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Welcome @Maghunter Neither of you have to start with your call sign. You can just push the PTT and use each other’s names. “Hi Dennis, this is grandpa.” Every 15 minutes and when ending a transmission or series of transmissions you are also required to ID. You can include some other identifier, which could be a letter, number, name, or pretty much anything you want: “Wrom258 - grampa”, but you’re not required to. Exactly the same on a repeater.

I think the fairly common rule prohibiting political speech on a privately owned repeater is a good one that makes repeater use more enjoyable for most users. That has nothing to do with being “big headed” or forgetting which country a person lives in. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution never has guaranteed that anybody can say anything anywhere at any time. When we use someone else’s repeater we need to be considerate of the rules.

Honestly where do I begin with this thread? Do I delete it all? Censor the language? Remove the inflammatory posts? Or do I leave it up because @SteveShannon and others have a therapeutic way of handling this argument and we are so close to getting 2 people to apologize and let things cool naturally. In that case, the lesson in putting aside our differences, on the Internet of all places, would be so much better than leaving the profanity and the references to disabled people. Hopefully you guys can pause, come to a gentlemanly agreement to disagree at the very least, and apologize. Right now that kind of resolution would do the country, and the world, a bunch of good right now. We need more of that before we descend into another civil war some day.

Wrong on both counts. I have several seats of RT Software and there are some very serious bugs in those seats which manipulate linked tables of DMR zones and groups that can completely corrupt a codeplug. Having said that I will continue using RT Systems software, avoiding those features which corrupt memory. As far as Chirp goes although it is free, it is no sketchier than any other software I’ve used and the developer is very responsive. I’ll continue using it as well. As far as triggering malware detection software I’ve seen false positives on several different CPS programs by various antivirus programs. The reason is heuristic detection. It works by watching for snippets of software that resemble malware. Programs intended to program radios match that pattern, even though they don’t have actual malware embedded. That has been discussed before; it’s not new.

This ^ is the best advice.. Unfortunately too many people react, argue, complain, etc, etc, over the air and that is the exact kind of attention most jammers want. If you ignore them and pretend like they aren't even there, and just talk over/around them, without any reaction, they often/usually get bored and go somewhere else to get attention.. Much like a spoiled child.

My wife told me NOT TO speak to her in that tone. I switched and haven't heard from her since! What can I do?

couple years ago my grandson went on a week long fishing trip with us near and around Mammoth Lakes.. I always set up a portable GMRS repeater when we go camping and of course he ended up with one of my spare Baufangs.. Today he is 22 years old and now holds a General and studying for his Extra. He doesn't even mess with GMRS anymore,, He's into 80,40 & 30 meter stuff.. Occasionally he will ping into my GMRS repeater to say hi.. I'm proud to say, i gave him the bug

You forgot to say GMRS can cause excessive spending on new radios and antennas.

If you consider how many people the FCC has gone after for "illegally" sharing a GMRS callsign, or, how many GMRS users the FCC has gone after for.. anything... You might find a little "wiggle room" .. But if you're worried about it after doing your research, you could just have the non-licensed members use FRS radios and the licensed members use GMRS radios.. That is, assuming they don't need to use a repeater.

I brought this up in a ham meeting to a guy that is very anti-Baofeng. I said "you got to get one now!" He just stared at me in silence like I had two heads.

I agree with you that a good thoughtful and civil discussion can be had, but politics is one subject that you are guaranteed to offend at least 50% of the population. You combine that with people that have never learned how to respect people that have a different viewpoint than theirs. These trends are getting more pronounced as generations move forward. It's evident that this segment of people have never learned civility, respect for others, conflict resolution, discussion and debating skills to move them forward positively in society. This phenomena can be traced back to the introduction of the internet and social media where the users had the option to "unfriend" or block other users. While this, on the surface, sounds like a great feature, it impeded the user to develop and evolve emotionally to deal with difficult situations. All that being said, why would you not want to abide by the repeater owner's charter? If they don't allow this type of discussions, why is so difficult to show respect? I find life is so much easier for all members on the repeater when we respect each other by not discussing things you know if going to offend others that might not have developed skills to deal with it. It's simple, have fun and be respectful.

