All Activity

Yup, I stand corrected. FCC likes to enforce "rule." Or at least they say they do. LOL

CORRECTION: Not "illegal", but a violation of FCC rules..

OffRoaderX is correct and Like others said, charging for repeater access or a club fee is not illegal. Making it a commercial venture and profiting from it is illegal. If a person properly sets up a non-profits and "plows" back any potential profit and keeps the rest for maintenance, administration, upkeep, more repeaters etc... its not hard to do. As mentioned, be a pillar of the GRMS community, spend the thousands of dollars to set up a high quality public use repeater, hundreds to thousands a month on tower fees, set up good back up power, and put up with all the BS that goes with repeater ownership. Do you think you your thoughts on charging for access to a repeater might change a bit? Perhaps.

I know a guy here on this forum that regularly/ALWAYS gets 200+ miles on all of his radios.. He apparently does this by purchasing every radio ever made and if it does not get 200+ miles, he just throws it directly into the trash.. All of his "friends" also do the same thing, so this method obviously works.

Tropospheric ducting is more common in spring and fall when there is bigger change in temperatures between sunrise and a few hours afterwards. I live in Central Missouri and can talk to people in Springfield Illinois on GMRS when there are good openings. The distance is between 115-120 miles. We also occasionally will hear out of state repeaters using the same frequencies and tones come across our repeaters when conditions are just right. This happens on our 2m, 70cm, and GMRS repeaters.

I bought another cable that is arriving today. We will see......

Thanks

I was on GMRS. I also heard distant stations (along with local) again this morning. I let the HT scan the gmrs channels it came with. Thanks all for helping me make sense of this.

GMRS repeaters are going to have the same coverage area and range as 70cm repeaters when antenna height and locations are equal. We get 30-35 mile radius of coverage with our GMRS repeater antennas at 400 feet and 35-40 mile radius of coverage with our 70cm antennas at 900 feet. Both are on the same tower. And both 70cm and GMRS has the same dead spots when one is mobile.

No, the fact that it already shows the proper TX and RX frequencies indicates that you don’t need to do anything else with the offset.

...that can also receive VHF & UHF, including 70cm. But chances are he was a a GMRS channel and was hearing linked repeaters.

The Radioddity G30 is a GMRS Radio

"some people" are so funny, all trying to prove who's smarter over something that does not matter in any way - The FCC doesn't even care. "some people" should bicker over something that actually matters.

So - The FCC Authored The Part 95 Rules, But Cannot Interpret What They Wrote ? Also, You Are Stating That The Mobility Division Of The WTB, Which Is An Authorized Division Of The FCC, Should Not Post Rules, Regulations Or Interpretations. Don't Think So. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-395324A1.pdf https://www.fcc.gov/wireless-telecommunications

Ok thanks. So if I Rx is 467.5000 & Tx is 462.5000 I would have to have a "+ 5.000000" so it will work correct? I will a 159.8 Ct for a private line.

Are you sure you were listening on GMRS frequencies? Could the radio have been set to pick up 70cm amateur? It's a lot more common to find repeater networks in the amateur bands. It still happens in GMRS despite the FCC clarification. But if you were picking up 70cm amateur it would be less surprising.

In medicine, we use the term "necessary but not sufficient" to mean a finding has to be present in order to make a diagnosis, but by itself, it's not enough. I think of an acceptable SWR as necessary but not sufficient to a good antenna. (I'm not going to get into what SWR level is "acceptable"; that's a whole conversation by itself.) The antenna may have very good SWRs but it's just kinda crappy at transmitting. What you know from the SWR is that the antenna isn't likely to damage your radio, but it doesn't prove you can get a good signal out. A higher-gain antenna will typically be resonant on fewer frequencies than a low-gain or no-gain antenna. I have 3 antennas with similar SWR readings to yours (except for marine -- I haven't tested for that), but they're all about 18" high and provide essentially no gain. For my purposes, that doesn't matter because I use them for repeaters in the local area. I have a couple more that knock it out of the park in terms of range, but they're only resonant on 2-3 bands. I have a massive 10' tall GMRS-only antenna that could probably talk to Easter Island, but it's useless outside the GMRS frequencies. You may find that your antenna is just fine for your local area but doesn't provide enough punch for the distances you want to use it for. There may be some instrument for testing that, but the easiest way to find out is to use it and see what you get.

Maybe for Part 95, but I doubt it for Part 97. I'm waiting to see if the FCC might move to allowing digital voice on GMRS. Yeah, some hate the idea, but it happening now more or less unofficially. If the practice becomes more wide spread the FCC will do another FRS thing where FRS users failed to get GMRS licenses when using those combo radios sold at the time. They'll just throw in the towel and make it official, with some level of regulation, so they won't have to deal with the enforcement issue.

We can agree to agree on this one. Even my wife prefers my .45 to a 9 or a .380. (note - own all 3) She comes from a family of Moose hunters so very proficient with small arms.

^^^ This! Exactly this! There is nothing in the rules that explains 'why' the rule is what it is. There are several conflicting parts and sub-parts, that I have pointed out in the past, that support that 'linking' as a whole is not prohibited. Only a specific method is prohibited. Whatever is not expressly prohibited is allowed. The truth is, I may retire this year. If I do, my time would be freed up enough to stand-up a linked repeater network and then wait to see if the FCC is up to a lively debate in Federal court. I don't know if I will, but the opportunity would exist and lately I am feeling kinda spicy about government overreach. Don't get me wrong. I have no personal animosity toward anyone in the FCC for simply trying to do their job and I have no intent on purposefully and intentionally violating any federal laws or rules... but we need a court case to settle the debate. All I have seen from everyone, including the FCC staff, is conjecture and opinion based on something that is NOT written, implicitly nor implied.

I would bet linked repeaters considering you are listening on HT's. Lot's of them around

Maybe. Some repeaters have been linked, so it’s possible that’s what you’re hearing, but it’s also possible that you’re receiving them directly via a phenomena called tropospheric ducting, which can cause UHF signals to travel farther than normal distances.

Although I am not a fan of linking, what you quoted is not the written rule. That’s the FCC interpretation of the written rules. It does reference the actual rules it interprets (95.1733 and 95.1749) however.

AS long as you are following the guidelines, then GMRS is for what ever you want to use it for. There is no right or wrong way to use GMRS as long as the rules/guidelines re followed.

The internet has loads of strangers you can chat with. But what do you do with people you already know while doing an activity. Thats what gmrs is for. Anything else just goobers up the limited frequencies for people that actually use it correctly