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This is probably covered here somewhere as advice for new people coming on the scene, and hey, I probably covered it myself in years past here. If you are new to GMRS and buying a couple or more radios to put a group on the air simplex for activities, please consider a good read of the manual and programming, then do a little homework locally, or where you intend to use them, before settling on your "home channel". I suggest scanning, with no tone set (CSQ) on all channels to see who's using what channel and how strong the signal is, before picking one. It's not a matter of " not getting on someone else's channel", no, you got your license so you are entitled to use all of them too. They are shared channels. What it does for you is allow you to pick the best one for your area so you don't run into same-channel usage, or as much (remember, someone else using a channel is NOT "interference"). Once you find a fairly quiet one, or maybe even an all-quiet one, then you can make it your home channel, and pick a tone/code for squelch if you like. I have, in the past, even setup a receiver at a good site, and used a vox recorder or a program called scan-rec which is the same, just in software so you can use a PC, and let it run for weeks to see what's going on. By monitoring in open squelch, you can hear it all. If you program a tone too soon, you will only, possibly see a busy light, if you are looking, and not know why, at the same time you may have trouble communicating because it's a busy channel and you didn't know it. Searching the database here, and avoiding the existing repeater channels is a good idea too, that way you can steer your activity to a lesser used channel. Of course if you will be using a repeater, this really only applies if you want a secondary go to channel everyone knows to use, a designated backup, so to speak. All of this is known as self coordination. I bring it up, mostly because you can sure save yourself a lot of headache and be much happier with the performance of the radios when you are not a victim of so much co-channel activity. I also mention all of this because for years, I have heard people get new equipment and start using it...on channel 1, and sometimes code/tone 1. This does no one any good unless you are the only guy with that idea. Ever. Happy communicating!

I got mine setup here: https://www.motorolasolutions.com On the right upper corner, click -> Sign In, there is a popup, at the bottom of the popup it says "Don't have an account?" click -> Register and follow the instructions there. That is how I opened mine.

@Lscott Still, admitting these things in public forums could get you in trouble, just saying. I personally decided to purchase the software, 169, considering the amount of radio equipment I've purchased over the years, I figured it wasn't too bad. @tweiss3 I think Moto is been split into two companies for a while now, Motorola Solutions is supposedly the same as the original Moto from back then. Wonder if its browser related? I remember Motorola preferred IE back when I opened mine... maybe that's changed. Or perhaps if you are using a VPN its throwing it off. All I know is that aside from the 1-2 weeks wait time until my MOL account was approved, the application was pretty straightforward. If you like Vertex, all the software is freely available for download at MOL, again: free of charge!!, and the EVX line of radios in particular is pretty nice... and quite affordable too. G.

You can use this to calculate the RF exposure. It's now required by the FCC. RF Exposure Calculator (arrl.org)