Ahh, I see. Here is where it blew up overnight. As someone whose wife is confined to a wheelchair I can absolutely understand why a person with a kid in a wheelchair would feel upset about a comment that uses a kid in a wheelchair as a simile for being helpless. Until a loved one has been in that situation you might not get it, but having a loved one disabled does make us more sensitive about things we might otherwise have understood differently. But I don’t think that Randy went to the extent of finding out that your child was in a wheelchair and deliberately chose that as a way to goad you personally. I think it was just one of those insensitive comments that people make. I understand Ken being upset about the language also. How about we all go wrap gifts or something and take a mental health break. The unfortunate thing is you are people who might actually like each other in different circumstances, but because you’re only seeing that one sharp edge that’s being presented that’s where your focus is.

That machine is one of mine - it's not well documented, but if you use app_rpt (asterisk/allstar/hamvoip/etc.) as the repeater controller it supports MDC decoding and can be configured to behave accordingly. The software can map MDC to DTMF instructions and macros, and DTMF codes can be used to establish an access table (dtmfkey=yes), so that's how you get the two systems to work together. It can also do things like automatically link or reconfigure based on MDC statusing, so it has use cases outside of access control. Use of MDC was encouraged; the member website automatically generated random PTT ID codes for every member (existing and new), and automatically uploaded the keylist to the repeater system every 15 minutes. Users without MDC capable radios were able to use DTMF PTT-ID which worked too, just slower and not as reliable in noisier signals. The area that machine covers had a lot of issues with bad behavior on high-profile repeaters, so this was our way to send a message and clean things up fast; it worked very well for that. We had it on for about a year, and its since been disabled to make programming easier for new users, its stayed relatively clean since. Once you have it configured it's really easy to turn on-and off, literally one line of code, we had considered propagating to the rest of the repeaters on our system but haven't had a real need to just yet so make life easy for the non-problem areas it was kept off. The other benefit is that every user's keyup is logged; it made it really clear who some of the chronic kerchunkers were and they were contacted directly to knock it off (wait you can tell it was me?? :shockedpicachu:)

I bought one of these cheap, Chinese spectrum analyzers and I was pretty successful in tuning the flat pack duplexers. I tried tuning one, then took ot to a local guy that had REAL equipment and he was surprised at how close I had it tuned. They are a pain to work with though! https://www.ebay.com/itm/353219998270?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=_4IuJVqfS0m&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=0zihXCkJQWG&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY This will give you an idea of what it looks like while tuning

I'm really encouraged when I see young people showing up at Ham swaps. I would like to see more. It proves Ham radio isn't dead.

GMRS is a great way to get kids into radio. And that is one of the many reasons we installed a GMRS repeater. It is a good way to get new people into radio, and they might end up also getting their amateur radio licenses in the process. I doubt that a 9 year old would be bothered about talking on a repeater as long as he gets to talk to grampa. We have a 7 year old that gets on our GMRS repeater to talk to his papa and grammy all of the time. He also enjoys talking to others on the repeater. And the rest of us always smile when he gets on the air. Go ahead and try hand held radios. You both might get into a repeater just fine and even be able to talk to each other on simples. Or you can always setup mobile antennas (on cookie sheets) or base antennas and still be fine with HT's The 7 year old uses an HT with a home made j pole antenna inside his house that his papa built. They live both live about 7.5 miles away from the repeater. He gets into the repeater just fine with the j pole inside.

