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Yep, brand new antennas on my Vertex HTs from MOL for about $1 cheaper than the ebay special, and got to my door much quicker.

I wish people would do some basic research first about travel tones for open repeaters and the semi official channel 20 for travel. A simple Google search lists a bunch of references on this topic. If people just used what has been the norm for years instead of trying to change it maybe we would have more people using it.

Those in a pack are not real Motorola antennas. IMO, buy directly from MOL, I buy all my XPR antennas from MOL directly, as giving money to the counterfeiters only makes the problem worse. Those counterfeit SMA antennas are much worse than the genuine Motorola antennas I've purchased directly from MOL, as measured with multiple antenna analyzers. Also, to be clear, most "official Motorola dealers" on eBay price gouge the heck out of you, and most are lazy that take a week to ship stuff out.... My experience with MOL has been pretty much great, I know, some people have had some horror stories, but not my case... and most antennas I've purchased directly from MOL took <48 hours to show up at my doorstep, at a lower price tag. G.

This is the obvious answer.. Everyone knows that CB Ch19 is the unofficial official road channel so it makes sense that GMRS Ch19 would be the same.. Someone should go on Youtube and decree it, to make it official..

Its not an option, you don't have any more rights to the use the frequency than any other licensed GMRS user.

Ok so I did that and the first listing directed me to @rdunajewski’s post: “Travel Tone is when a repeater enables 141.3 Hz as an open tone for travelers to use when in the area. For example, you could tune your radio to each GMRS repeater channel with 141.3 as your tone, and the repeaters with a Travel Tone are open for temporary use without permission. Good for when you don't have time to program each repeater along your route. “ORI stands for the Open Repeater Initiative which was created by Popular Wireless many years ago. It was a way to indicate a repeater is open for any licensed GMRS operator to use without having to ask the owner's permission. These repeaters you can just jump on and use as long as you follow GMRS rules and use your callsign.“ I don’t see your supposed designation about Channel 20 (not that Channel 20 isn’t a good idea!)?

Thats why we still carry them for SAR. They are simple radios and just work.

Yeah, that's why i included "supposedly" and didn't link any ? I don't always trust ebay, and you don't even have the relatively easy return policies backing you like Amazon (which has its own counterfeit issues. And especially little stuff like that that would be easy to fake, and I don't have a need for that many. when there's not much difference between an authorized dealer and ebay, it's worth a couple extra bucks or so to go to a source more likely to be reputable and selling genuine products.

HT1000 is a pretty decent radio. Don't be fooled by the specs in the receiver sensitivity, as the HT1000 VHF model has a pretty darn hot receiver... which also has selectivity to boot too... the claimed specs are -118 dBm (0.28 uV @ 50ohm) Personally I would go with the HT1250/HT1550... with the full keypad... but... that's just me. G.

Well, testing MURS vs FRS range with CCRs is like testing how accurate an AR-15 would be by using an airsoft replica... All those radios have nearly equal, or equally poor dynamic sensitivity, measured around -90 dBm, in both V/U bands. The Gen1 XPR 6550 has about -110 dBm dynamic sensitivity, so if you want to test MURS vs FRS, get a pair of 6550, one U, one V, and run the test with genuine Motorola VHF/UHF antennas, and while at it measure the RSSI too. Gives you real data, rather than "can you hear me now", which is so "reliable" and reminds me of an old TV commercial for cell phone coverage, when coverage used to be poor at best... just like CCR range. G.

On the flip side, with information out there indicating .675 (20) as a road channel....if I wanted to avoid interference from simplex users, I would probably avoid putting my repeater on .675 (20), if possible. If there's no other option, due to the number of repeaters around, well, tones will have to do (other than 141.3, definitely). Personally, I think it wasn't the best idea for FCC to overlap simplex and repeater output channels, and make those the only high power simplex channels, but it is what it is.

Instead of telling everyone what you can't do, or what you shouldn't do, how about a suggestion on what we can do? Or is all this an exercise in futility?

DownEastNC, my thought exactly. A GMRS travle channel what ever it is and how it is set should not be a problem. we just need to make it a service know to others is all I am saying. A travle channel will not be for everyone i know that. some places i have traveled i could be a detrimental to display anything other than my License plate. Im sure Forum rule would prohibit anyone from advertising and making money from this site. I'm not talkng about that. The greater My GMRS.com community if organized could step up the game over a hand full of GMRS doing it themselves. Here in Illinois we have two seasons, road construction months and to cold for road construction. Sitting in 4 or 6 lanes back up it would be nice to get the feel of what and how long this it is going to be. Cell phones or not, Now google maps have aided in this a lot, sometimes you can get a re-rout arond road closures. There is still time I wish I had my old CB to just lessen to truckers do just what i am saying. We all need to look-out for each other in this fast pace world.

WoW: what an insult that is to @kb2ztxand a self-referencing statement, too! ?

I miss the good knowledgeable people from the past too. Too bad they do not visit anymore.

I use this antenna up in my attic. Much better than trying to use radios inside in the house. I'm going to get a 2m (amateur) version. I want to sell it, if you're interested.

For about nine months I used two different Ed-Fong roll-up J-Pole antennas for GMRS and amateur radio services in my home. I operated them at 5W using an HT. They can be used at higher power if you wish, but you should operate further away from them if doing so as @IanM pointed out. In my case, I hung them from existing ceiling plant hangers and curtain rods near the windows in a couple of rooms. Although I have external antennas feeding radios in my shack, those Ed-Fong antennas remain hanging in those rooms for ready and easy connection to my HTs when I want to use them. They are easy to take down, roll-up, pack and take camping as well. Good luck on your endeavor. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

The responses don't surprise me. Seems counter productive towards getting people interested in a radio hobby. You want to talk money, we're currently burning in a brand new hytera ip addressable repeater going up with a DB420 antenna. Easily over $3k without counting duplexer, lightning protection, and cable. This will be at 950' in downtown Miami. Open to all. Part of the reason it's being done is the general "you stay off my repeater" vibe we picked up from looking at the local gmrs listings. It was baffling to see how unfriendly this side of the radio hobby can feel.