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One fool can ask more questions than one hundred wise can answer, but I'll answer this: Specifically prohibited by 95.1733 (9). And I'm too lazy to look up an identical line in Part 97, but I'm sure it exists. Edit Ah, what the hell, here it is: 97.111 (b) and 97.113 (b)

I hear you. ?

The entire point of this thread was to explain the differences of a real repeater that wil ldo what you want vs 2 CCRs with a plug and play box. There are many who have lofty expectations of GMRS and think you can talk 30 miles with a $100 of parts. Thats not going to happen. As an established GMRS user Id rather have folks play on ham radio if they want to experiment....

Welcome aboard Ben, Hopefully GMRS won't be disappointing for you. One thing you're likely to find is that there aren't a lot of people sitting around waiting to talk on GMRS. The way the service is licensed, many users have GMRS radios primarily for talking with family members either on simplex (radio to radio) or on private repeaters, and in many cases don't seem interested in talking with anyone outside their small group. This seems to be a fairly common experience shared by new GMRS users. In some areas, however, there is a fairly active GMRS user base that tend to use mostly open (shared) repeaters, and will chat readily with others. The best way to find out if that's the case in your area is to monitor the repeater outputs in your area to "see" what you can hear. You might find that there is an active GMRS community using one or more repeaters in the area. If so, you should be able to get information on who to contact to use the repeater. Remember, permission to do so is granted by the repeater owner, except in the case of open repeaters.

Hey now, this probably won't be too exciting for a lot of you, but I thought it was share-worthy, especially for us Noobies. Plus, I need to get more points towards my next badge..."badges, badges, we don't need no stinking badges"(gratuitous movie line). ? So after watching a couple GMRS radio videos, I saw a some of things on expanding the range for HTs. The one thing that caught my eye was the Rat Tail, so I tried it on my Radioddity GM30. As some of of you know, I live in a canyon with very limited reception, so any addition mods are helpful. ? I cut a nine inch piece of wire and first I connected it to the metal beltclip bracket, not sure if that made a difference. Next I unscrew the antenna (NA-771G) halfway, wrapped the wire around the post and screwed the antenna back down...then waited. It wasn't too much longer that I noticed it was picking up chatter. Some clearer than others, but definitely better reception than before. ? Then came the the golden nugget. I tried my nearest repeater and was able to hear the wild (sometime heated) conversations, last night (those here that were listening too know what I mean ?️). I doubled checked via text with my GMRS mentor that I was actually hearing the repeater and not so random local traffic, and yep, confirmed and successful ground trailing wire experiment. Unfortunately, with the low power of the GM30 (5watt) I wasn't able to transmit to the repeater from my home. But hey, it was a free upgrade and win, in my book, knowing I can expand my range of reception if need be...WROA675 clear. ?

Ah, a slight of hand bringing up emergency communications. That wasn’t part of the original question I quoted from your post. Under emergency conditions the rules have a few exceptions. However as a general point, as one is lead to believe by your original question, it’s prohibited. That hasn’t changed.

Good read.. This comment is IMHO.... You do not need to get permission to use a HAM Repeaters, if you are a license HAM... BUT GMRS Repeaters owners have to control or look over who on his GMRS Repeater, thus you need to get permission. As a ham and using DMR (digital mobile radio) having so much fun and it is the next step up from GMRS... Get your ham license while it is still free from FCC. Enjoy the adventure... not that hard, I'm 74 yo and my study buddy was my 12 yo grand daughter... MacJack

If you can afford it, put up your own repeater and then maybe more people such as your friends would show an interest. This may sound expensive but you don't have to put up the world's most powerful repeater or even a commercially built one. There a many on eBay. Here is one with a power supply https://www.ebay.com/itm/154636123201?hash=item240107fc41:g:4GgAAOSwUyxhPXbm Add the duplexer https://www.ebay.com/itm/334098498505?hash=item4dc9d283c9:g:DIkAAOSwwy1hB9pG Antenna https://www.ebay.com/itm/293628806495 Coax https://www.ebay.com/itm/181996135177 Not as expensive as you may have thought!

I can display a custom line on the top with my KG-935G, but I cant find that option for the XS-20G in the software...

Here's a hypothetical: If a licensed Ham programs his 70 cm rig to transmit on 446.0 MHz and receive on 462.5625 and a licensed GMRS user programs his HT to transmit on 462.5625 and receive on 446.0, is their conversation within the FCC Rules for both services?

