 1/2mile and she was coming in good even with the crap weather.

I would be interested in how they work in and around buildings, especially high school sized buildings.
 
Shortly after I received the radios above I learned that BaoFeng also made a AAA battery holder for disposable batteries. Thinking it would be a neat thing to have as a backup and in the interest of learning more I ordered one. It arrived in two days (yesterday) and I got busy trying it.

It's not a total piece of crap but it is not very well made or easy to use. First off, no instructions on how to use it other than a warning about the batteries (to be covered later) so I had to gingerly figure out how to open it. The whole unit is the same size as the rechargeable pack. I finally got the back plate off and it is set up like most other disposable battery holders with three rows to hold two batteries each.

Now comes the fun part where you need three hands. The batteries fit into the rows but as soon as you stop holding them they pop out (see the picture). They will not stay in place, you have to put some in then hold them down as you place the others in their rows. And then carefully place the backplate over the batteries to hold them in place in the radio. It took me maybe 10 minutes to master this skill. It then took me about 5 minutes to coax the package into the back of the radio.

Also, it comes with a dummy battery which you need to use with 5 alkaline batteries. This is where the attached note comes in. I'll let you read it for yourselves and try to figure out why. It does work, I was able to test them, the unit sends and receives like this.

Overall it does provide a useful backup if your rechargeable battery dies. But it's not up to the manufacturing standards of most other battery packs I have used.

IMG_0887.JPGIMG_0888.JPG
 
Picked up a couple of BaoFeng radios a few weeks ago. Starting to figure out how to use chirp. Really not a computer guy. I also picked up a book to study for my tech. With no knowledge of wavelengths,frequencies or bands before it Seems like this is going to be a little overwhelming.


Really, it may seem overwhelming but a methodology for passing may be to just keep taking the test fo tech over and over until you get say 90% over and over again. Then do the same with General and take them both at the same time. You may now have the time to knock this out fairly easily. The only question is when will the next local test be?
 
Shortly after I received the radios above I learned that BaoFeng also made a AAA battery holder for disposable batteries. Thinking it would be a neat thing to have as a backup and in the interest of learning more I ordered one. It arrived in two days (yesterday) and I got busy trying it.

It's not a total piece of crap but it is not very well made or easy to use. First off, no instructions on how to use it other than a warning about the batteries (to be covered later) so I had to gingerly figure out how to open it. The whole unit is the same size as the rechargeable pack. I finally got the back plate off and it is set up like most other disposable battery holders with three rows to hold two batteries each.

Now comes the fun part where you need three hands. The batteries fit into the rows but as soon as you stop holding them they pop out (see the picture). They will not stay in place, you have to put some in then hold them down as you place the others in their rows. And then carefully place the backplate over the batteries to hold them in place in the radio. It took me maybe 10 minutes to master this skill. It then took me about 5 minutes to coax the package into the back of the radio.

Also, it comes with a dummy battery which you need to use with 5 alkaline batteries. This is where the attached note comes in. I'll let you read it for yourselves and try to figure out why. It does work, I was able to test them, the unit sends and receives like this.

Overall it does provide a useful backup if your rechargeable battery dies. But it's not up to the manufacturing standards of most other battery packs I have used.

View attachment 349199View attachment 349200
The two in the center are facing the wrong way
 
I put a Btech 50x1 on my 2m/70cm antenna and was able to hit the Pembroke575 GMRS repeater just East of Concord about 25 North of my station in Bedford. It’s a private repeater - you can request access through MyGMRS. I’ll put up an antenna tuned to 462MHz when my wife isn’t looking...
 
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