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    FRS Radio Mounted Outside Vehicle?

    Just trying to regain, with what amounts to a low power HT, a capability that Radio Shack offered to the public years ago…
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    FRS Radio Mounted Outside Vehicle?

    Indeed, the Midland MXT275 GMRS is about as close to a “plug-and-play” radio as you can get today (and is the model I have purchased for my next vehicle). Bill (WQXH544)
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    FRS Radio Mounted Outside Vehicle?

    All true about GMRS and ham, but, back in the day, Radio Shack certainly found a market for their ‘plug and play’ 21-1850 vehicle mounted radios (even though such a FRS transmitter was then restricted to 25% of the current power limit)!
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    FRS Radio Mounted Outside Vehicle?

    Yes, but that doesn’t help the “unlicensed masses” who would like to get better performance (through use of an exterior antenna) when using FRS radios inside their vehicles.
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    FRS Radio Mounted Outside Vehicle?

    Thanks everyone, I do have dual-band ‘ham’ and GMRS radios (with external antennas) installed in my LR Defender. I will be getting a another SUV and began to engage in something of a ‘thought experimen’t’ to see how simple of an effective radio setup that I (and others without FCC License)...
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    FRS Radio Mounted Outside Vehicle?

    Just trying to think of a legal way to gain the benefits of an antenna external to the vehicle under FRS rules. I am still missing my old Radio Shack ‘2150’ (?) FRS Radio that cleverly put everything (except the speaker/mic and radio controls) in a mag-mount pod on the car roof😊
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    FRS Radio Mounted Outside Vehicle?

    Has anyone tried to mount a Back Country Access “BCA Link” FRS Radio to the rain gutter of a vehicle and then run the wire for its combination speaker/mic/control to the inside?
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    iPhone 15 Pro introduces satellite based emergency roadside service with AAA

    I think the Spot brand also has dedicated messaging for roadside assistance.
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    Garmin InReach Messenger Expands Availability of Sat Coms?

    Just as you say, you must first send a message to everyone you can think of who might want/need to get in touch with you in a hurry. Even with that, Garmin makes no claims about the longevity of that number to “always” be able to send a return text in the future.
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    Garmin InReach Messenger Expands Availability of Sat Coms?

    It is generally difficult or impossible for my relatives or acquaintances to initiate a message to my inReach Mini. To me this is the ‘achilles heel’ of the Garmin inReach ecosystem.
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    Garmin In-Reach Failure

    Addressing a message TO an inReach Device is even less intuitive than that (“actual contact” format is only valid for messages sent from one inReach Device to another).
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    Bands, frequency ranges best for receive only emergency info?

    The PLB and inReach radios should cover your emergency communications needs very nicely. To receive severe weather alerts, without having to listen to the continuous broadcast, some Weather Radios will automatically respond to the “specific area message encoding (SAME)” system that NOAA uses. I...
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    Garmin In-Reach Failure

    Even if your inReach Device is working perfectly there can be failures of the SOS notification system. Below is a post from Garmin about an outage that lasted 1 hour and 43 minutes. My conclusion is that ‘dissimilar redundancy‘ is still best. Iridium Messaging Delays Incident resolved...
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    FunTreks iOS App - Any good?

    In my limited experience, FunTrek’s iOS app provides a visualization of their guide book, tightly focused on specific, identified trails. Gaia seems to be an area map system with roads and trails that can be highlighted (with their snap-to feature) to create a desired route.
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    Starter Comms — What should I get for basic comms to let me start joining group runs, etc?

    FYI, as of April19 the fee for the GMRS License dropped to $35 (still good for ten years).
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    Gaia GPS “Choose Activity” Menu

    Here is the answer from Gaia Customer Service (which explains things nicely): “The activities are there to help you label your routes or tracks for future reference. There is not a preset definition for each activity type, so you're welcome to choose the name that makes the most sense to you.”
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    Gaia GPS “Choose Activity” Menu

    On the Gaia GPS app for iPhone Routes there is the category “OVERLAND & OFF-ROAD” in the “Choose Activity“ menu. What is definition or distinction between “4x4”, “Offroading“ and “Overlanding” within that category?
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    Gaia ROUTE without map download?

    Yes, that will make the process of downloading the needed maps SO much easier. Thank You!
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