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Yea.... just not seeing it. For at least the last decade, an overwhelming number of people I know, for them, GMRS is a toy. I dont know anyone personally who uses it as anything more than a toy or a second layer of mobile comms, with less traffic, compared to Ham radio. And while there are some businesses around here that use FRS (which seems counterintuitive given the name) there are none using GMRS. Also, in the FCC rules, it even defines GMRS as a mobile two-way voice communication service to support the individual licensees and the families in there activities, with things like emergency services being secondary and business use is a grandfathered tertiary purpose. So, it would seem our interpretations and experiences are vastly different. But... that's okay. :-)

A former roommate of mine, when I lived in North Carolina, she had a sister who lived elsewhere in the state. She (the sister) bought a pack of Motorola MR-355R blister pack radios and let her kids play on them. Like so many others who bought these 22 channel ‘hybrid’ radios, she either never read or completely ignored the bit on the packaging about a license being required to operate on Channels 15 - 22, nor did she read the owner’s manual or about the repeater capabilities of those radios. Her kids ended up getting on a repeater, and she walked in as they were getting chewed out about being on a repeater, and then caught it herself when she took the radio and demanded to know what the meaning of all of it was. We ended up losing exclusivity on 15 - 22 because of radio manufacturers, hordes of squatters lurking on 15 - 22, and apathy and poor foresight on the part of the FCC. People still don’t realize or else ignore that GMRS requires a license. So they’ll either think it’s okay to get on a repeater or completely ignore the law (and remain willfully ignorant of the responsibilities of the repeater owner insofar as what is transmitted over it). Some do it intentionally, thinking that if they persist enough, we’ll end up with UHF CB “just like Australia”… except CB culture in AUS and the US are two different worlds, and good luck finding willing repeater owners if trailer trash culture that has become prevalent in US CB migrated to UHF. Front Range GMRS had that problem with squatters, especially with the flood of cheap BaoFeng radios into the market. So now instead of single tone CTCSS from the standardized list, they use split and non-standard DCS tones and are ready to implement PTT-ID if it comes to that. It wasn’t done for the sake of being snobbish or wanting to be insular - it was done because squatters made it necessary.

I remember discussion of this topic on this board before the rule change in 2017. The gist was the same. For LMR +5MHz offset is mandated, but for GMRS there is nothing in the rules to clearly prohibit non-5MHz offset. It's impolite. If you use non-standard offset you are tying up two [commonly recognized] repeater channels instead of one. Now two guys, instead of one, are angry at you for the interference. If you do this in rural setting on your ranch, or in the woods, probably nobody would care.

I guess i have been in the LMR world way too long but i dont think i have ever seen a UHF repeater that did not use 5mhz. That is the standard in LMR and most licenses will show that. I agree its not spelled out in GMRS rules but I can't imagine anyone who would use different output and input frequencies as you described. Even in the Ham world most all UHF repeaters are 5mhz apart. I dont see a need for commercial providers to make a radio to be able to use anything other than 5mhz. JMHO

Just wondering, has anyone ever painted one of those white fiberglass GMRS antenna radomes? The the other pipes coming out of my roof are gray (like a primer color), and I think a white antenna radome would really stand out. So to visually subdue the antenna some, I thought about painting it gray, or at least putting a light coat of primer on it. Question is, would doing so noticeably affect the antenna's performance? Thanks ...

I live in a desert HOA and paint all of my antennas to match the nearest plant. I use a flat paint that has no metal content.

The M1225 series radios are good, if you have a way to program them as they need an older computer to program them. I personally use Kenwood TK880's which have software readily available online and will work on modern computers. They are first responder grade which means integrity & reliability are there, and not as expensive as the 1225's normally cost.