There are a few websites on this topic, but I just had a fun experience and thought I'd mention here what was involved. Background: The ISS operates an amateur repeater. The downlink for that repeater is at 437.8000 MHz. What you will hear on that repeater is mostly people trying to make DX contacts through the repeater. As an example, if I can hit the repeater 400 miles away, and someone else can respond back, from 400 miles away, we could have 800 miles between us (not counting the 260 mile trip to space and back). An 800 mile contact over VHF through a single repeater is kind of cool, so amateurs are working this repeater constantly as it passes near enough to reach. Today's pass, the one I heard, was never any closer than Calgary, Canada (I'm in Salt Lake City). The measuring tool on Google Earth put the land distance at about 850 miles. And if you calculate the hypotenuse of 850 miles base plus 260 miles elevation that's about 888 miles. Accounting for the curvature of the earth changes the angle of that 260 mile leg, changing the shape of the triangle, and making the hypotenuse (the distance from me to the ISS) closer to 950 miles. I wasn't trying for contact; I assumed it was too far away, which it probably was for my setup. But I started hearing it before it hit the west coast of British Columbia, Canada, and kept hearing it all the way to New Brunswick. That's well over 2400 miles maximum distance. How do you know you're hearing the ISS repeater? First, you'll hear it starting to show up at the approximate fly-by time here: https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/tracking_map.cfm Next, you'll notice that the transmission is coming in off-center from the downlink frequency. This is due to the Doppler effect of the ISS moving 17,000+ miles per hour. Today when I first started hearing it, it was coming in at 437.8065 MHz, and by the time it faded out, I was listening on 437.7935 MHz. That's a 13kHz Doppler shift (+6500Hz to -6500Hz). Sensing that Doppler shift pass from above the center frequency to below the published center frequency is a dead giveaway you're dealing with the ISS moving 17500MPH. But here's what's cool, in my mind. My setup wasn't extravagant: RTL-SDRv4 (<$40) with SDR++ software (free). Cheap no-name (<$20) inline linear amplifier powered by the Bias-T setting of the SDR. And the big massive antenna? Hold onto your britches: Comet CA2X4SR-NMO mobile antenna ($80) mounted on a Midland magnetic mount ($30) stuck to an old 16" square steel griddle. Laptop computer to run the SDR and its software. Total cost (excluding laptop): $170, all of which I have cobbled together already. My technique was just to look up the fly-over time, and set the SDR++ software to just a few kHz high, then start watching the waterfall and listening. When I started seeing the FM signal in the waterfall I centered on it and listened. And by watching the waterfall I was able to continually adjust the frequency center through the fly-over until it was out of range. It was amazing to me that I was able to follow it all the way from the west coast of Canada to the east coast, and that I did it with a simple mobile antenna just sitting on the window sill -- not even a yagi. I wasn't expecting to hear anything at this time since it never got closer than about 950 miles. The pile-up on the frequency was pretty heavy, so I imagine the people getting through are using good, directional antennas to transmit with. I don't expect to be able to get a contact out of it without a directional antenna. But it was impressive to me today to be able to hear it over such a great distance.

Make sure the FRS radio doesn't have a tone set on the RX

I've used ebay with caution, and https://used-radios.com/ is an actual radio shop, so what they sell works.

The regulations say nothing about being in the same household. They simply say: Any individual who holds an individual license may allow his or her immediate family members to operate his or her GMRS station or stations. Immediate family members are the licensee's spouse, children, grandchildren, stepchildren, parents, grandparents, stepparents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and in-laws. But they do require that the licensed individual retain control of his/her stations while being used by someone they have authorized.

