Any Members in Arkansas?

The 5R is a popular little radio.

Here's an eval of the

$25 UV-5R Plus Two Way Radio, Long Range for Adults Rechargeable with Earpiece, Walkie Talkie for Outdoors, 144-148 420-450MHz, Qualette Series, Black

UV-5R Plus and The

$46 BF-F8HP (UV-5R 3rd Gen) 8-Watt Dual Band Two-Way Radio (136-174MHz VHF & 400-520MHz UHF) Includes Full Kit with Large Battery

BF-F8HP. I bought an F8HP to play with HAM. I haven't had time to touch it. If you were close by, I would get you to try it out.

https://youtu.be/EdiNZ2C3D1o

 

El Dorado here.

 

Welcome!

 

Have you scrolled through all of your channels with repeater mode on? Looking at the Midland manual it says "Repeater channels will appear immediately following the standard GMRS channels (Ex: 20,21,22,15rP,16rP17rP etc)."

 

It's possible I am just stupid and took it for granted that those were same as hi band channels, and didn't really look. I'll double check later.

 

For under $100 you can get your hands on a legit Yeasu HT
https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/ysu-ft-4xr

I have one and a Baofung BF8-HP and the Yeasu way nicer for just a few bucks more.

 

Here is another comparison. This guy is pretty funny. I love his dry humor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA54EfcEOv4

Apparently the newer versions are Part 90 compliant where these 2 are not.

 

FWIW GMRS radios are type 95 certified, type 90 radios are a no no if you're trying to stay totally technically legal.

 

GMRS works great for our uses, but in an extreme emergency, it's nice to have a ham option to transmit. That's the only reason I would ever want a non-compliant radio.

 

So the myGMRS site shows a repeater in Pelsor on the same frequency as the Paron repeater. There's also one up in NWA on 700 (21rp). I may play around with the one up here to see if I can hear anything.

 

Having one in Pelsor would be super handy. They probably have different tones if on same frequency. I did get signed up and am an official member of the Arkansas GMRS Repeater Group. https://arkradio.net/
Thanks to CS for that.

 

And the Chinese can tune in and listen to you

 

Hope they speak Ark-en-glish

 

The Midland GMRS suck for repeaters. Not being able to split tone for tx/rx makes it useless for the repeater near me.

 

Like it or not (I don't personally) Midland pretty much owns the market for legal GMRS mobiles right now, seems like the repeater owners should be setting up for them.

 

So having a GMRS radio isn't a plug and play mod? I suppose that I need to do some more research.

 

It is mostly, definitely is for truck to truck trail comms. Getting on repeaters kinda makes it start to feel like ham lite.

 

Looking through my manual, you can set tx/rx separately (

$160 MXT115 - 15 Watt GMRS MicroMobile Two Way Trails Radio - Off Roading Outdoor RZR Farm - 8 Repeater Channels Extended Range - External Magnetic Mount Antenna - NOAA Weather Alerts

MXT115).

From the bottom of the section on privacy codes:

NOTE: On repeater channels, the transmitter and receiver privacy codes are set independently using the tC and rC menus.

I haven't tried it to verify.

 

Ok, apparently I was looking at an incorrect manual, but it was what the Midland site gave me from the 115 product page. I Googled "

$160 MXT115 - 15 Watt GMRS MicroMobile Two Way Trails Radio - Off Roading Outdoor RZR Farm - 8 Repeater Channels Extended Range - External Magnetic Mount Antenna - NOAA Weather Alerts

MXT115 MANUAL" and got a version that does not show the repeater menu choices. Verified that you CANNOT set different Tx and Rx codes. Configured for the Rogers repeater but nobody responded, so no idea if it works.

 

Howdy neighbor. I'm up 7 in Camden.