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Agreed. Some philosophical consistency would boost the FCC's credibility, also. On marine VHF one can TX on channels reserved for port operations, intership safety, intership commercial, international distress, state controlled, U.S. government (non-USCG), USCG, bridge-to-bridge intership in the lower Mississippi river only, U.S. EPA, noncommercial and a dozen other uses with a 25W mobile without having anything -- no testing, no license, no nuthin'. How much damage can one do on GMRS frequencies? A lot less than the above, so why require a license?

Absolutely nothing prevents any person from simply buying a full power GMRS radio and using it unlicensed, thereby avoiding whatever gatekeeper challenge “programming a ham radio” might provide.

Yes, but in a lot of vehicles, getting a consistent 10 amps through the cigarette lighter plug can be impossible. Not necessarily, because my Chevrolet Trax will deliver 16 amps all day long, but many vehicles -- especially older vehicles -- won't. That said, depending upon where you live and what you want to do, 50 watts may be overkill. The quad-band radio in my truck will deliver 50 watts, but I usually run it on 12. In my location and for what I do, if 25 watts won't get me there, 50 won't either. My take is that you should get a radio that has the features you want, but don't pay extra to get more than 25 watts unless you know you're going to need the extra power. Virtually all antennas will work better with a good ground plane, but a trunk lip mount or hood lip mount can deliver well enough for a lot of users. There's a plethora of good antennas and you'll get about as many opinions as there are users, but a few tend to stick out. The Comet 2x4SR is a remarkably good all-purpose antenna and it can perform acceptably on a lip mount. The Midland Ghost surprised me with how well it performed, but I didn't try it on a lip mount. For a mag mount, I've gotten good results with a Nagoya UT-72, although others report that they haven't. The advantage to a mag mount is that you can move it around until you find a suitable ground plane. There are a number of good lip mount NMO units, you just need to keep looking.

You’re right about potato chips, especially here in Idaho. I have 4 mobiles and 6 HT’s. They tend to accumulate.,

That is correct. My callsign was KAFU2984. I have no idea why I remember that. Is the same thing happening to GMRS? Well...yes, I believe it is. I think it's largely due to the FCC's ill-advised decision to allow FRS to use the GMRS frequencies without a license. Anyone can buy an FRS radio and use the same frequencies without any license at all. From there, it's just a small step to, "Gee, if I buy this Boofwang radio, I can do the same thing but with more power" so they do. Since no license was required before and it's all the same channels, they don't bother with a license for the Boofwang either. There is still a little bit of "gatekeeper effect" with repeater owners, and using repeaters requires a bit more savvy than the average FRS user has, as does programming a ham radio to operate on GMRS, so it isn't quite the crapshow that CB has become, but I can easily imagine it devolving into that.

This comment has absolutely nothing to do with the question but thank you for your useless reply to the topic.

Yes, it’s possible. They’ve asked us for suggestions for simplifying regulations. Most (by far) of the people who use GMRS now don’t have licenses. One way to simplify this would be to combine FRS and GMRS into a single unlicensed service like FRS is today.

I remember those day too. That's when I had to get out the old whetstone and grind my reeds in the Vibrasender and Vibrasponder to change PL tones. Those were the good old days. You needn't worry about the FCC offering license free services as they will never give up that cash cow. GMRS will safely stay the gentleman's CB band.

Reaching back into the dusty hinterland of my memory I seem to recall that a license was required to use a CB. At some point the number of unlicensed folks got so large the FCC just gave up enforcing it. If my, admittedly, somewhat sketchy memory is correct, could the same thing happened to GMRS? Is it happening?

It Only takes 10 amps max to support a 50 watt transmitter, so not really true.

I Might even hang this in my Shack ... except I know others, possibly related to him.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if they threw that charge into the pot when taking action against someone for being an ass and/or interfering with government communications, but as a stand-alone charge? I'll believe it when I see it.

