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Yeah, I suppose one could simply buy a cheap Chinese dual band radio that does Ham 2M, MURS, VHF marine, VHF railroad, VHF NOAA weather channels etc. frequencies, then it can also do the Ham 70cm band, various government and public safety UHF frequencies, UHF FRS, UHF GMRS, UHF business band frequencies etc. for $25 through Amazon. Of course the people who buy it won’t know, or care, about the difference between a megahertz or millimeter. That happened with those combo FRS/GMRS radio a few years ago. They included clear instructions that a license was required to use channels above 14. Nobody cared and nobody bothered to get the license either. With your suggestion nobody is going to be dissuade by a warning tone, message etc. They’re going to press that PTT button all the same as proven by past experience. At least by requiring different radios the potential for mass interference is reduce because the hardware, along with the firmware, limits the operation to a particular service. As long as people act stupidly, or irresponsibly, you get these government regulations. Is it efficient? No. But that isn’t the aim of the regulations either.

I think his dual band base antenna is presenting a ton of signal at 155.850 MHz and his Chinese receivers are overloading and creating third harmonic on or near 467.6375 MHz . A quick check would to put a UHF single band whip on the radio and see if the signal is radically reduced or goes away. It is too coincidental that the third harmonic falls right on channel. I would not rule out a spurious signal from the sheriff repeater, but we are talking about a $30K repeater and duplexer versus a $35 Chinese receiver. Any bets? Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk

Welcome to myGMRS. Glad you are here. Wayoverthere sums it up pretty well. His suggestion to get close to the repeater is a really good one. Try to get within a mile or less if you can, and they work you way back home after confirming you can open it up. I have done that many times and can be very enlightening. What I have learned since using repeaters in GMRS is that most repeaters are low profile, meaning that their range is truly very limited, some not more than a mile or few. And often, you will find that listed repeaters are no longer in service. Depending upon where you live (like me near Cincinnati), you may be blessed with a repeater that is extremely high profile (covers large area), perhaps even covering your whole town. As a reminder, repeaters are the private property of individuals. You are authorized to use it only if the owner gives you permission. Some will grant it, some will not. Some will list and identify their repeater in an open forum like myGMRS as an open one that does not individual permission. If you find yourself using a particular repeater, consider supporting the owner with donations to help them cover their operating and maintenance expenses. Good repeaters are expensive to purchase, operate and maintain. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

So, up front, I'll say that the "stated intent" of GMRS is more of a "FRS-plus"...so a lot of users tend to stick to their group, run tones to filter out those outside their group, and generally not answer an outsider. This does vary from area to area, sometimes quite significantly, but the reality is many areas don't have the hobbyist presence that we see on the site (not all areas have a ham-lite mentality). Definitely not trying to be harsh, but it's important to go into it with reasonable expectations...I was a little disappointed when I started, to be honest. That aside..let's talk technical limitations. You likely won't have dealt with tones on CB. There's two types, and they go by a few different names...PL and DPL (Private Line/Digital Private Line), Quiet/Dequiet, or just CTCSS/DCS (Continuous Tone-Coded Squelch System/Digitally Coded Squelch). In simple terms, these act as a filter on what you hear; if a signal has the same tone the filter is listening for, you hear it. If not, it doesn't get through. The same is in play for most repeaters; you need the right tone to get past the filter to be heard. Many family (or other closed) groups will use tones so they only hear each other. After the technical blocks, there's the mere range. The more serious repeaters often run much higher gain antennas than any of us run on our cars, or most are likely to have at home. One thing you can try is picking a repeater and driving closer to where it's expected to be; you can sometimes be a little more precise if you can find info on a repeater from a club or association site. If the repeater is hearing you, many times you'll hear a blip of static or a tone after you unkey...if you hear that, you know you've at least opened the repeater, and if it works at that point, you know it's a range issue. Finally, there are some inactive listings in the database. Unfortunately, there is some level of dependence on the repeater owners to keep their listings up to date, and there isn't currently a system to 'vote' when the last confirmed usage occurred. This shouldn't be an issue if you can hear people using the repeater, though. Hope this gives you some things you can check off, and at least narrow down if it's a signal issue, an access tone issue, or people simply not answering. p.s. One final thought for the Btech, which is another roadblock I tripped over. The preprogrammed channels are all you get for transmit channels; you CAN program more receive channels past the base 30, but they'll only ever be receive channels, even if they're in-bounds for GMRS. I found this one the hard way, as i have two in my area on .575 that use different input tones.

I guess I got lucky with the P25 radio I purchased. This is the original item listing reference number on eBay. 294333278387 I think you can go here and enter the above number. That should bring up the original listing. http://www.watchcount.com/ I spend a lot of time checking eBay using my saved searches to see if anything new pops up for the models I'm looking to buy. If it looks like a good deal I have to spring for it quick before somebody else notices it. That's how I snagged a TK-D340U 32 channel Kenwood DMR radio for around $40 to $50. The same thing happened with a Kenwood NX-340U 32 channel radio for NXDN for $50. Never saw any deals that good since.

I see they are on 155MHz. It is unlikely they are on 155mHz since 155mHz is 0.155Hz. 155.880MHz * 3 = 467.640MHz --> close enough to 467.6375MHz = FRS channel 11. Any chance the 155.880 transmitter site is VERY close to the OP's location?

In general the FCC doesn't like combing different services together. In the case of FRS and GMRS they had already screwed that up years ago by allowing the marketing of dual service FRS/GMRS radios. Almost NOBODY ever got the GMRS license when purchasing those combo bubble-pack radios. The FCC had to throw in the towel and make what was already common practice legal by changing the rules back in 2017/2018. Then they could wash their hand of any enforcement issues.

Actually FRS/MURS would be a better fit. Just have to use a fixed mount antenna. Most of the channels on FRS are already 2 watts. All the MURS channels are also 2 watts. Both services are license free provided one uses FCC certified radios. This would give the average everyday user up to 27 channels split between FRS and MURS. This allows the user to pick which band works better under the current conditions without carrying two radios or having to pick one over the other, and maybe getting poor results because it was the wrong choice. There is a reason why dual band VHF/UHF radios are so popular in the Ham world for example.

I've had four of these for the past four years: Amazon.com: WLN KD-C1 Rechargeable Mini Walkie Talkie, UHF 400-470Mhz Prefessional Two Way Radio with Desktop Charger and Belt Clip for Kids Hiking Hunting Airsoft(1 Pair) : Electronics They are functionally identical to the "new" Radioddity versions. The only real difference is that these have Part 95e certification. The WLN KD-C1 are 5 watts versus 2 watts. They are all programmable via Chirp and the standard BaoFeng/Kenwood programming cable. They are excellent performers, very light weight, and smaller than a pack of cigarettes.

Yup. The question was already answered. If there is going to be a standard highway/road channel, where one has been proposed and used for a while, we should stick with it. Trying to establish another one just confuses people and likely guarantees nether get used much. Unless there is a very good reason to change it I don’t see the point trying to establish something different.

Just in from conference call with the VEC's If you are holding your breath for the $35 GMRS fee, you better have big lungs

Let’s at least discuss this in an “apples to apples” manner. The CDM1250 (and 750 and 1550 sisters) are mobile radios in 25 and 40 watt flavors. The Kenwoods you cite are certainly decent commercial grade radios, but this thread is about mobile units, not HTs.