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That is a huge step in the wrong direction, IMHO. We need FRS & GMRS to stop sharing frequencies. Let FRS be low power narrow band and give GMRS operators more wideband frequencies. I'm tired of sharing the channels with 4 and 5 year old kids screaming at their cousin who is only 30 feet away, about how much they love play dough.

Hell NO! I need me some nice good wideband.

Just do as the rest of us do, and program one good radio with channels 1-7 for low power narrow-band at 5 Watts, and channels 15-22 for high power wide-band at whatever the radio can do - 25-50 Watts. Don't even bother to put 8-14 in your radio... those are the low-power FRS channels, and should stay that way. (Those frequencies should have never been assigned in the first place, and should have been left as guard-band space between repeater inputs.) You do not need more channels. If the band is that crowded in your area, and you don't want to hear others, use CTCSS, or better yet, DCS.

I've been studying for the Technician exam for a couple of weeks now. I'm sure I could pass it right now. Last week I purchased a very good GMRS HT with full repeater capability and a mobile antenna. Listening to both GMRS and the 2 meter band on my scanner, I can not tell any difference between the efficacy of either. If you already have a good GMRS stetup, the Amateur repeater bands seem redundant. Sadly I am beginning to lose my motivation for the latter. Are the Amateur repeater bands just a somewhat glorified version of GMRS? Sure, Technician class is a stepping stone to General privileges but I am definitely not interested in HF. The equipment poses an endlessly fascinating prospect but the great majority of participants there do not appeal. Their average age seems to be about eighty, they all sound like the late great Ben Johnson (of John Wayne film fame) and only talk about their equipment or Conservative ideology which gets pretty vitriolic at times. The VHF/UHF folks are an order of magnitude more eclectic. Incidentally I am a moderate so neither paradigm appeals to any great extent. Both bands are obviously geared toward mobile communication. Neither have dedicated base rigs. I wonder how many VHF/UHF proponents actually use their mobile units for a base station. Sitting in a comfortable chair in front of a nice warm fire listening to and or commenting on casual conversations is what I am interested in. So once again I ask, Is the Technician class really worth It?

There is a tremendous amount of benefits with Amateur Radio vs. GMRS. First, lets just talk about voice. On GMRS simplex, the absolute very best you can expect from a perfect setup, is going to be about 70 miles. Likely less. That would be mobile or base. With Amateur Radio VHF and UHF, the power limits are 1500 watts with no radiated power restrictions. That means with a little elevation, you are talking coast to coast on the higher portions of VHF and the lower portions of UHF. On the lower portions of VHF, you can talk to Europe, Mediterranean, Northern Africa, etc. Even in my mobile, I can talk to NY from Virginia on VHF simplex. With things other than voice... there is no limit to what you can do beyond no encryption. If you can dream it, you can do it on amateur radio. There is APRS, which provides transceiver location services. There FLDigi which is used for texting and simple messaging. There is WinLink which is a 100% radio-based email service that allows you to email other operators as well as people on the public internet. And much, much more. The benefit of HF and MF is, the ease of global comms as you drop in frequency. I was driving around in my Jeep today on an HF frequency that Tech license holders have access to. I talked to people in 3 different countries on 2 different continents with a simple 100 watt mobile radio and a whip antenna. It's really a lot of fun. As far as a base station goes, I don't use mobile radios for base a station. I have base station radios that I use for VHF, and a VHF/UHF repeater. I talk on VHF on the base for several hours a week, sitting in my executive desk chair. As far as the quality of conversation... I can't really say much about that. I would assume there are plenty of people to talk to without getting into religion, politics, etc. I avoid them like the plague. With regard to if it's worth it... that is a personal choice that each person needs to decide for themselves. I think it is. I held my Tech license for 17+ years before I got my General and had a great time. I also think the GMRS and FRS are great radio service and fill a nice niche.

And I am sure you have much more interesting things to discuss...LOL!!

There is something called the Open Repeater Initiative or OPI. It uses 462.675 with a CTCSS Tone of 141.3Hz. The frequency was selected by a group of Repeater owners who wanted to create a standard for travelers to be able to have easy access to repeater while on the road, without having to search for a repeater or ask for permission to use it. The 141.3 tone was also selected as the "travel tone" standard. Scanning the frequencies is okay, but you may only talk for a couple of miles. Using open repeaters with "traveler" settings gives you a chance to reach the greatest number of operators for more distance and time.

And, Wouxun. Good quality, Good feature set, responsive to customers, and available right here.

The long recognized GMRS "Travel Channel" is 462.675 with a CTCSS Tone of 141.3Hz. On a Midland MicroMobile, that would be channel 20 with a "Privacy Code" of 22.

I've reached out to my reps at Midland and they said nothing new in the Spring, and nothing to announce for later in the year yet. I think any plans they had are put on hold because of the pandemic. I'd expect something out by Q1 2021 realistically.

have repaired a few antennas using heat shrink tubing worked great and cheap

Some time back I had posted my experience with four different antennas from an intentionally marginal location which was several miles from the home base and hundreds of feet lower in elevation, using Midland MXT400's at each end (running at mid power setting) and and with a GP-9 2m/440 ham antenna at 40 feet on our ridge top farm base location. The GP-9 is not optimum for GMRS due to being quite a bit off the design frequency and has nearly 2:1 SWR on the 467 channels but reasonable SWR on the 462 channels helped by the coax loss of course. Results surprised me somewhat: - 2m/440 ham antenna retuned for GMRS generally showed one bar on transmit and receive - 6" Midland stock mag mount quarter wave showed two bars and much better signal copy - so called 3 dB Midland NMO antenna showed three bars - so called 6 dB Midland NMO antenna showed four bars I read that at least one person had problems with the 6 dB antenna melting the center coil, but so far we have not had that happen with only limited transmission time when mobile. We use Midland magnetic NMO mounts on our vehicles. My wife has the MXT115 with the 3 dB antenna on top of her Equinox SUV and I have the MXT400 with the 6 dB antenna on my Malibu rear trunk lid so that we can clear the garage door. Range between vehicles is several miles and not that much different than when we used simplex on 2 meters when we use ham equipment.