Assuming that you are not a Government Entity or a person and/or an entity involved in basic or advance life support services, you will need to meet the eligibility requirements of Part 90.35 of the FCC Rules and Regulations. The FCC filing fees for a Radio Station Authorization (License) is $205 and that application/filing must be filed on-line. Prior to filing, you will need to file a request to register for a FCC Registration Number (FRN), if you do not already have one. I assume that you already have a FRN because in order to be on this forum you need a GMRS license and that number will be on your license. If you are filing for a mobile itinerant frequency(ies) or an approved low-power allocated frequency you will not need to have your application/filing coordinated/approved by an appropriate authorized Frequency Coordinator. If you are filing for non-itinerant mobile and/or Base or Repeater Class Station Radio Station Authorization, you will need to have your filing/application coordinated by the appropriate Frequency Coordinator and approved. The Frequency Coordinator fees are separate and inaddition to any FCC filing fees. Some coordinators have posted their fees on their websites In most cases, if you are applying for a specific frequency or a pair of frequencies, you will need to submit a radio communication propagation study/coverage plot map with the required contour plot study. You will need to provide the technical data regarding your transmitter site location, tower height, antenna placement height at the tip, output power, antenna height above the average terrain, and maybe a radiation exposure study. Also, you may be requested to provided a frequency interference study depending on the requirements of transmitter site. It my be best to let the Frequency Coordinator select an usable Frequency for your requested coverage area. It is my understanding that the FCC will not longer approve any filings/applications for Statewide coverage. They (FCC) expects filers/applicants to apply for and use itinerant frequencies for statewide coverage. Filings/applications for a specific geographical area will only be granted with a specific radius from a center point and that point must be exactly identified. Don't forget to specify all the emissions types you intend to transmit with in your filing/application. You will be regulated to the listed allocated narrowband frequencies with their respective restrictions/conditions in the Part 90.35 radio service pool. Get your Visa/Mastercard ready.

That's how you can tell its an echo-chamber. Anyway - back on topic: On MY repeater, and the club-repeater that we used to have, we had ONE rule: NO discussion of religion or politics. The reason is because everyone knows that nothing good can ever come of it - NOBODY's mind will suddenly be changed, and generally (99% of the time) it just degenerates into name calling/anger/stupidity/ranting - 100% of the time nothing constructive comes out of it. On my repeater when this occurs the repeater gets put into what we call "F-Off mode" - which is a nice way of saying it gets remotely powered-off.

You snooze you lose. If you pick a channel and then don't use it and someone else decides by monitoring that this channel is open then it's not his problem. You can't claim a channel. And if you aren't using the repeater for days or weeks on end then the other repeater isn't causing interference. You can't interfere with something that's basically on standby for weeks on end. Who does he think he is? The government?

He's a clown that does not know what he's talking about and a shill that only says what his Chinese handlers tell him to say. I saw a licensed H.A.M. radio operator proclaim all this right here in this forum so it must be true because the guy had a license!

The day is young.

Eight frequencies have been designated in regulations for repeaters to transmit upon. They are the same eight frequencies used by both FRS and GMRS for simplex communications and they are numbers 15-22 in the FRS regulations: (a) 462 MHz main channels. Only mobile, hand-held portable, repeater, base and fixed stations may transmit on these 8 channels. The channel center frequencies are: 462.5500, 462.5750, 462.6000, 462.6250, 462.6500, 462.6750, 462.7000, and 462.7250 MHz. Eight other frequencies, 5 MHz higher in frequency, have been designated by regulation for transmission by stations wishing to transmit to a repeater for relay by the repeater: (c) 467 MHz main channels. Only mobile, hand-held portable, control and fixed stations may transmit on these 8 channels. Mobile, hand-held portable and control stations may transmit on these channels only when communicating through a repeater station or making brief test transmissions in accordance with § 95.319(c). The channel center frequencies are: 467.5500, 467.5750, 467.6000, 467.6250, 467.6500, 467.6750, 467.7000, and 467.7250 MHz. All GMRS certified radios pair the eight channels in those two groups into repeater pairs. Thus, a radio transmitting to a repeater on 467.5500 MHz receives from that same repeater on 462.5500 MHz. The FCC did not assign channel numbers to the repeater pairs in the GMRS regulations, but they did assign numbers to the first 22 channels in the FRS regulations https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-D/part-95/subpart-B Because channels 15-22 (462 MHz main channels) are dual purpose, as shared simplex channels for FRS and GMRS and as repeater output channels, some manufacturers refer to the repeater pairs as RP15 - RP22. Others simply continue the numbering sequence by referring to the repeater pairs as channels 23-30. Other call them repeater channels 1-8. The best thing to do is to be aware of the frequencies allocated in regulation and learn what your radio manufacturer calls them.

