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MERRY CHRISTMAS, Good wishes to all at this forum.

handy sites / tools for the hobby I like this one also https://www.ve2dbe.com/rmonline_s.asp

I think you may be unfairly characterizing the previous comment. I believe @WRAF213 was quoting the FCC’s own comments as a way of shining light on what might and might not be views and proposals the FCC would be open to entertaining. He did not claim to support or reject those views. My own personal view is that this discussion has pretty much served its purpose and it is now time to let it go before we reach the point of Godwin’s law: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

Here's some excerpts from the FCC's 2017 rule change discussion: The only way I see digital voice happening on GMRS is by creating a new service that's like GMRS but not, and digitizing from the start; type-certified equipment from the 1960s is probably still in use today, and there's no reason to fix what ain't broke. But since we're speaking purely in hypotheticals here: On the day pigs fly and there's a NPRM for digital voice (which is probably going to be a easily licensed 6.25 kHz modulation not common in commercial equipment (dPMR)), we suggest this as a rule: 462.675 MHz with a 141.3 Hz subaudible tone is officially recommended as a traveler's information channel, and no digital is allowed in the 25 kHz band centered at 462.675 MHz? In reality, I would expect more digital voice exclusions, since analog repeaters would receive interference from any of four ultra-narrowband channels. It will actually have the effect of further overcrowding already overcrowded channels, since the new equipment will be purely interference to all existing equipment and only unidirectionally interoperable in the best case. To properly monitor the analog side, the ultra-narrowband receivers would need to either switch rapidly between the narrowband channel center on a 12.5 kHz step, and the ultra-narrowband channel center on a 6.25 kHz step, requiring a complicated and fairly expensive receive structure that would introduce additional confusion for the licensed-by-rule family members covered under the licensee's callsign. GMRS is already complicated enough, given the FRS/GMRS combination radio debacle. There's a whole list of reasons why DV, regardless of bandwidth, will never happen.