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I think you may want to to step back for a moment and look at the reason there is GMRS. In other words, it is not a service intended for hobbyists (like amateur radio), casual ad-hoc communications (like CB) or commercial operations. Not to say it can't be used for those ends, just that's not the intended purpose. So, if someone wants to set up a repeater, it is really up to them as to how they set it up, including allowing other users access to the system at all. In that light, my take is if it works for the owner, that's all that counts. And, in a free market economy, the GMRS radio manufacturers' success depends on their ability to meet the needs of the market as a whole and that is likely to be driven by how the FCC defined the service in the first place. If someone got into GMRS because they thought it would be a "better CB," sooner or later they are likely to be disappointed. Just my 2¢ worth.

@berkinet wins the prize for being the first to notice.

The BTech GMRS-V1 is capable of being programmed with split TX/RX tones.

I miss being out west. Almost unlimited wheeling. And generally people took care of what we had. OHV parks arent my cup of tea but thats all we have in Texas. Public land is a rarity here. I spend a lot of time in Arkansas around the Ouachita Ntl Forrest. Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

Mostly Jeeping in the mountains of West Virginia and Pennsylvania. http://fiveguysracing.com/marc/HardRock/Rubi_W_Lift.jpg http://fiveguysracing.com/marc/RauschCreek/June_2018/images/20180616_115106.jpg http://fiveguysracing.com/marc/RauschCreek/June_2018/images/Image12.jpg

Hey Marc, What kind of wheeling do you do? My wife and I have a pair of Arctic Cat Wildcat 1000 X's.

Welcome! I have to say, I got into GMRS for going Offroad with friends of mine... but this forum has really got me digging into GMRS more and more. The folks here are a pretty good group. I have several MTX400 radios. 1 had an issue and Midland fixed it in just a few days with a replacement. The only down falls I have found is, its only narrow band and features are minimal. It really seems like a "Welcome to GMRS 101" radio. You should enjoy it... but when the bug bites, you will be looking for an upgrade. LOL

Great suggestion. Great summary of your post too. You reminded me of two items I would like to touch base on again, as well as expand on something else you touched on. First... for non-licensed options, CB radio should not be over looked. It is still HF and when configured properly, you can get outstanding simplex communications, even with the low power restrictions. I have a Galaxy CB with AM and SSB. I have a properly tuned antenna transmission line and a perfect match on a 1/4 wave ground plain antenna (113.5"). On AM with 1 watt RMS carrier and 2 watt RMS modulated power, on a properly tuned system, I am getting 13-15 miles in rough terrain. On SSB, with 11 watts peek power, I am able to talk 22-26 miles, depending on the weather conditions, in that same rough terrain. The second item is, don't be afraid to include a GMRS repeater; even if repeaters in the area have been destroyed in the past. When I was an emergency volunteer, I had a two dedicated, stand-alone mobile repeaters in my truck. One VHF and one UHF. I could either run them from wherever I parked, or I could dead-drop them anywhere with their own batteries and then drive to where I needed to work. Each unit was in a vented container that kept weather off of it, twin 115 amp sealed lead-acid batteries and a 35' portable antenna tower with an omnidirectional antenna AND directional beam antenna to support local repeater comms and long-range point to point comms. The portability is a very affordable add-on to any low power repeater. On 10 watt low power with 50%-60% duty cycle, they lasted for days before the batteries needed to be recharged. Even 50 watt mode, they would run on batteries for more than 24 hours before needing to be recharged. HAM Response - I used to be an assistant emergency coordinator with ARES and answered directly to our local county government Emergency Coordinator. I am NIMS and ICS certified. I think one of the reasons Amateur Radio emergency response seems overly complex for first responder support is because groups and services like ARES are NOT first responders. ARES and groups like them are focused on supporting multiple municipality, mass casualty events and we bring in all aspects of technology to support extended operations in extended responses. The Northeast Blackout of 2003 and Katrina are great examples. We provided phone, video, internet, radio, formal traffic, responder escorts, etc. We had to be not only self sufficient, but able to provide a service in areas and conditions that are worse than being in wilderness with no outside resources. In a situation where OP is discussing... none of that is initially needed and grossly over-complicates the main objective of notification of an inbound crisis that is either occurring or about to occur. That is why the ENS was created. A simple alert system on commonly used platforms; radio, TV and smartphones. Once the event has occurred, that's when the more complex solutions need to be brought in.

