Leaderboard

I'll second that. The FCC sets specific station identification requirements for GMRS. However, identifying a station and calling a station are not the same thing. At the minimum, a family member can key the mic, simply state their call sign and then call another family member by name, nick-name, or whatever (WABC1234, hey sis, you out there?). The other family member can then key their mic, state their call sign and start talking (WABC12343, yup, wassup?). Then, at least once every 15 minutes, each person must simply state their call sign. Note that all you need to say is literally just the call sign. You don't need to say "This is WABC1234." Should you happen to be monitoring a ham station, note that while the rules are pretty much the same for ham radio (with a 10 minute interval between IDs) the common practice is to call people by their call sign rather than name. But, as is the case in GMRS, this is not required.

The Effective Radiated Power of 40 watts into a 6db gain antenna is 160 watts (If the antenna is really working as specified). A 5.5 db gain antenna would have an ERP of 142 watts. The effective difference is ~0. If you are really melting anything inside the antenna, you have something very wrong in your station setup. The Midland antenna may not be high quality, but it should definitely not melt when fed 40 watts. If this has happened with more than one antenna, I'd take a close look at the radios and power supply.

Just remember to contact the repeater owner to ask permission out of politeness. I try to do so even if it is marked as public. I like to let the owner know who is using it, that it is in use and thank them for the time they took to set it up and maintain them.

Technically by the CFR you don't even need to identify at the beginning. You could technically broadcast "Hey sis, you out there?" as long as you both identify yourself at the end of the conversation and every 15 minutes.... but the regs and etiquette are not the same I've spoken to the repeater owner and will follow their guidelines for use which is quite relaxed fortunately.

The repeater that I use runs on solar and battery for this reason Also, I'm new too, so welcome to all who are also newbies like me. I found that everything was very quiet until I jumped on a local repeater - all it took was a radio check and met some (so far) great folks on air. Don't give up if it seems quiet. Simply announce occasionally that you are listening or ask for a radio check and you might very well find someone else lurking.

Keep in mind also that in a real SHTF situation, your local repeater(s) may also be off-line because of power failure. Even if they have battery backup it will only be good for a few hours. Likewise, an on-site generator might fail or run out of fuel...

Not sure what is going on with your antenna. Maybe a short in the coax or bad nmo. What does your SWR look like, only reason I ask is because the antenna is supposably rated for 120w. Could just be a cheap chinese antenna, knowing Midland probably is. As far as the DBI goes I wouldn't strain to much on that. You probably wouldn't even notice the difference between the 6dbi and 5.5 dbi. What power level are you running at?

Thanks for the tips. We're going with ABCD123 {name} as that seems to make the most sense and allows us to listen for our names. Now to figure out the rest of the logistics and fun... There's a great repeater I can hit from the house on the handheld that I can't get most of the areas we go in the car.. so now I have to look at options to make it work in the car haha.. At least I have the callsign bit figured out!

Welcome! FRS and GMRS is getting really popular in the east coast offroad community too. While the range is not great without elevation, the quality of UHF FM comms is top-notch. Its always good to have a common use radio for brown-fan moments. It may seem like there are not many people out there, but as a former emergency comms person, you will be pretty surprised how crowded the channels get if something goes sideways.

We do things a bit different at my house. My wife and kids ID with our license number, no special designation. We call each other by name. My kids often refer to me as "Dad" while we are talking. Just plain English, normal convos. There is no requirement to ID as anything special "per station", as all stations and users in my family are covered under that ID. So, we don't. Now, me personally, I am the exception. Likely from decades of passing formal traffic and Ham contesting with clubs. If I am talking to my family members on the radio (repeater or not) and someone calls our call sign, my family will NOT respond. Rather, they wait for me to respond. Because I am the trustee/license holder, I will reply "Calling station, this is ABCD123 actual." followed by "Go Ahead" or "You're acknowledged.", and wait for following comms. If I am the only member on the air, I only ID with the call sign. Also, when there are multiple people from the family talking, they clear a frequency with the call sign, and I will clear with the "Actual" designation.

Figured I would jump in and introduce myself.. Just got my GMRS license last week.. I'm in So.California and we lead a lot of large off-road runs and more and more people are buying the bubble pack/FRS type radios so I got my license in hopes that I would be able to get a radio that would allow me to talk to them all with a higher-power radio/larger antenna for more range so I'm hoping my GMRS-V1 will do the job.. I've also been looking for local GMRS repeaters to use for SHTF situations, but not finding much in the area..

We do the same, except because we have family in two different zones, we use 1xx and 2xx. On my repeater, when someone asks to use the system, I typically assign them a set of numbers as well, which allows everyone to have different numbers. Basically, it ends up (Callsign) 101 to 103 (for family) or (callsign) 101 to 241 (someone in zone 2 outside family) So far the system works. Remember the callsign is just to identify your license to transmit on that particular frequency. Unit designation codes just identify who you are looking for