I just saw a video on the Youtube that explains this exact question:

Some Nagoyas are counterfeits made in China. If you got a genuine Nagoya that isn't superior, that is unusual. Contacts made thru repeaters are often poor for comparisons because repeater antennas are often mounted much higher than is practical with HT or mobile units AND repeater receivers are dramatically better radios than HT's. A much better test is simplex HT to HT.

We had a kid that was using his grampa's radio without permission. He kept getting on the repeater using CB lingo. We ignored him. Then he tried using a totally made up call sign. Again we ignored him. Then he was dumb enough to use his grampa's call sign. One of our members then started talking to him. We got his grampa's name and address from the call sign. We then send an email to the grampa. We haven't heard the kid on the air since. We have had instances of kerchunkers bouncing from our GMRS and 2m repeaters in quick succession. Again we ignore them while members try pin point the person's location. We have found a couple and just the threat of FCC fines was enough to stop them. We also programmed our repeater controllers with an anti-kerchunk feature. It keeps the people that just push the PTT in for a second from even opening up the repeater. That has took the wind out of a few kerchunkers sails. Sometimes a cease and desist letter is enough to stop people and other times it's not. A cargo van with a bunch of mag mount antennas on the roof parked across the street is enough to stop some people too.

First thing is NOT giving them what they want, which is to be recognized and acknowledged for what they are doing. If at all possible, when the show up and there is a conversation going on, continue the conversation without commenting on the problem. Keep right on talking. If one of you gets covered up by the guy, DO NOT directly say that. Claim it's noise, or something else. If possible have a conversation going on a different channel so that it seems transparent. But DON'T say anything that gives them recognition. That is what they want. If you clear the frequency, again the person 'wins' by default. Don't let that happen. If needs be, get several other people into the conversation. Get a conference call going on telephones so everyone knows whats being said. And just keep talking like the person isn't even there. This will frustrate them the most. If they aren't having any effect, they will go find someone else to screw with. Make sure when they get on initially, ask them to REPEAT their call sign. Act like it's just another conversation. Act like they are having sign issues if you do this. Tell them they aren't making the repeater very well and advise them to try again when they get closer. Mention that they might want a better antenna. This is regardless of how good their signal is. Full quieting or not. THey are weak and barely making the repeater. But address them the same as you would anyone else that had a poor signal and them tell them to give you a call once they get closer. Throw your call and wait. That typically will confuse them and again cause them to be frustrated. I can't explain the mentality of folks that do this. And I use to do it all the time to certain individuals on CB because they had it coming. But to take time out of your day to just be an asshole. I don't follow that thought process, and I even identify as an offensive asshole, so I speak from some level of experience here. But DON'T give them ANY level of satisfaction if you can help it. If you aren't showing any level of frustration with them, they will be more frustrated than you are. They are looking for a captive audience. Don't be one.

Nothing, short of triangulating his position by using either old-school methods or a Kraken tracker, then beating his ass in front of his family can be done. And, just for clarification, reporting him to the FCC will also result in... nothing happening,IRREGARDLESS of what "some people" will try to tell you - just look through the public FCC enforcement record and you will see that the FCC stopped caring about 12 years ago.

Hello Matt, you probably know that GMRS is line of sight so you likely will know better than anyone what that looks like between your place and your grandsons. This tool may help you see what that looks like. Power will help but more important is antenna height. I say give it a try. It looks like you have a couple repeaters near you listed as open so that’s pretty great. Good luck and 73s.