Thank you for sharing the link to the Emergency Preparedness series. However, after looking it over, I have to say it seems based on a number of unstated assumptions - many of which I believe are untrue. There also seems to be an implied prejudice towards a hierarchical communications model and the use of amateur radio. The fundamental problem with any system that relies on ham radio is the requirement for licensed operators at every operating location. As you noted, getting people to get even the most basic Technicians license is a non-starter. There is also some assumption that Part 97 operations will offer a richer set of communications options. However, in practice. unless you live in some very isolated area, and particularly for the type of system you say you want to create, the only Part 97 options would be VHF (2M) and UHF (0.7M). When you add an uneven terrain, into the mix the difference between VHF and UHF is pretty much nil. Because GMRS allows repeater operations, as far as practical operations go, it is pretty much the same as Part 97 UHF. The main differences lie in the options available for linking repeaters via radio. GMRS is limited to use of the assigned GMRS channels for radio links, amateur is not. However, in a semi-isolated area like the Sierra Foothills that should not be a problem. If you use GMRS you can flatten the model shown in the Emcomm Doc you linked to and allow communications directly between the Community coordinators and the emergency service providers. Though, you may still need to provide staffing for the service provider sites as they will probably be unwilling to manage communications back to the community. At $7 per year ($70 for 10 years) cost is really not an issue. Or, looking at it from another view, if $7 a year is keeping people away from your system, you have some serious issues to deal with before you even think about radio. What I have written above is not simply theoretical. Take a look at BeCERTAINN in Berkeley, CA. This organization which provides pretty much what you describe in your first post, but just within the city of Berkeley, now has over 40 GMRS licensed participants, most of whom got their license for the sole purpose of participating in BeCERTAINN. Hams have a, rather unfortunate, predilection for making things more technically and organizationally complex than they need to be. For immediate response emergency systems that is the opposite of what you want. You want simple and easy with the least amount of equipment and the smallest number of operators and transactions necessary to make the system work. As shown in the emcomm doc, it takes 4 people, two of whom must be licensed hams, to pass a message from a home to a service provider. By basing a system onGMRS, that number drops to two or three and no ham licenses are needed. I strongly suggest that GMRS + maybe one of the following, FRS/CB/MURS/Paper-notes/voice, is what you really need.

Two people have already given you the answer to your question: One or more repeaters, possibly connected together using simplex links. This will give you wide-area coverage without the need for iffy message relaying. A single well placed repeater could easily cover 300 to 400 square miles. Motorola GR1225s are available for around $500 (make sure the finals are good) and MTR2000s for not much more. Personally, I'd go with the MTR2000. You can also build your own out of a pair of half decent HTs. If you do decide to build out a repeater network DO NOT BUY THE MIDLAND RADIOS. They only do narrow-band and for best performance, you will want to take advantage of the GMRS rules and use wide-band for your repeaters.

While they will both TECHNICALLY work in the GMRS band, I believe the type 1 is Part-95 certified for use on GMRS, but the type 2 is not. Check the FCC ID numbers of both. Source: Type 1 https://fccid.io/K4437313210 Type 2 https://fccid.io/K4437313220

Thats nice but pricey lol. Also I don't have a MOL account (I cant even figure out how to get one) making it difficult to get software, but it is nice to hear Motorola finally moved forward with their software accessibility lol. I still remember the DOS window and the big black box that needed its own power supply.

I use TK880's for mobile units, mostly because the MOL software is a pain to get (And at times requires an out of date OS and a RIB depending on how old the radio is) Kenwood TK880's come in 25 and 50 watt models and the software is easy to get at a low price. The software also can be run on windows 10, and the cable is simple as well (No complicated RIB or anything) I've gotten all three 880's for less than $50, though one or two of them needed some cleaning. To reduce the number of programs I use, I ordered the 380 series portables which use the same software as the 880 mobiles. The only thing I dont like is that you can only store 10 "Tones" for CTCSS/DCS that you can select. I have the travel tone set in there and a few other codes for use when I travel. Outside of that the radios work really nice.