Help. Just got my GMRS ticket. Looking for a good GMRS radio. Looking to keep it inexpensive…..BUT I want GOOD. Too many ‘reviews’ out there and I’m going insane going through them! (My sanity may have been in question prior to this but……) I’d like repeater capable. Simple to use. Programmable. Was seeing both good and bad about Boafeng and others that may be made by them. Was looking at something like this:

https://www.buytwowayradios.com/btwr-essentials-pk-frs.html

Thoughts? Suggestions?
I’m looking to ultimately go for our ham but I’m not the build the radio kind of guy. Looking to KISS but I can deal with setting it up so we can have simple use. Thanks for the help.

I don’t believe Baofeng or Wouxon make a transceiver that’s legal to use on GMRS. I cannot recommend Wouxon at all.

I have both ham and GMRS licenses but in the end I have stopped using my mid-range GMRS radios for the most part because my immediate family has three other hams.

Motorola and Uniden are where I would start.

Can’t recommend…. Because of bad experience or not familiar with it. The link I have in the original message is from a radio company that has been in business since 2002. The package has Wouxon radios. I’ve read things that say Baofeng isn’t part 95 certified so they are illegal to use……… I’ve seen SO MANY conflicting reports I just don’t know.

That has the Wouxun KG-805F, which is FRS not GMRS. FRS cannot use repeaters and has a lower power limit.

A GMRS license allows you to use both FRS and GMRS frequencies.

The appropriate GMRS model is the Wouxun KG-805G. I have it. I like it. It is Part 95E type accepted.

Any radio that transmits on both GMRS and Amateur Radio frequencies is NOT type accepted. There are a lot of those out there, too.

This site may help you sort things out:
http://usagmrs.com/radio.html

I went with GMRS and a Ham license and find the Ham radio stuff is more "useful" but is a lot more complex. GMRS can be an excellent local communications solution. However, I don't think you will be able to just buy a couple of radios and be done - check your area and see if there are other (often businesses) GMRS users you could work with.
Example:
https://www.fccbulletin.com/ia/des-moines

This may also help...
https://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/FRS/GMRS_combined_channel_chart

Link was a boo boo. Meant to link a GMRS radio. We just ordered 2 Wouxon 935s. GMRS with Repeater capability. There are VERY FEW repeaters in the area. Hoping more come up. Wanting and going for our (wife and I) Ham tickets too. Looking right now for local comms possibility. Hoping to convince a few local spots for repeater locations. I am familiar with the FRS vs GMRS, just ooopsed the link. Was looking more for a radio recommendation but decided on the wouxon ones.

I'm very familiar with Wouxon radios. Not recommended.

I have several Radioddity GM-30's.

Good: Cheap, easy to program (via Windows computers only!), has enough features to be useful but not so many you can't hand it to someone and give them a "how-to-use" lesson in under 2 minutes. Powerful enough for most local uses, and has repeater capability. Can be set up to listen-only mode on lots of additional frequencies (I use one to monitor our dispatch channel for fire - 155.55).

Bad: Not waterproof (this turned out to be more of a problem than I expected). Front-end is easily overloaded by other radios transmitting nearby. One of them seems to have suffered an excessive amount of damage from what I'd consider a minor drop. Antenna connection is - like all screw-on SMA style antennas - just too fragile.

I also have several Motorola portables that were in service as radios for a fire company. The county radio system changed frequency bands from 500mhz to 700mhz, so they were decommissioned. I had them reprogrammed to GMRS channels (yes, that's legal, no I can't tell you who to go to).

These radios are incredibly durable, as they are used by firefighters in all kinds of conditions. However, they are not as easy to use as you'd expect.

For me, the perfect GMRS radio is not out there.
I want:

- Waterproof - for real. Drop it in a pond and get annoyed, nothing else, as you fish it out and wipe the mud off.

- No "modal" interfaces. I want a radio with buttons and dials that each do one thing and one thing only.
I want a dial with 20 channels that I can program, and leave it at that.
I loved my oldHT 750radios we used to use on-scene because of the simplicity of the physical design - I could operate it entirely by touch.
- An Antenna connection that is robust enough to withstand a drop directly on an attached antenna from 6'.