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I recently went on a 5 hour road trip in the Pacific Northwest. There was not a lot of activity on GMRS. Occasionally I would hear FRS users talking to each other or kids goofing around with the radios. I did pick up a few conversations on some repeaters that I am not familiar with along the way. One of the repeaters that I am familiar with I called out but did not receive any responses back. I was not really surprised about this. My experience with GMRS is very similar to amateur radio along the same route on I-90. There is not very much radio chatter on repeaters or the calling frequencies for amateur radio. Next time I might have a few magnetic decals that I can stick to the back of my vehicle that show the channel on GMRS that I am monitoring or the frequency that I am monitoring for the amateur radio service.

Currently fishing on the bering sea, don't think I'm going to be talking to anyone out here...

I've had my ham call for 37 years and my GMRS for only 6 years. I still pick up the wrong mic occasionally and put out the wrong bloody call sign... <oops>

Start with a good quality 1/4 wave antenna on an NMO mount. If you find there are stations that you hear, but weakly, then try a 3db gain of some type. Lots of recommendations on the forum. But, most likely, you will be fine with the 1/4 wave.

Sounds fairly straight forward as long as the radio isn’t bricked.