I'll take a look at that. I wasn't sure if anyone ran the cable between the bed and cab, under the cab, and through the firewall. I would prefer to not cut off the factory BNC connector but if it came to that it's not the end of the world. Thanks and if you happen to think about it, some pictures would be nice.

I can try to get pictures in a day or two, but for my single cab Ranger-clone, I have the mount centered on the roof. For cable routing, I tucked the cable beind the back edge of the outer top door seal at the top corner of the passenger door, following along the outside of the inner seal down to the bottom of the door, then looping up and toward the back to cross the seal, to create a drip loop and discourage water intrusion.

GMRS is not like the amateur band. It is used by groups of people who are hiking or moving around an area together.

I've seen some good reviews online for the 10 1/2 foot comet gmrs (commercial) base antenna, I ordered one and it should be coming in by Monday. I'm replacing my current existing antenna and ordered a 239 to n adapter. Anyone have experience first hand with the comet?

The comet 712 is what is called a “Collinear” design antenna. A collinear antenna is an antenna that is actually comprised of multiple antenna arrayed together that, when paired they way they are, alters the overall radiation pattern and improves the effective gain. In the case of the 712, the gain of the antenna is 9dBi. Its coverage pattern is more like a disc, whereas the basic dipole antenna has coverage pattern more like a fat round donut. The most popular commercial antennas used for high-performance commercial UHF radio installations are also collinear designs. Commercial grade antenna may have reliable service lives of dozens of years. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

I believe the proper term, if you want to get technical, is "counterpoise" ? And free upgrades are a definite win, on top of the fun of experimenting.

Easy peasy, but like I said, it's an in-development driver. Download it here. You'll need to run 'developer mode' under Help > Enable Developer Functions. Then go to File > Load Module, and locate that file you just downloaded. Hook up the radio, download, et voila. You won't see anything under the settings tab, because the developer is still working on it, and the 935 seems to have the settings mapped in the memory a little differently. DONT edit anything in the Browser. But you should be able to add and edit new memory slots just fine. Obviously you won't be able to TX on anything that isn't a GMRS frequency, and you can't edit some of the per-channel settings like compander, descrambler, and the mostly useless DTMF squelch. But it'll save you a lot of time adding, or even just rearranging, your custom channels. Haven't broken anything yet, since it seems it stores channel data mostly the same as other UV8-series radios. If things go sideways, you can always restore with the factory software. Use at your own risk; I don't believe there's much risk of bricking the device, but that is quite clearly a breach of warranty. Enjoy the radio! Mine also came before it was even scheduled to ship, and I loved it enough that I snagged a UV8H that came today that I've been running some experiments on with that driver. As an aside, the same trick with works with the 805 and the KG-816 driver. One could also revert it back to a full UHF radio with VFO with that driver, but that would be violating the Part 95 approval.

