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The FCC has lowered the fee proposed from $50 to $35 for GMRS licenses and Amateur Radio licenses. Effective date is unknown but should be announced around 30 days prior to taking effect. See the attached Report & Order (12/29/2020). https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-20-184A1.pdf (See pages 85 and 86 of fee schedule, which shows the fees for GMRS and Amateur Radio. I've attached a snap shot of it below.

I was just fixing to write the same thing. Great minds do think alike, eh?

This just popped up yesterday on YouTube. Thought I would share. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

What kb2ztx said. I have an N connector Bird 43 meter and love it. I have 2 UHF slugs for it and a couple of others. I like to have more than one slug handy for a particular band to serve as a sanity check if there's ever any question about the results and to check that a slug is not damaged (BTDT before). With a Bird 43 Thru-Line meter, there is no need for a "SWR meter." When tuning an antenna, your goal is to minimize the reflected power reading as much as possible. You simply measure the reflected power directly with the Bird 43 while tuning to minimize the reflected power. SWR is easily calculated from the forward and reflected power measured on the Bird 43 if you really want to know SWR.

The dot with a number in it means there are that many repeaters fairly close to each other in that area. If you zoom in on the map, they will separate to their locations and you can then click them to view the info.

Still very preliminary to draw my final conclusions, but I received my Ed Fong DBJ-1C antenna kit and an antenna analyzer this weekend (on the same day I passed my ham tech exam, so that was fun). I ran a couple of antenna placement tests quickly. My aim was to communicate with my wife in her office, first via the local Alexandria GMRS repeater and then see if I can achieve simplex to her (2.1 miles). The good: - Deployed at attic height, my wife reports my voice is the clearest she has heard it over GMRS. All good. The bad: - Still no simplex comms. Not even breaking squelch. I'll keep trying, and will work on a mobile at home as well. I can still go higher on the antenna and mount it roof top, but that requires HOA permission and a whole lot of hassle. Still, I may well do that soon. The surprising: - Antenna analyzer (SureCom SW-33) in hand, I measured everything. I have the ducky that came with my handheld as well as a Nagoya NA-771 and a Nagoya NA-701C. I also have a Nagoya UT-72 mobile mag mount, but have not measured that one yet. All the duckies suck, at least in terms of SWR on the GMRS freqs I use the most. Lowest SWR I measured was 2.0; highest was 4.5. - The Ed Fong DBJ-1C, on the other hand, measured in 3 separate measurements, a paltry 1.02. That seems nigh on perfect, and may well explain the clear and strong signal my wife received from me. I've heard some good and bad things about the Fong kits. (Calling them kits is even a stretch. All you do is insert it in a 5 foot PVC 200 PSI pipe and you're done. Toughest part is finding 200 PSI and not the ubiquitous "Schedule 40" (480 PSI) piping.) My initial impressions are that the nay sayers are largely wrong, at least compared to my needs and deployment. Oh, I should add that I used a high quality LMR-400 feed line with PL-259 connectors. (Aside: As I operate mostly in UHF, is it worth changing from PL-259 to BNC, N, or some other connector better suited for these freqs?) Cheers, Ken WRFC318 (ham sign pending FCC)

JeepCrawler, good job catching this. You are doing your homework. You ask some very good questions, questions that perhaps a legal scholar may need to answer. I do believe the FCC, just like the FAA in regards to the Boeing 737 Max plane, has fallen short. The way they are doing things is like the fox guarding the hen house. I do not believe they are validating the information submitted, let alone putting their hands on equipment and performing any of what was submitted. While I do like this radio, and the FCC did certify it, I do not believe it complies with their own rules (my opinion of course). I have already confirmed that this radio can do things, without hacking, that it should not be capable of doing and at power levels it is not authorized to do it at. At a minimum, I hope BTWR is reading MyGMRS posts and at least taking silent action to remedy the situation. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

PM sent. I need to completely reprogram my XPR7550 because my local DMR repeater owner (W9CTO) switched from DMR-Marc to the Chicagoland Brandmeister system. TIA for the generous gesture!

berknet I understand that fully. I guess I understood the question of radios coming out of the box ready to talk on GMRS. No ham transceiver does. Most offer simple modifications to open up the band to allow this. Its really no different than commercial part 90 radios being able to be used on the GMRS bands. My APX8500 mobile can do it but was not certified to do it. Maybe the op could clarify his question for us.

No ham radios are certified on GMRS. But many will operate just fine in that service. There are also many hams with GMRS licenses. So, it seems to me that if someone, ham or otherwise has a GMRS license and a radio that works in that band, it’s no different than using some Amazon UHF special. Sure, there are issues with with “illegally “ modified radios, and non-certified operation in GMRS. But, as long as people have the proper license, the rest is none of my business.

Fellow Motorolian citizen being a good Samaritan! Nice!! Upvoted!

I've got a couple of extra 7550 cables - PM me with your address. Free to a good home. Just pay it forward.

First off, Welcome to GMRS. All of us here hope you have a good experience. All licensees are obligated under the terms of their license to know, understand and follow the rules. In case you have not studied them, here are some links that are immediately relevant. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-17-57A1.pdf https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/part-95 The first link contains a PDF version of the rules that you can download, keep and reference. As you read through the rules you will learn a lot about GMRS and the other Personal Radio Services. You will also learn that in 2017 the rules evolved to require that only radios that are type certified (95e and earlier 95a grandfathered). The rules clarify that new products will be not be certified for GMRS unless they comply with technical requirements of 95e, they clarify that it is the licensee’s obligation to use only compliant equipment and they clarify by specific example that non-certified equipment (such as amateur radio equipment) cannot and will not be certified for use in GMRS. The UV5R is not a certified radio, thus it can only legally be operated by a licensed amateur radio operator on amateur radio frequencies only. Admittedly, you will eventually learn that some folks on this and other forums do not comply with the rules. They do this at their own risk. But is is also safe to say that the majority of folks here want to be good stewards of the GMRS service and we hope you will too. Once you have read the rules through a couple of times, feel free to ask whatever questions you have. There are a lot of knowledgable folks here. Probably best to start separate thread with you questions so as not to hide them under the current “Local Repeater and Chirp” topic. Once again, Welcome to GMRS. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Not to worry. the difference is only just over 4db. You can more than make up for that by antenna choice. But, you can only use that power on channels 15 to 22 and the repeater inputs. on the other 14 channels the limit is 5.0 or 0.5 watts ERP. Enjoy your radio.

So, not bring a lawyer, and just reading the citation/s It sounds like they simply have to stop what they are doing to avoid most, if not all fines...

We're working on a new website and this will be one of the first "new" features once it's rolled out. There will be a voting system where people can indicate whether a given repeater is online or not. Using this information, we can get rid of the offline and outdated systems. Right now, we hide anything older than a year from the map page, but that's not perfect. There are systems that haven't been updated in a long time that are still on the air, and some that were listed more recently that are already gone. I think this voting system will be the better way to handle it unless someone has better suggestions. I think requiring someone to log in every year to update the listing is difficult to do, and risks hiding good stuff out there. We could also handle signal reports through this system so you can get feedback on where people are reaching it from and the signal quality.