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Hopefully you didn't get any coffee on your keyboard and monitor or phone.

One of the local linked repeaters near me has been in almost constant chaos the last few days from somebody playing music on the repeater/network. Don't know what is worse - the person causing the interference or the folks wining about it but it's a fun battle to listen to.

Donny - " Wait, didn't I appoint someone to the FCC ?

President's agenda today: Zoom call with Putin Zoom call with Zalenski Status update on painting the fence black Hurricane hitting the eastern seaboard Tanning spray Touch up the quaffe Redistrict Texas and California voting. Say something to offend the vocal minority. (800 other things) (200 more things) Listen to an update on what letters to the president rose to the level of making it into the report (he's on the treadmill at the same time though) This letter didn't make honorable mention

He's our boy.

and sending a letter to the President? Talk about going 'over heads'

Damit... I need to change my shirt.. I spilt coffee all over my fresh clean shirt.. Damit... To early for this

If you want to ask the FCC a question ask them to make a slew of repeater only channels so they don't interfere with simplex. And make sure they add them up or down, not in between.

Do owners of these radios call themselves H8ers?

I've read that it was so the manufacturers could sell the same units in the US and Europe. That may be true because the CB I bought a few months ago has a way to set it to different regions.

I'm afraid I have to jump on the "only 8 repeater pairs" bandwagon. In my area, there aren't a whole of repeaters and mostly they don't get a lot of traffic, but when they do, they tie up their associated simplex channel. Amateur radio has exponentially more bandwidth to play with, so that's not a significant issue.

We do not need linked GMRS repeaters for all the reasons everyone stated. A local repeater with lots of traffic can make the corresponding simplex channel pretty useless even with tones set. Even if you have tones seen on your radio, others without tones can still hear you. I can give a good example of this. The local nursing home decided to start using hand held radios on Channel 17 - 462.600 MHz. Our GMRS repeater uses the repeater channel 17 - input 467.600 MHz and output 462.600 MHz. Now I was the only one hearing the nursing home since it is only about 400 yards away from me. But the nursing home was hearing ALL traffic on the repeater. So we pretty much made the simplex channel 17 useless for the nursing home. It did not take long for the nursing home to switch to a different channel. The only time I can possibly see a need to link GMRS repeaters is during an emergency. But that won't do any good if the internet is down. Your best bet is to get your amateur general license so that you can use all of the HF bands for long distance communication. Linked 2m and 70cm repeaters are no guarantee during an emergency since they still use the internet. On a side note but still related. There has been a lot of tropospheric ducting lately causing band openings on GMRS. Over the last week or so I have been hearing quite a few GMRS repeaters on the same channel with the same tones as our GMRS repeater. Just because I can hear the other repeaters doesn't mean that they will hear me but this does cause a lot of traffic on the repeater channel that I would normally not hear.

Opportunity for the manufactures to sell more radios with "New Features" for more money.

Only a minority as far as I can tell. Rule breaking is widespread and the attitudes are entrenched.

That hope and $5 can get you a cup of coffee...

And any traffic on those eight repeater pairs also causes congestion on the eight 462 MHz main channels which are the also the fifty-watt simplex channels because they share the same frequencies.

@Linuxnut79 - the FCC actually was looking for suggestions for how to simplify regulations. You might want to look into that. Also, having linked repeaters causes congestion locally whilst relying on the internet for greater distances. What happens when the ISPs go down? If you’re truly interested in SHTF long distance radio communications that is designed to survive loss of local services (and overuse of the internet backbone) you should investigate HF.

A tad more communication distance of usable audio because of the noise factor. With 3 1/2 watts that equates to almost a 1/4 mile more in Farz.

Wikipedia is getting screwed up by A.I.

Bert, You forget TWO Important Facts that didn't occur to you before you wrote that. 1. GMRS is intended to be a Short range communication service, Not meant for nationwide comms. 2. you Only have 8 Repeater pairs in which to operate repeaters on, which is approx. 180 mhz. bandwidth. WHY would someone 200 miles away have to be Forced to listen to traffic by a couple of operators on a linked system, not even in their area ? After you get 4 or 5 Linked networks across the U.S. saturating the 8 Repeater pairs we're allowed to use for the entire country, the signal to noise ratio goes UP, sometimes even creating interference for low power or Local repeaters. My suggestion to you, is IF you want to enjoy Long Distance Comms state to state, maybe take the test for your Technician Amateur Radio License, then you could operate on Many of the LEGAL Linked repeater systems we're Allowed to operate ? Both the Two meter and 70 Centimeter { Vhf and Uhf } bands have More than enough Bandwidth to support many Linked systems. Gmrs does Not have the Bandwidth needed to allow linking. I hope this sheds some light for you.

^^ THIS ^^ in a nutshell... Linking would completely occupy any given frequency pair, making it unavailable to most other users in the coverage area. It would not take many linked repeater owners to monopolize all of the repeater channels in any area. Even ham radio, with it's many more available repeater frequencies, seldom links distant repeaters for longer than it takes to run a net. Some clubs run repeaters in two locations on different frequencies and permanently link their own, but it is still very local and only two transmitters. W3VPR does this with their 2m system, almost doubling their footprint. Others link between 2m and 70cm, but again, it's local and limited. I am seeing this desire to link with many new GMRS users here and I think that some of the appeal is to increase capability on an intentionally limited service due to the lax licensing requirements. "Limited service" and "lax requirements" go hand in hand. Anyone wishing to have longer range capability than GMRS currently offers should investigate Amateur Radio, which allows greater power, much more flexibility in frequencies and equipment. The FCC dropped the Morse Code requirement and the entry-level 'Technician' license exam is relatively easy.

Shot yourself in the foot right there.... if its a short distance use class, linking repeaters makes it no longer short distance....

You're probably accurate on that, but Wikipedia doesn't make it entirely clear that GMRS existed before '87: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Mobile_Radio_Service#History

To quote Steely Dan “no static at all” Perhaps an exaggeration but clearer audio I’m guessing and some might see the lack of traffic as a plus. Just a thought.

So what is the advantage if any, of FM CB over AM CB?