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Ham Radio ≠ GMRS Different in many ways: equipment authorization, power and features; history; community; user licensing; purpose; expandability; commercial support; etc. etc. You simply cannot, and, IMO should not, try to compare the two. And, even if you try what is the point?

From the Batwing cave... G.

I gotta say i'm still shocked over the general attitude of gmrs repeater owners and hams. "Well, I built it!" - good for you, so have many hams without club funds. "I paid for my license." - hams have to study for theirs. This in a way guarantees some level of competence. "I don't want yahoos or shenanigans on my repeater." - yeah, because yahoos always ask before goofing off on a freq. The attitude sucks. I'm standing by that. Unlike ham radio which has hundreds of repeater pairs, gmrs has only a handful. If there's anywhere that could benefit from some comraderie, its gmrs.

Merry Christmas to all I hope Santa is good to everyone 73

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas to All, and to all a good night. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Okay, I’ll bite here. I own a repeater (Rugged 575) in Naperville, IL at 300' receive / 250’ transmit. It’s on a commercial site with other UHF and VHF radio systems as well. Not only have I spent nearly 5 figures setting this up correctly but I monitor it as if it was my baby, cuz, you know, it *IS* my baby. I built it with no financial help from anyone else. Of course there was other help I received by LOTS of other commercial repeater owners (Those of you that are reading know who you are) as I’ve come a long way in the last year and some change here. I have my repeater system set up for several different private family usage cases and I also have a tone for public which I closely monitor as well and others that are out there do use it. As a repeater owner I’m super happy to turn my radio on and hear other people using it. As a matter of fact just yesterday some other licensed GMRS users were using my repeater and I needed to use it with my wife as I was at the grocery store and I broke in and said, “hang tight guys, I need to talk to my wife for a minute. I’ll let you know when I’m done”. Anyways, I flipped to our tone, talked with her about the particulars, then went back to the public side and said “Carry on guys! Glad to hear you out there using the machine”. That being said, mine is set to “Ask permission” as well because as others have mentioned, I want to know who is using it to verify their license and location because it’s my system and it’s my responsibility to make sure it’s up to par on the commercial shared site. I have sent an email back to EVERY! SINGLE! PERSON! As well welcoming them with the tones to use it! I haven’t had the need (yet) to ever reject anyone from using my repeater but I still keep a tab on who has access to it as in my opinion, it’s my responsibility to do so. Not only that, but I have my custom verbiage I send back with every request as well stating that this is a family repeater as well and to aid to traffic on the other PL tone. Heck, I’ll paste what I send you can see where we are coming from with this: “The tone for my repeater is XXXX (left blank) (N – normal, not inverted). When you key up for the first time please identify yourself using your call sign and call for ROB. I am regulating who is using my repeater as it is being used for my family as well. I have received an exceeding amount of requests to use my repeater. Originally this was set up for family only use but seeing as the range is far better than expected, I have opened it up on an as-requested basis to any licensed GMRS operator. PLEASE NOTE: ALL TRAFFIC MUST YIELD TO MY FAMILY. The tone for public use is different than family so if you see your radio lighting up receiving on 462.575 but no audio is coming through on your radio it's because my family is talking so please do not key up until that traffic has cleared. Thanks and I hope to hear you on the air!” That being said, sometimes users don’t understand what a multi-table is either so I will say this too: When you first use a new repeater you should ALWAYS call out for a radio check IMO because you don’t know how that repeater is set up and should NEVER assume anything! I was in Iowa once and I made contact to the owner on the traveler tone (I was travelling) and he told me that it’s linked to another repeater in California! NONE of this information was posted on mygmrs.com and upon googling I couldn’t even find it either!!! It was good to know that I was keying multiple machines too and me and the owner had a nice long 30 minute conversation and he was glad I keyed up and shouted out! To sum up further as a repeater owner: *MOST*, but not *ALL* repeater owners don’t mind you using their machine I’ve found. Now I’m in the Midwest mind you, so again, no assumptions would be made for other machines that I’ve never used, but around here most repeater owners are very happy to have you on their machine and it brings a great smile to their face to know that they are serving the public with a reliable communication system and growing the hobby as well! Remember that GMRS isn’t HAM and HAM isn’t GMRS. A *LOT* of people out there want GMRS for family use under one license and that’s what I’m doing but I’ve decided to open it up to the public as well as the coverage is fairly decent. I looked at getting a business license and could have easily done it too but I like the idea of being able to chat with my family *AND* other GMRS users so here we are! Thanks!