I'm pretty sure the Anysecu WP9900 and QYT KT-9900 are the same radio, and the BTech 20V2 is the GMRS version of it. I consider it a decent-but-not-amazing radio for the price. TBH, 25 watts is plenty for almost all of my needs. I have a TYT TH-9800D in the car, and I almost always run it on 12 watts. I've hardly ever bumped it up to 35 or 50, and even then, it usually didn't make a difference. Yes, I do understand the quality difference between CCRs and some of the "big name" products, but I'm just a hobbyist. Nobody is going to die or even lose any money if my radio doesn't work. I'm willing to take a hit on the quality to get the form factor I want. In December, I ran a WP9900 on a trip from central Oklahoma to Branson, Missouri and hit 2 meter and 70 centimeter repeaters all along the way without difficulty, which is really all I use a mobile radio for. In the house where I have plenty of room, I run an AnyTone AT5888UV III tri-band unit and I'll probably end up changing out the TYT in the car for one as well. On the roof of the car, I have enough ground plane to run a tri-band antenna. If I decide to install a CB, that will require another antenna, but I'll deal with that if I decide to do it. My problem in the truck is that I have crap for ground plane and I can't get a tri-band antenna to work well on 2m, 1.25m, 70cm, and GMRS, so I've resorted to three antennas and three radios. I have a AnyTone Graces CB with all the controls in the handset feeding a dedicated CB antenna, A QYT 7900D tri-band radio running as a dedicated 1.25 meter unit with a dedicated 220 band antenna, and a TYT TH-9800D for GMRS, 2m, and 70cm on a Diamond "Super Gainer" antenna. I'm planning to remove the TYT and mount the QYT on the seat bolt pedestal mount, then put the WP9900 back in for GMRS, 70cm, and 2m. I can't find a 1.25 meter radio with all controls in the handset or a removable faceplate, but the QYT is really tiny and should be minimally intrusive on the Lido mount. I suppose I could use a tri-band radio and a diplexer to a 220 and a 140/440 antenna, but TBH, that requires as many pieces of equipment as I have now and my current solution is inexpensive and modular. I agree with the clean, low profile aesthetic. I also have to take into account that I have a single-cab truck and I don't need a whole bunch of bulky stuff taking up what space I have and being climbed all over by a 65 lb dog. I'm convinced there is some degree of "snob factor" in ham radio equipment, but it's also true that a lot of hams are trying to get more out of their equipment than I am. Perhaps someday I will be too, and perhaps then I'll "move up" to a more expensive radio. And there's certainly something to be said for a radio that doesn't blow out the finals if you key up on a too-high SWR. So, yeah, prestige plays a role, but there's more to it than that, at least for some hams. But I really do believe many hams like the look of a whole bunch of radios crowding the passenger compartment.

This is true if they have multiple FRN's

I can verify what Steve said. Some amateur band radios that have been modded/unlocked work fine on GMRS while others don't work as well. My MARS Modded Icom IC-2730 does not do as good of a job on GMRS as my unlocked TYT radios. Remember, radios are like potato chips, you just can't have one or two.

Im not sure you can determine someone doesn't hold a license using this method. I only have two licenses under the FRN that my Amateur and GMRS licenses are under, but I have multiple FRNs. And unless you know what names are associated with my other FRNs, you're not finding them.

It’s possible for a person to hold different FRNs. GMRS.app will (I believe) find a person who holds different licenses under different FRNs. It appears to look at the address rather than just the FRN.

Everyone has to have a FRN number no matter if they hold a MGRS license, amateur license or multiple licenses. That's why I looked him up using his FRN. And according to the FCC database, he does NOT have an amateur license, he only has a GMRS license. If you go to the FCC website and look up a GMRS call sign, it will not show if they hold any other licenses. If you use the Advance Search and search by FRN then it will show all licenses held by that person the FRN is registered to. That website showed two different GMRS call signs, the last name, middle initial and location are the same but the first names are different. The first call sign is his and the other is listed as possible match.

You can also use this website to see if a GMRS licensee is also a ham: https://gmrs.app

you mean after all that hype he is a Ham

Another vote for the 778UVII. Been enjoying my for a while now.

.I've got 22 HT's 15 are brand new in the box... Mostly Baufangs When i got hooked on Hytera HT's i quite playing with the Baufangs. I still like my Wouxuns

I am going to second the 778uv... got one to use as a mobile rig, and a week later grabbed a second for the base rig as well.... absolutely great radio for the money for sure....

Not knowing what your locale presents for terrain, i live in the fingerlakes region of NY, and have a mix of plains like and some more hilly terrain, but my mobile setup is an anytone 778uv, with a cheap ghost antenna (stubby) on a mag mount on the back end of my subaru forester next t the stock fm radio antenna, and i can hit the local repeater 30 miles away with no issues. My "base" unit is also an anytone 778 uv, with a cheap amazon "6 db" pl239 mount antenna mounted on a ground plane on the end of a 10ft piece of conduit screwed to the side of my apartment building LOL and that can reliably hit the local repeaters from 25 mi away as well... the mag mounts do make things significantly easier on the cars, aside from what car washes you can use...LOL