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Lack of ground plane preventing correct tuning, yes. Signal sucking under those conditions, yes. Damaging your radio with high VSWR, not really. Over the last 40yrs or so I've tried my best to damage a CB by keying down in some cases for hours with no antenna attached, no cable and nothing...

I'm trained in various types of antenna range measurements and about the best you could do at home would be test signal strength at close range maybe 100ft then swap antennas and test signal strength again. You would want something that can read out well under 1dB of change and a cheap dongle...

Its showing a slightly higher VSWR at 467Mhz over 462Mhz so the antenna is a tiny bit too long. But at the worst the match is extremely good so I would not worry about it.

No problem, even running both cables wrapped tightly together the full length of the truck. All coax is inherently shielded, just some is better than others. There will be way more signal pickup between antennas compared to cable leakage.

The difference between a 5w radio and 7w radio can usually be measured in yards, not enough difference to notice. What you will notice is reduced battery life on transmit with the 7w radio. It takes a good 6dB or 4X increase in power (like 5w to 20w) to make a noticeable difference at the other...

12" diameter or square is adequate ground plane for GMRS. A halve wave no ground plane antenna can work ok without a ground plane because it inherently puts the signal near the horizon. A non NGP antenna with no ground plane is asking for both tuning problems and reduced performance at the horizon.

The hood is not as bad as other vehicles since much of the upper part of a Gladiator is fiberglass or very wide spaced pillars and roll cage. Its very transparent to UHF signals. I've seen a hood or trunk mount antenna outperform a fiberglass roof mounted antenna that had no ground plane. The...

This one has AES256 and DES, no Type 1, legal for civies to own.

I occasionally use some of my mil radios on GMRS and FRS, seems like a bit of overkill but its fun. This one is set up on a 462.600 GMRS repeater with 192.8 tone among other things. The second pic is the boot up screen to show its not one of those import lookalikes.

To legally sell the UV-5 series in the US the front panel programming needs to be disabled outside the US amateur bands but it should be fully programmable via software for commercial or GMRS frequencies. There may also be software available that will unlock the radio and allow FPP anywere like...

The OP said this " I don't want to deal with programming BS, I don't want any complications. I just want to dial in a frequency and talk to anyone who is on a trail ride with me". How is getting a ham license gonna simplify his life? I have a ham license and although I seem to be a wiz with...

I don't have any first hand experience with GMRS only radios to make an honest recommendation. I use Motorola and Harris commercial radios, which I don't recommend for a non radio geek. You might ask some of the Midland GMRS users here how they like their radios.

Per FCC rules the Baofeng UV-5R is not legal to use on GMRS or FRS. Any legal GMRS or FRS radio must have FCC part 95 certification and the UV-5R does not! It will work fine there but any store that recommends that you use it there should be avoided. That's not any different than a Jeep dealer...

The Baofeng UV-5R and similar radios work just fine on GMRS and FRS but they can be a PIA to learn how to get them programmed. I've had dozens of them dropped off here for me to program because the owners just can't do it. Once you do they are not legal by FCC rules to use on GMRS or FRS. But...

That is not a plug and play radio and at the very least you may have to match CTCSS tones or DCS cods buried in a menu for the people or group you want to talk with. If for some reason they don't use tones or codes then its closer to plug and play. I have some similar radios and don't like...

It disables the ESS and defaults to both batteries in parallel all the time.

If you remove the small battery and leave the battery cables intact from PCR to N1 it will still work. If you remove the small battery harness with the small battery you would have to jumper N1 to N3 or something similar. Otherwise part of the truck would be dead.

It will work fine, just use and enjoy for now and when the time is right you can shorten it.

If you have a connector on now with just some extra coax it will work fine. Shortening the coax will just be a future enhancement.

This would be for UHF so you want to make sure the connector is good quality and properly installed. If your not sure of which one to buy or have no experience or tools for installing them I would suggest you get someone who is qualified to do it. A good silver plated Teflon insulated solder...