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My recourse in a situation where all pairs are taken by the same person or group, would be to put up an open repeater on the most busiest channel and share .. Thats basicly all you can do.. If the guy wants to claim airwave ownership and threaten to call the FCC, buy him some popcorn..

Jax 675 is a strong repeater and one of a handful in the area. I'm out of range so don't use it unless I'm passing through. St. Augustine is a desert. Never heard any traffic there and can't find a listed repeater.

I've been an RV'er most of my life.. In the mid 2000's the RV group i traveled with out of Sacramento used HAM frequencies to stay in touch with each other.. It's funny when i compare 'then and now'. Back then our trips where kinda of boring on the road. We seldom used the radios and only did so to coordinate our gas stops. Now and with GMRS we enjoy and look forward to the road time. We actually have a little bit of fun yapping in a casual manner. To me, GMRS is just more relaxing and less stressful. No one to tell you how and what you are dong wrong on the air waves. And now with all these GMRS repeaters out there, 'getting out' with your radio is probably as good or better than the HAM side. I still HAM but most of my time is spent on GMRS

I grew up with his step son AJ. I used to hang out over at his house in MN all the time back in the 80's. Really nice guy. They had an indoor pool we would swim in all year.

Was seeing if anyone was around the Saint Augustine / Jacksonville area and how is the GMRS scene.

"The Smiley "5/8 wave" duck antenna is not a true 5/8 wave antenna in terms of physical length. It's an electrically 5/8 wave antenna achieved through the use of a loading coil. This means the antenna is physically shorter than a true 5/8 wave antenna but still resonates at the desired frequency. "Here's a more detailed explanation: • True 5/8 Wave Antenna: 
A true 5/8 wave antenna is physically 5/8 the length of the wavelength of the desired frequency. 
 • Smiley "5/8 Wave" Duck Antenna: 
This antenna uses a loading coil to shorten its physical length while maintaining the electrical characteristics of a 5/8 wave antenna. 
 • Loading Coil: 
The loading coil acts as an inductor, effectively increasing the electrical length of the antenna without increasing its physical size. 
 • Performance: 
While the Smiley duck is designed to perform like a 5/8 wave antenna, it may not achieve the same gain and performance as a true 5/8 wave antenna, particularly in open terrain. 
 • Advantages: 
The compact size of the Smiley duck antenna makes it ideal for handheld radios, and some users say it can provide better performance than a standard 1/4 wave antenna. " Let the buyer, beware!

Says the disparager...

As I have said several times on here. GMRS is radio facebook, radio chatroom. It's how many are using it. It's a social gathering spot for people that just want to chat. The reason GMRS and not HAM is HAM requires testing and more effort. With GMRS, you pay your money and you get a license. And the codgers involved with ham radio aren't always real welcoming to the younger generation either.

And for the sake of the discussion, there is NOTHING stopping you from putting a repeater up, on one of the frequencies they are using and talking on it. And this is for the same reason I gave before on them backing themselves into a corner. They have a linked repeater system and have overlapping coverage of a number of the pairs if not all the pairs. But again, who are they going to call? The FCC? I seriously doubt it. Because again, backed into a corner with no recourse. What are they gonna tell the FCC? They going to admit they have all the pairs tied up with linking? That they are running a for profit business selling air time on GMRS? I personally dealt with this in Ohio. At first I was willing to try to work with the guy. But he started telling me HE had the pairs and I could only run a short antenna and low power. His repeaters (turned out to be paper repeaters) were well established. When I started looking into his repeaters, and found his business license and it stated he was for profit selling air time on GMRS, I picked the two pairs he was on and parked repeaters on both pairs. He wasn't happy. I invited him to call the FCC and told him I had all of it documented including his state business license where he was selling air time for profit. It never went any further.