Somewhat new GMRS user (at least in the world of repeaters) and new ham (but with a lengthy interest in radio in general) here, and I'm maybe wading into dangerous territory with this older thread, but I do have some thoughts, and that it's worth respecting both viewpoints here on repeater access and use of the few channels we have. As with any hobby, we want to find a use for our toys, and those uses can be varied. Sometimes it's easy to forget there are other sides of the hobby, or antagonize them. Not everyone is using the radio just for the sake of using a radio Over on the ham side, you've got all sorts of things. CW and DXing, ARES/RACES, social nets, AMSAT, packet radio, you name it. I don't know how much overlap there is on each of those niches, but there's plenty of spectrum to go around. Or at least enough. Yet there's still plenty of arguing by the "Sad Hams" on who's doing it right, which seems to be whatever they aren't. OTOH, we're limited to 22 little channels here, and only 50W and repeaters on 8 of them (six, if you're like me and 'North of Line A'). We have to play nice. Thanks to the past posters who mentioned the roots of GMRS as CB Class-A and some business use, which explains why we get such a small slice of spectrum. Thankfully, we're not dictated on what we can use it for. But for better or worse, we share it with FRS, and bubble-packs (licensed or not), Garmin RHINO, legacy-license businesses, and the like. Clearly it's used as a 'utility' service, whatever that may be. Maybe to you it's shooting the breeze, and to others its something else, and that's the beauty of it, since by nature it's fairly limited in range. I've seen complaints around the web of GMRS users coming across families yapping, traffic flaggers and the like, and, well, assuming they're licensed or using FRS, they have every right to be there. Even if they're not, they're there, and thankfully at least around here it doesn't sound anything like the chaos of CB. That's why we're limited to 50W and not 1500W. (also thankfully, in my area in the middle of Seattle, all I ever hear regularly are some carpenters on a nearby construction site, and a parent checking in on their child walking home from school.) Yes, its frustrating to hear kids screaming on Channel 1 day and night, but the disdain should be towards discourteous users, rather than all utility users. Someone earlier mentioned communication while kayaking, and similarly I'm sure many here are off-roaders switching from other communication modes, and as another person replied, for them the radio is in support of another hobby, rather than the hobby itself. For me, I'm interested in radio as a hobby as well, but in a way I can use it for what I need. That's the type of thing I use it for—group and family outings and beyond-cell, or alternative-to-cell communications. To that end I like that GMRS is relatively quiet.Something I don't appreciate, when I have been using it for intra-party communications, is someone coming on a simplex channel and asking to strike up a conversation. No, I don't want to chat, I'm halfway down a mountain, trying to get ahold of our ride at the trailhead. Using tones appears to be a no-no in ham bands, but I definitely use them on GMRS simplex. Anyway. With all that said, I certainly understand @JCase's views on this, in wanting to limit all those other uses when you need wide coverage. In the Seattle area, we've got quite a few repeaters, including many unlisted ones in-city, that are private, for neighborhood/emergency use, or request permission and discourage rag-chewing. That's their choice—unlike in amateur, there's no (voluntary) governing body on choosing a channel, and they don't have rule over a specific frequency, but it's their equipment and they have every right to be picky over who can access it. Many of them are in areas with no cellular coverage, and I too would be a bit miffed if I couldn't get through to family member because of chitchat, or they turned their radio off because of such. And I appreciate those that have extended the offer to me with the expectation I'm not going to yak all day to strangers. Most of them are not 'for absolute emergency use only'—they want them to be used, but they also want them to be usable and not clogged up. Again, 50W will only go so far in most places. It's their right, legally and in practice, to have a privately accessed system, and it's likely not going to step on others' systems. This is what I mean by GMRS being utility oriented. But in counterpoint, I also appreciate those like @WRKC935 that have invested the time, money and effort into building something for complete public access. Looking at the WWARA database, I'm astounded at how many repeaters are in the area. And scanning through, equally astounded at how many are dead quiet, or on further research strongly discourage use other than some specific purpose; again, that's their right as equipment owners, but it's nice that some owners have stepped up to provide a community forum. On those bands, where repeater slots are coordinated, both 2m and 70cm are pretty full with very wide coverage systems—there's no room to say "hey, I'll just start my own repeater!" Again here, on GMRS, we have one repeater up on Tiger Mountain that covers much of the region, and it gets used for ragchewing, even if it's the same 5 or so guys, and that's great that it doesn't sit there silent. Agreed with @mbrun that if you're gong to cover that much ground with one frequency, it is a public service in a way. People have the technical know-how and resources to set up something like that make it more useful for everyone, not just radio junkies. Moreso than the amateur band, I do believe that, with cellular taking away a lot of the user base and the growth of different wireless data modes, GMRS is at use-it-or-lose-it risk. I do hope this doesn't come off as the radio police (or alternately, too wishy-washy). I try not to be pedantic, since there's too much arguing over Part 95 or when to ID and things like that. I just think that we occupy a special niche—restricted in equipment, power, and frequencies, but not in coordinating through a regulating body; we're neither CB nor amateur—but it's small, and we need to make everyone happy. You can have a small private repeater for your neighborhood or a public one for your whole county, but be understanding of other uses, even the mom calling kids in for dinner on simplex. And to @Doctnj the radio world is fun, and there's lots to play with and many ways to put it into good use. I've long been an audio and phone tinkerer, and I thank MacJack on here for suggesting I get my ham ticket, since I learned in studying for it that there's a lot more to that than the quite literally old boys' club, and room to experiment with things you can bring back to GMRS. No reason to be one or the other!