Power and Line Of Sight is not straight forward enough for a blanket statement. Which is why so many answers are prefaced with "it depends."

Stopped in less than 5 minutes of his hour long video when he said power can overcome line of sight. If you want to be taken seriously you just CANNOT tell people this.

OK, been meaning to explain this and this is a good time. The commercial guys here will all tell you there are three tests that we perform when installing a new repeater system out in the field. First test is 12dB sinad with the service monitor connected to the duplexer wit no antenna. Second test is for something called isolation. We drop the input signal down to where the repeater squelches, or stops transmitting and then increase the signal slowly until the receiver just opens back up. What we then look for is the repeater to drop again when the transmitter comes up and then drop back out. If the duplexer isn't tuned correctly, the repeater will 'ping pong' up and down because the TX frequency is getting into the receiver and deafening it to some degree. If it does start to ping pong, we increase the signal level in in TENTH's of a dBm until it stops. At that point, we usually stop the testing, touch up the duplexer tuning and run through all the tests again. The last test is antenna desense. An isolation Tee is connected to the duplexer antenna port and a dummy load is then connected to the output. The tap port has signal injected on it to the point the receiver opens and the signal level is noted. Then the signal is removed, and the dummy load is unhooked and the antenna is connected. The signal is injected again on the tap and increased to the point that the receiver opens again. The difference in the required signal level is the antenna desense for that antenna and repeater system at that site. Now, here's how that applies to what YOU are seeing. With the 12dB Sinad test, you need to understand what that measurement is. That being a ratio of signal to noise in the receiver. Here's a good explanation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SINAD But it's NOT the minimum signal level that the repeater can hear and open up. That is actually the LAST test (antenna desense) where the signal level is just above the noise floor enough for the receiver to recognize it and hear the PL /DPL. On a repeater running CSQ, the level is going to be lower, because it doesn't need to hear the tone above the noise, just the RF. These readings are gonna be 6 to 12 dB different in their levels. And the basis of where I make the statements about needing to be able to increase signal level a BUNCH to get a noisy signal to be full quieting. It's not a watt or two, unless you are only running 1 watt or less to begin with. That's based on using dB and specifically dBm numbers for power output in place of watts. An example is 30dBm is 1 watt, 33 dBm is 2 watts, 36dBm is 4 watts. on the upper end, 50dbm is 100 watts and 53dBm is 200 watts. So when you look at it that way, and start realizing that to go from just opening a repeater receiver at -119dBm to 12 dB SINAD at -110dBm or so, that 9dB signal level change is HUGE in the percentage of power change when you convert it back to watts. And the best part is you can calculate all this if you have the information about the equipment in play. You need the antenna model (so you know the gain) the coax type and length (to calculate the cable loss) the number and type of jumpers (again cable loss) the duplexer model (insertion loss). Then you need YOUR power level in watts (converted to dBm) and your antenna system numbers as well. The last part is the distance between the antenna's to calculate something called PATH LOSS. With all that you can calculate what the actual signal is at the repeater input from your radio transmitter from miles away. And yes, I have tested this and found that it's accurate within a dB or two. The difference is from signals that bounce off other things and arrive out of phase to the antenna and cancel put part of the signal. This is called Rayleigh effect. (Again, go look it up, NOT typing it all out) but that also explains sitting in traffic and the repeater fading out. Moving 2 feet and the repeater signal coming back.

Normally you'll be fine if you accidentally press the PTT without an antenna. But in rare cases...

No. Licenses are issued to individuals only in the Personal Radio Services. However, you can use FRS freely within your group.

On a Tupperware lid.

That's why I prefer something like this over a UV-5r (which right now is cheaper than the 27V) for events or groups. Pick it up, turn the knob, and you're up and running. You can't accidentally lock/unlock the keypad, enter the menu, enter VFO mode, etc. Most people don't care about all the whiz-bang features of the radio, and if you give them something complicated, it'll just confuse them.