No young kids on our trip this time. We traveled with the grandkids up to my sons house but we were by ourselves to bring the kids back and it was his birthday so we had the party to go to. My sister and other son came up the next day and we did the party and then stayed another night. Traveled home and I gave my brother a radio. They had to stop for gas and we didn't so lost them relatively quickly, it's hilly on the NY thruway. Kept trying as we hoped they were catching up and eventually we hit a slow down and they got about 1.5 miles away according to the mile markers and we could communicate with a pair of Tidradio H3s. I have a Nagoya 771G antenna and his radio had a Smiley Rubber Duck antenna. I could hear him before he could hear me before we got in range. All in all it was helpful besides just talking. He had a statey come up and warned us, so it was nice having that heads up. And on several occasions when we had slow downs we were able to give them heads up and tell them which lane was the best to be in. At one time they actually got ahead of us for a short bit during one of the slow downs. That didn't last very long. There was also a repeater I had found on the way up. I was just playing around with the repeaters I had programmed in and when I keyed up the Long Island East End repeater I could see the response on the LCD panel but no sound. I removed the Rx tone and I had access. On our way back we used that briefly but had better luck just using my repeater frequencies with me in talk around and him in normal All in all it was a good experience and helpful and I'm glad I gave them the radio.

I have the H3 and it's easy to program it. Are both input and output tones the same? If not reverse them just to make sure you aren't mistaken which one is the repeater input tone. If both are the same then leave the Rx tone at none so you will receive the repeater output no matter what.

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I know Ky and his son Buddy. He’s well known in the hobby and they still make and sell parachutes for our hobby.

Hey, by chance do you know of Ky Michaelson? He was huge in the amateur rocket scene, at least back in the day. I believe he has a few world records. He used to be called "Rocket Man."

I went to brand new HAM radio club meeting this weekend, and everyone stared at me when I walked in. I'm 49, and covered in tattoos. I was definitely at least 15 years younger than anyone else there.

I absolutely would if I lived there.

Does this site have the ability to send notifications on new repeaters being added? I'd love to get an email anytime a new repeater comes online in my state.

Yes. Try getting closer to the repeater and/or confirming that you have the correct code and that the repeater is actually online.

I'm trying program an open system repeater that is 8 miles away from me with a 051 DPL input/output tone into my Tidradio TD-H3 Plus. I tried it programmed with the 051N DCS code in the radio and I have not been able to hit it, I think I'm programming something wrong. Does 051 DPL correspond to 051N or am I supposed to use the DCS code list in my manual and look up 51 and select the corresponding DCS code (in this case D274N)?

Not between Gaviota and Ventura. Someone needs to put something on both Santa Ynez and Red Mountain for you.

The issue is, as far as I can tell it, there are a lot of people who are very upset by what the group is doing and who are also, simultaneously, completely unaffected by it. If I lived in the North GA area and I wanted to put up a repeater so that me and the boys could talks fars, only to find out that all the channels were already occupied, I might be a little upset. But I don't and so I'm not. I don't have the emotional bandwidth to virtue signal over things outside of my control. I have interacted with the group over the air and each and every one of them have been polite and professional. They invite "non members" to participate in their talk arounds. There are some trolls and there are some people kerchunking and roger beeping just to annoy but I kind of liken it to public transportation. If everybody's on the train, someone's going to be annoying. Having the ability to talk across the state without a HAM license is, I think, the major appeal. Again, some might say, that is not what GMRS is about. I heard it put this way once and I thought it was very accurate. GMRS is the radio you talk on when you're doing an activity. HAM is when the radio is the activity. Either way, Cotton, I'm looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.

This is also an accurate assessment of the situation. Can confirm.

This is an accurate assessment of the situation. Can confirm.

I'm on the South Coast between Gaviota and Santa Barbara, south of the Santa Ynez mountain range. If I drive out of the canyon and get out by Hwy 101, I can sometimes hear repeater traffic from way over in Ventura and even LA across the water. Nothing to my north. I've checked the maps, and I've monitored all GMRS channels for hours with only a little occasional simplex traffic here and there getting into the canyon where I live. If you are aware of some dormant repeater with high enough elevation on the south coast, to get a signal into these canyons, I'd love to know about it!

The average age of GMRS users in my household is 24.5. The average age of ham radio users in my household is 42. Your math checks out. I would like to get my 7 year old into amateur radio to bring that average age down.