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I'm of the opinion that if you feel the need to use a repeater for your business, you should install and maintain it yourself. My reasoning is that business use could create so much traffic that other people couldn't get use out of the repeater. Conversely, casual users could create enough traffic to make it difficult to conduct business. Of course, if the repeater owner is okay with business use, it's none of my business. I think of much of this stuff as being a matter of good manners. I would consider it rude to jam up a repeater with my business making it difficult for other people to use it. Not that it would necessarily happen. There's a GMRS repeater in Oklahoma City that someone obviously uses for business purposes during the weekdays, but it's still idle more than it's active. I don't know if the business owns the repeater, but obviously the owner doesn't mind. Nevertheless, if I were going to use a repeater for my business, I'd prefer to put up my own. Of course, that requires that you have access to a tower or something similar, so it's not exactly as easy as buying one and firing it up.

Yes most are using P25 and trunked systems. But some are still using analog and have not made the switch to P25. I know of at least 2 law enforcement agencies in my local area that are still using analog. And some of the small town volunteer fire departments are still using analog also. Missouri is a very rural state once you get outside of the 4 big metro areas of Columbia, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Springfield. Even the state capital is not that big.

My limited understanding is when “activating” a park it’s just letting people know that you are in so and so park and you have so many contacts 10? I think then your station is active. It may go like this. “this is www123 has 10? Contacts activating Yellowstone national park.” but it’s been a while so I may be wrong.

They are activating a park. If they receive a certain number of contacts (10) while operating from that park they have activated it. It’s all spelled out on POTA.app. https://docs.pota.app A successful activation requires a minimum of 10 QSOs from a park in the designated list within a single UTC day (Zulu day). Courteous activators will still submit logs for unsuccessful activations to ensure their hunters get credit for the QSOs. Multiple activities at the same park in the same state/province/entity and the same UTC day count as a single activation, provided that the ten or more QSOs combined were made.

Aren't most law enforcement and emergency agencies running P25 now? I don't know if they are susceptible to our walkie talkies...

If they happen at night, would they be considered "nocturnal" ? Asking for a friend...

So this weekend was the first time I had really interacted with folks doing POTA. Generally speaking, they were coming in here to Delaware at 5-7 on the S-meter, with periods of QSB. Which is understandable as they were probably operating at around 10-20 watts, I would guess. I had about 20 QSOs with them. BTW, my rig is 20 watts. My question pertains to "Activating". What does that even mean? What are they "activating"? Thanks in advance.

The 1.25m/220 MHz band might be dead in some areas but it is alive and well in other areas. No one uses the band around me and there is only one 220 repeater in the entire state (that's listed) and it is linked full time to a 2m repeater. And yes UPS did get a small portion of the band that they have never used. There is a company trying to get a portion of the 900 MHz band for GPS right now which will be on the same frequencies that the LORA/Meshtastic devices use. I don't want to see any loss of frequencies on any of the amateur and GMRS bands. And I don't see GMRS being expanded since there are a lot of business and government use frequencies near the GMRS frequencies. And I sure don't want to have family businesses using open GMRS repeaters based on prior experiences with commercial farms in my area.

As always.... Thank you for the info. I keep learning more from you guys every week!!!

Cheap Amazon touch lamps are some of the worse when it comes to being interfered with from radios. And cheap LED light bulbs are noisy and will cause interference. I have seen where public safety frequencies have had issues with spurious emissions from cheap amateur band radios. But that too is pretty rare. And the amateur radio would have to have SE's that are almost as strong as their primary frequency.

Just about every electronic device that is not specifically covered by some other part of the FCC rules is licensed under Part 15, which has extensive requirements for interference levels etc. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-A/part-15 Here is an interesting thread on the issue of interference to Part 15 devices. Just about every consumer is ignorant of this particular part. It's hard to convince somebody where their expensive flat screen TV malfunctioning, when you key up your radio, isn't your fault. The notice of Part 15 is either on the device some place and or mentioned in the included documentation, of course nobody reads that fine print. https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/35189/fcc-part-15-must-accept-interference-from-other-sources-what-does-this-mean

I can activate my stove if I put my 5 watt GMRS near it. Only on 467MHz though. And my neighbors motion activated light is activated by my 20 watt mobile, again on the 467MHz frequency. Not sure but my base station doesn't seem to turn on the light and it's the same radio I have in my truck. And I have headlamps that will turn on or change over to flashing if already on and my Fein vacuum sometimes gets activated. I don't think it's from SE's, I think it's from the direct output of the radios.