Another new guy here. Generally speaking, I do agree with the general sentiment of leaving "repeater building" to those dedicated to quality, stability, and coverage...and who can afford it. I get it. You can really fubar things without much effort. You can also come up with installs that are stellar and serve the purpose. BUT, it still begs the question that keep seeing so many asking of how to set up SHTF communications among family and friends where simplex won't work, and there's no repeater. And use cases can vary greatly. My BIL (who simply does not want to get a ham license) and I are separated by hilly and forested terrain such that simplex via HT is completely out of the question. Decent antennas mounted high and a Wouxun kg-1000g at each site MIGHT go a long way to providing a solution. But the idea of being able to install a "casual use" repeater that would not only tie together such sites, but provide intermediate HT contact as well is extremely compelling. And I get it. Such a repeater install still required the proper antennas, height, and equipment. It's just that given today's advancements, it really surprises me that the only really affordable "plug and play" solution barely puts out 20 watts. Anyway, very interesting and informative thread.... Jim Barr, WRNQ679, N9ONL

Oh, if anybody is interested in that book I mention in a prior post you can download a PDF copy from here: https://dokumen.pub/qdownload/tapr-spread-spectrum-update-tales-from-the-rebel-alliance-9780964470750-0964470756.html

We don't have to agree, but the discussion was beneficial for those that choose to just sit back and read. If it got people to think about other points then it served it's purpose. 8-)

No you need to purchase a GMRS ticket. I would also suggest you researching what ham frequencies you are authorized on.

I've read at least 2 or 3 people in here saying that a cheap cobbled together repeater is useless, just use simplex (what can you do with this that you can't do with FRS), and how you're not going to gain any range, it's way too expensive, and way too technical for most licensees, what are you going to get out of it ... I guess some people just started with a mountain of equipment, truckload of money, and all the know-how! You know what I get out of a cheesy sub thousand dollar repeater setup that I can't get from FRS? Almost 10 miles in any direction reliably to HT's. Oh, and unlike these fancy high dollar commercial setups I keep hearing about "needing" to make a useful repeater? It's not illegal. I also have fun building, and improving, and geeking out on techie things. Are you guys really getting 10+ miles simplex on HT's (on bubble pack FRS radios no less!)? I didn't think so because that would be absolute poppycock! I'm so glad I never listened to guys that kept saying "you can't". I'm not saying everybody should go set up a repeater, but the idea that they're useless unless you spend tens of thousands on a commercial type install (which again - is most likely not legal to begin with) is patently absurd. Not everybody has the same goals, or is in the same situation.

I have no complaints with my Comet 712EFC with 50 ' of Times Microwave LMR-400 cable. Mine is mounted on the side of my house and grounded with an 11 ' grounding rod. I can solidly hit GMRS repeaters in two states from my location with 46 watts. SWR varies from 1.1 to 1.4 across the band. Great antenna for the price IMHO.

What you said is true I’m sure for commercial systems, public safety etc. I don’t recall seeing anything in the FCC rules requiring a GMRS repeater to be registered with the FCC. Neither are Ham repeaters, but you do work through a local frequency coordination body which is not part of the FCC. The only requirement is each station must ID, so as long as only qualifying family members use the machine it doesn’t need to self ID. Each qualifying family member when they ID satisfies the requirements. However if non qualifying family members use it then it’s impossible to determine who is the owner unless it self ID’s. This was EXACTLY the problem I had trying to identify the local repeater I’m currently using. No self ID, nothing shows up of any use when doing an FCC GEO search on the exact frequency over a limited range of 50 miles. I finally tried contacting the owner because it was listed on this site’s repeater database, by shear luck and I still wasn’t really sure. But even then the info was wrong because the owner died and the listing wasn’t updated for a few years. Months went by and no response to my emails, unknown at the time they were going to a dead guy’s account. Then when it was updated everything got worked out really quick. If it had ID’ed with the current owners call sign a simple lookup of that in the FCC license database would have given me the contact info I needed and saved me a lot of screwing around.

Per 47 C.F.R, Part 95 Subpart E, §95.1751 ( c ) states that the repeater doesn't need to ID itself if... (2) The GMRS stations whose communications are retransmitted are properly identified in accordance with this section. So, even if the license holder is not using the machine, if people that are using it properly ID, the the repeater is considered in compliance with ID requirements.

Drilled 8 holes in roof. Ran cables down C pillar to radios on back wall.