Merry Christmas!

Ok, so I dug the mag mount antenna out and tested that as well as retesting the others. Here's what I got this morning: Mag Mount: SWR 1.19, 45 Watts Ghost: SWR 1.36, 50 Watts MXTA26: SWR 1.10, 46 Watts So apparently it was the meter or operator error . Needless to say I am both pleased with this morning's results and a bit embarrassed by my panic. I certainly appreciate you guys helping me sort this out, as well as your patience!

Could you show us a picture of your multimeter. For an open circuit it should read something like OL. Of course if you’ve got a probe in each hand it’s measuring the conductivity of your body and all bets are off. For a continuous conductor it should read in some tenths of an ohm. End to end - shield: End to end - center: center to shield - open circuit (my probe slipped while I was trying to hold it one handed to take the picture but you get the idea). It shows that it’s an open circuit (OL) and it is on the Megohm range:

They make a waterproof mic that screws down to seal to the radio.

Be aware that the 'coverage map' on the mygmrs.com web site is NOT a generated heat map like the one displayed above. It's a simple circle around the TX site that gives an average expected coverage based on path loss across flat ground. Meaning, if you look at the map for Johnstown675 on here, it ain't right, or even close, depending on the direction you are from the repeater. The map of my repeater (WRKC935 / Johnstown675) shows coverage in Pataskala, Newark, downtown Columbus, and several other area's that I have no coverage in. Those coverage holes are caused by the topography of the area. Case in point is the Granville ridge. I have good coverage on 161 / St Rt16 going east right up to the point you cross where Granville is and St Rt 16 comes in from Pataskala. After that the coverage stops for a time and then picks back up closer to Newark and continues out to St Rd 146 and further. Same thing happens going West, Works great until Little Turtle exit off 161. Then falls off getting on the 270 outer belt. But if you continue west on 161 it's good most of the way to St Rt 23 (High Street) in Worthington. Then it falls off until you get west of Columbus and then picks up until you are out to St Rt56 on I-70. I have talked from the Honda plant Northwest of Marysville, From Mechanicsburg, and from London (42 / I-70 ) from a portable. So my point is that you should NOT have an expectation that all area's in the green circle are going to work based on the mygmrs.com maps. And you are further limited due to using a handheld radio. The power is lower and the antenna's do not have the gain that a mobile or a base station would have. I say all this based on the programming that you have in your radio you posted the codeplug of. If you have the Pataskala repeater programmed, I know that machine has limited coverage in that area due to antenna height. If you are in the Pataskala area, and are having coverage issues getting into the Johnstown repeater, that's why you are having issues. I can't talk to it from Pataskala with a 50 watt mobile. The coverage just isn't there.

Being the south end of a north bound donkey?

2. Yes, the repeater owner. Unfortunately, there is no formal coordination in GMRS so coordination relies on repeater owners being proactive and considerate. 3. No, and unfortunately when it does happen this can cause issues for people who are within range of both. There are eight different repeater channels. Unless all eight are taken one of these repeater owners probably should have chosen something else.

There is probably a missing sock somewhere full of missing o-rings.

The best deal on O-Rings is Harbor Freight. You can get a box of several hundred or so of different sizes for about $7 or $8 bucks. There will be one that will fit the bottom of the antenna. Also equally important is this nifty little trick. The Power/Volume knob is real easy to turn on. It could happen inadvertently while bouncing around in a back pack or go bag and you'll have a dead battery when you need your radio the most. Solution: Pull the Power/Volume knob off. You won't hurt it. It comes straight off. There is a flat index spot for reattaching it. Slip an O-Ring over the collar of the knob and push it back down on the stem so it fits snuggly. It will create a little bit of friction so when you turn the power knob on so it doesn't turn on too easily and preventing your battery to wear down while your radio is in a back pack or go bag.