I definitely can't use all leather inside the waste band holsters during the summer. They will soak up my sweat and cause any pistol that is not stainless steel to rust. So yes I can see how bridging the contacts on a hand held radio can shock some people. I have small skinny hands so I have not had that problem. I've never been shocked by my KG-935G, KG-Q10H or any other hand held radio.

Along this line, I always wear gloves while handling blued steel firearms. Or they get wiped down immediately. I can rust blued steel in a heartbeat. So while I prefer the look of blued steel I mostly own stainless. Even with that my old bicycle gun has surface staining. I gave up removing it and just accept it as "patina".

As Marc mentioned 1x1 call signs are event call signs. They have different rules. ARRL has a page dedicated to them, but there’s actually a special site dedicated to them: https://www.1x1callsigns.org/index.php https://www.1x1callsigns.org/index.php/search-1x1-database

There is always a chance of an issue but it is a very very slim chance of a radio interfering with pace makers now days. And since microwaves were mentioned. I remember when people were warned to never stand too close to a running microwave if they had a pace maker. And it's not just the spurious emissions as you mentioned. the 40m and 80 bands are very noisy. Though 40m seems to be worse. I had to install clamps ferrite beads on some appliances and electronics in my house along with on all of my computer cables and radio coax cables to keep them from picking up interference when transmitting on 40m with 50 to 100 watts.

This is correct. I always had to wear gloves when machining aluminum investment cast molds. My sweat would turn the aluminum and my hands black.

We were running under our call sign of W0CSR. We mostly worked 20m, 40m, and 80m. 10m and 15m was pretty dead. Most of our contacts were on 20m and 40m. And KOR is definitely a valid call sign. KOR has a New Florence address but is actually located south of there closer to Big Springs. He has an old 100 foot cell phone tower setup and runs a 1500 watt amp all of the time. He actually lives in another state and remotely operates his station most of the time. He does come to Missouri for special events and such. His station is in a remote part of the county in the river hills and the road to get there is more of a goat path. We could have used a 1x1 call sign but we have always just used the club's call sign.

Yeah, I could not figure out why I could not find it on either ARRL or FCC database:

1x1 call signs are typically used for special events and issued for less than 1 year at a time. Sometimes they are only issued for a few days. However, if no one else asks to use the call sign and the person currently holding it asks for an extension or re-issue, its typically not a problem for the current holder. Because there are so few of them, those of us who do use them, will coordinate among ourselves prior to going to the actual/formal coordinators.

K0R is a real call sign. It is currently held by Harry Rudolph of New Florence Missouri. I have no idea why you couldn’t look it up. It’s quicker to use QRZ.com and there’s an app called QRZ that I use on my phone and iPad.

Not a silly question. As long as we follow FCC rules and licensing rules, GMRS users are pretty wide open to use the band as they see fit. Whether it's communicating while doing activates, talking to immediate family members or treating it like a hobby and experimenting with equipment as the rules allow the FCC doesn't care how you use it. As long as they get their 35 bucks. Now, if you break the rules through experimentation, start advocating to turn GMRS into HAM or try to dictate how other licensees use GMRS, expect immediate and less than positive feedback. And, rightfully so, will be directed to HAM radio where tons of people make it a hobby. Enjoy!

Agreed, But to me, seriously debating which one of the cheapest budget radios is far superior to others is like trying to figure out which is better between the Ford Pinto or the Chevy Vega. LoL. You are going to get what you pay for. But when it comes down to it, inexpensive radios allowed many people get into GMRS who otherwise could never afford it and help build the user base. As long as people understand the possible limitations in quality, and how to return them, in my opinion they remain a great jumping off point into GMRS.

Sure. Let's go with that.

I have a couple Repeaters programmed in my Baofeng AR-5RM radio now. Reached out to a local contact who took me to GRMS school yesterday.