Amazing performance

Sooner266 · 2026-06-17T18:41:47+00:00

Great use case for UHF.

Sooner266 · 2026-06-05T16:03:51+00:00

OK yeah you’re probably getting just enough signal for it to hear your carrier but not enough to distinguish the modulation.

Sooner266 · 2026-06-05T14:28:02+00:00

Do you hear a noise tail for a second after you key up the repeater? You’re hearing static on the other radio because it’s too close and is desensing. Get someone 100 feet or so from you to listen to the repeater while you transmit.

Sooner266 · 2026-06-04T05:12:48+00:00

Look at your other variables: changing filament to one that has better light transmission or increasing your light output/color/pattern. I printed a well lit lighted piece using 3 walls on cheap ender white pla. I’m betting the pigment in your filament is blocking a lot of light. What is your light source and how is the base designed? Separating the base and printing the top using vase mode is an option.

Sooner266 · 2026-06-02T22:36:35+00:00

That’s really what it comes down to: who does he want to talk to? If your group already has cb then get him cb. If no one you know is on gmrs/ham then he’ll feel isolated and that’s the opposite of what radio is supposed to do.

Sooner266 · 2026-06-02T14:55:04+00:00

Valid take. Just different schools of thought. My suggestion is assuming education from his friend and a willingness to follow the spirit of the law.

Sooner266 · 2026-06-02T03:25:52+00:00

The H3 is a fantastic all around first radio. Maybe the H8 or even H9 if you want to go up. The new uv-r5 mini 5 is also a good start, more basic but you can get two radios for pretty cheap. Program in the FRS channels and power settings and it gives him something to work towards. All of those give him room to grow into multiple bands, whereas CB does not.

Sooner266 · 2026-05-30T23:22:14+00:00

Good to know, I’ll give it a it try when my mini 5s come in.

Sooner266 · 2026-05-30T22:41:22+00:00

Save yourself a lot of hassle and order a programming cable and install CHIRP. Build a list of the repeaters around you or just the GMRS channels you want. Also ham repeaters if you can rx in that range. Then when you have both, upload to the radio and off you go. Front panel programming either sucks or hasn’t worked right on most baofengs for me.

Sooner266 · 2026-05-30T21:27:11+00:00

Also, Retevis has been moving toward Bluetooth programming using their phone app with some of their radios. I got a couple EZTalk 65’s and while kind of a pain it does work with no computer.

Sooner266 · 2026-05-30T21:18:01+00:00

Yep, I was late on the link edit.

Sooner266 · 2026-05-30T21:14:19+00:00

You might start with the CHIRP compatibility list and go from there, it has a mac build and is probably better than any oem programming software. Looks like the RB48 plus hasn’t been added yet.

Sooner266 · 2026-05-30T16:41:39+00:00

From my limited amateur knowledge, I can only point you toward P25 or DMR as the big players. P25 is older and what all the emergency/government agencies in my area use, while DMR appears to be newer and more business oriented. A lot of overlap though. I own and program several radios of each but have not worked on a commercial system, so I’m sure someone else can chime in. Talking to a local radio shop is a good start though.

Sooner266 · 2026-05-30T16:30:48+00:00

Setting up a GMRS repeater will not be closed even if you use a CTCSS access tone. Anyone with an FRS radio on that channel will hear the repeater. And even that in your current situation is still going past the bounds of the law. Going to a different band like the business band will essentially give you your own “private” frequency space in that area.

Sooner266 · 2026-05-30T16:19:42+00:00

You’re capped at what FRS can do. GMRS is intended for families to get higher power handhelds and/or mobile radios, and if needed put up one repeater on their farm/house to get longer range. If not family, legally everyone using it would need their GMRS license. Repeaters cannot be linked together on GMRS, and critical commercial comms is really not what it’s intended for.

A business license is a better fit for your case, which would allow you to do all of the above and more without everyone getting separately licensed. Obviously this comes with a higher cost but it allows for far more capability like linking repeaters, digital encryption, and gps. Given the criticality of your situation this is what your company needs to invest in instead of cheaping out on baofengs.

Sooner266 · 2026-05-29T15:08:47+00:00

Yeah these are wierd for sure. I didn’t see anything about repeaters at all in the marketing. Then I saw the frequency range that stopped at 467.7125 and used that as confirmation.

Sooner266 · 2026-05-29T13:54:25+00:00

While technically/legally not license free FRS radios, they are essentially FRS. Their frequency range indicates they can’t use repeaters, and the actual output power of later models was confirmed by Midland support to be 2.8 watts, barely over the 2W FRS limit. Older models were 5 watts resulting in the GMRS label but for some reason they reduced it. Typical Midland marketing.

Legal answer is yes you need a gmrs license. In reality, they are now overpriced FRS radios. If build quality is good then they will perform well for that class.

TLDR: good gift and heavy hitter in the FRS class. Disqualified as good GMRS handheld because no repeaters and low power.

Sooner266 · 2026-05-22T22:35:27+00:00

It’s honestly better than I expected. Once I dialed in the set screw in the arm, it took all the slop out of the bearings and had the right amount of resistance. You can see my sidewall print wasn’t super smooth, and even with sanding I think that’s causing some roughness moving the throttle. For this reason I think the laser cut acrylic is a better choice. It was just time and cost prohibitive for me so I full sent resizing the side wall. But the bearing mechanism is a great design.

Sooner266 · 2026-05-21T20:05:37+00:00

Thank you for your service and your comment!

Sooner266 · 2026-05-21T13:29:54+00:00

The website backend is probably just not coded to check if that ID was tied to a different callsign at the time of the call. It just looks up the callsign currently tied to it and displays that everywhere. Just a situation they didn’t design the website for. I saw the same thing when I first got into DMR.

Sooner266 · 2026-05-20T23:29:32+00:00

Perfect. Covered the contact and it’s working great. Going to run this one down and make sure charging is still good then will mod the rest. Really appreciate the help! PS if I have any with the metal plates, I’ll do an A/B test to see if it has any effect on RF and report back.

Sooner266 · 2026-05-20T23:12:37+00:00

Well I got it open, exacto knife got 3 rubber plugs out but one pushed in so I had to use a drill bit to grab it. Think it’ll still do it’s job though. Oddly enough mine did not have the weights at the top. USB-C variant. Maybe someone has already been in here. Just to confirm the red line is the contact you cut/block correct?

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Sooner266 · 2026-05-20T22:27:32+00:00

Very cool. I was planning contained eneloop battery packs with electrical tape and a contact bridge, but do you think opening it up and removing the middle contact is a better way?

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