You said it's not a hobby, then listed a whole bunch of hobbies that it's used for, and then said those hobbies don't sound like hobbies. That's not an opinion... that is silliness.

LOL Nice try... but no. SMH

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. :-)

Man... it kills me to see people keep saying that GMRS is not a hobby but Amateur Radio is. It's like people forget the meaning of words and how subjective they can be. First, I have to say, GMRS and FRS use can be a hobby. That includes rag-chew and anything else you can legally do on GMRS. GMRS can also be utilitarian. What makes it a hobby or utility is how YOU use it. That's it. Nothing else. I would wager to state the opinion that Amateur Radio is far more utilitarian than GMRS would ever be. Just because you can legally conduct business on GMRS and FRS doesn't take away that fact that for many private owners, it's purely an entertainment device. It also doesn't take away the utility value of Amateur Radio. Amateur radio is called such because of non-commercial exchanges, and no other reason. The organization and practice of amateur radio has led the world for more than a century with new inventions of methods for moving data, messaging and voice comms. There is wireless experimentation, self-training in electronics engineering, private recreational use, and emergency communications. If that isn't less a hobby and more utilitarian, I don't know what is. Radiosport, contesting and rag-chewing is just a small part of Amateur Radio culture. And again, what makes it a hobby or a service is how YOU use it.

Marc, I dont know what a Red Rock is. The Miami 725 is up and running. Just got on from Homestead and machine is downtown. A preamp will be added in near future to improve receive sensitivity. I have to edit listing as it ended up on backup site for .325 ham repeater which is at 750'. ----------------------------------------------------- The responses I've seen here are interesting and I guess I can attribute it to location. Most ham repeaters here are personally funded. The clubs are broke lol. Those putting up the machines do it for all to use. The few closed ham repeaters are looked down upon and heckled. You want a closed repeater? Get a cellphone. This mentality carried over to GMRS repeaters put up by hams.To each their own. You guys are all welcome to use the Miami 725 when in town. No permission needed.

Hi WRJH488, Just want to say thanks for repeater in Miami. I'm absolutely brand new to the radio hobby. Live in Davie, but work off the Causeway. Your repeater is the first one I'm trying to get programmed into my radio. Haven't got it all figured out yet, but appreciate you making the huge tower available!

I've mentioned it before, but in some areas, gmrs is a very closed group, utility only mindset, more like "frs-plus", instead of the "ham-lite" hobbyist mindset you might expect looking at the web (and I had hoped for). It's kind of a false image, though, because it's mainly the hobbyists that are the ones likely to be visiting forums like this to expand the interest.

I have several acquaintances who own GMRS repeaters. They are personal property, not owned by a club or group, installed at their homes and were put in place for use by them and their family. I have never seen/heard of anyone licensed being turned down. However, as a property owner, it seems reasonable to have someone ask for permission to use my stuff and to want to know who is using my stuff. I had a 2m repeater at my house for years and never stopped anyone from legally using it. Eventually I got tired of maintaining it and took it down. Now I only use it for emergency work in the field. Sometimes literally in a field. LoL

We have seen that the Google, Bing, Ask and other search engine spybots are camped out here reading new posts. Just a word to the wise... use your discretion in posting personal or sensative information that could possibly compromise your personal safety, security, lead to identity theft, or give non-licensed individuals a way to access your radio systems.

Rich - That's an excellent idea - but as you said, "use it sparingly" - so the search engine hits are maintained. Perhaps a new BOT-Restricted section called "Members Only" with two posting sections to start with could be a test - sections such as "Anything Goes" and "Member to Member Comments" with rules stressed concerning venting, defaming or ridiculing others. Any other members with thoughts on this idea that Rich has - please weigh in.... Thank You.

What do you think about adding a private forum here just for registered users? It should be used sparingly because we want the search engines to index all the posts with excellent information so others can find us. I do think it would be nice to have somewhere to unload some members-only info though. Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

We are bumping up this announcement once again as a refersher to all members. MyGMRS is one of the fastest growing GMRS and alternate radio service forums in the US. As a result of it's popularity, we are being "scanned" by countless 'spybots' from all the major search engines as well as some from other countries. We have seen as many as 30 search engine 'bots' collecting data here at one time. We would just like to remind everyone that this forum is PUBLIC and if you don't want the world to see your personal info, don't post it.