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I had assumed the first couple of responses had adequately addressed the original post. But, that seems to not be the case. So, I will give it a try... #1) GMRS and Amateur radio are two completely separate services with different applications, users and purposes. In particular, the US Amateur Radio service is based on International agreements: #2) As the FCC made clear in its response to the 2014 petition, allowing non-certified radios to be used in the GMRS "would allow for the proliferation of home-built, non-standardized transmitters in the GMRS, with no practicable way for the Commission to monitor and enforce regulatory compliance for these devices." Further, allowing licensed amateurs to operate non-certified equipment in the GMRS would provide special privileges for users of one service operating in another, completely unrelated, service. This would be an extremely slippery slope, one any regulatory agency would want to avoid. #3) Amateur Radio and GMRS each have their place in the world. I believe the FCC made the right decision. Blurring the boundary between the two would not result in any real benefit for anyone and might cause a lot of problems for both services. #4) If you really want/must use ham gear on GMRS, go ahead, nobody is really going to stop you. Take responsibility for your action and operate accordingly. Just do not expect the FCC to officially condone your actions.

I recommend 400-470 if you think you'll eventually get your Ham license or would like to monitor Ham. If not then 450-512 is fine, but I've never had a need to go past 467. They both work the same for GMRS since GMRS is just 462-467.

This is exactly my thinking as well. I currently have GMRS, 2m/70cm, and a 10m radio in my Jeep. And an antenna for each radio. I really want to add 6m, too, but 3 radios and antennas are already too much. I am thinking about getting a Yaesu FT-8900R, which is a quad-band. That will get me down to two radios and two antennas... but if we could get a radio like that to run on GMRS too, then I would be down to one radio. Instead of looking like a mobile SETI station, my Jeep would look like a Jeep.

GMRS is for families. No test, covers your whole family. No tinkering, grab a pre programmed radio and go. The downside is that the FCC limits the equipment that can be used to prevent people from plugging numbers into a radio and causing interference. There would be a lot more confusing regulations to follow if the FCC started putting all kinds of equipment exceptions for various other services, which then creates more problems than it was trying to solve for a family jist grabbing a set of radios and going. My wife and kids are not interested in Amateur radio. This allows us all to communicate with few issues.