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The FCC stopped issuing paper licenses years ago. Sign on to the ULS, search for your call sign, and you can access a PDF copy of the license (as I recall it tends to favor "unofficial/reference copies", but there should be an option to download an "official" copy). Print & trim the paper.

I call BULLSHIT - just another Sad-HAM disguised as a GMRS user. YOUR radio YOUR choice - if the sad-HAM control freaks dont like it, they can change the channel.. HOWEVER - as you mentioned, if the repeater owner requests that you not use a roger-beep on his repeater, then following the wishes of the equipment owner who's equipment you are using would be the polite thing to do, IMO..

I'm pleased to announce a new feature available on the forums: a new classifieds system! Premium Members can post a listing for radios, repeaters, antennas, and more that they are selling or want to buy. All members can view and purchase items from the seller, a Premium Membership is only required to post advertisements. Purchases are handled between the buyer and seller directly at this time, but we might expand this in the future to handle payments similar to how eBay and PayPal work. There are no commissions since we are not handling the payments on behalf of the parties. If you are a Premium Member, you will see a blue "Submit an advert" button on the Classifieds page. Click on this button and select the category to list your ad under. Listings are active for 21 days for free (less the cost of membership) and can be renewed if the item is still available. You also have the ability to set up shipping options for the buyer, and can paste the tracking number for the shipment once you've completed a sale.

Mid Feb works for me

Update, got a replacement, working fine. So the issue is with the radio.

Very nice. I'm definitely going to use this feature. If you do decide to handle transactions in the future, be warned, it's a lot of liability. I had a startup a few years back that was a two-sided marketplace for buying and selling camera gear. I handled the transactions via Stripe and ended up dishing out $5k to cover the damage done by fraudsters. Keeping the responsibility of transacting between the buyer and seller is much easier.

Thanks to you all. Got it a printed it out. Typical of you folks, your always willing to help. Can’t use the radio with a pacemaker installed in my chest. So my brothers son will now have it. As he can use my call sign. bob

Note that the image references "FREE SPACE" -- which is essentially a non-existent condition in real life (even a probe moving between Jupiter and Saturn will have the radio and power source acting as some form of reflector/ground). Compare: Free Space half wave dipole (note the 2.15dBi figure -- that's where the conversion from dB Isotropic to dB dipole [dBd] comes from) "Perfect Ground", antenna 100 meters up And finally, "Real Ground" using high-accuracy model (0.005 S/m conductivity, 13 dielectric constant), same 100 meters up

That's very unlikely to happen for several reasons. 1. The Hams will vigorously defend their spectrum from getting "pilfered" by another service. If they did take any spectrum the FCC would likely auction it off for money. 2. It would require some major revisions to the GMRS rules and spectrum management, not to mention mucking up the unified frequency allocations between GMRS and FRS. 3. The primary user of the 70cm is the government. Hams are only secondary users.

Well that's what the FCC had envisioned the service's main use. However as any casual member of this forum sees it has evolved more towards a hobby use. I guess there is nothing wrong with that, but the FCC would be quick to point out that wasn't the original intent. That was mentioned in the initial comments. The purpose of the document is to get people thinking about it and to at least consider what the FCC might realistically consider. Start small and when you gain some ground push a little further. This plays into the topic of this thread. There are a lot of digital modes in use on the Hams bands. While that might be a good thing it is also a negative, too many modes. For the general non-technical public picking once digital mode for GMRS I think is the way to go. With the experience of multiple modes on the Hams bands I think we, Hams, can offer some recommendations that make sense and fit the GMRS service. There is a lot of equipment out there and modes in use to choose from.

variation on Jeep crawler that I have used for decades is self vulcanizing silicone tape, E tape, butyl mastic and more tape. Have used heat shrink w/"glue" inside where tape was not really an option.

But digital GMRS is not interoperable with analog GMRS, so they would be effectively creating another service (DGMRS or DMRS). At that point, why not use a different section of spectrum? Fortunately for me, I live where there’s a lot of underutilized spectrum, but that also means I don’t have a feel for what you metropolitans have to deal with. And I guess a part of me asks why people don’t just get their technician licenses and buy into 70cm digital voice. Of course the family license is probably the reason.

To get back on topic has anyone heard of or used dPMR here in the US? It's very similar to NXDN, but uses a different protocol, and is used in Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_private_mobile_radio The license free service they have over there, like our old FRS rules, allows them to use narrow band FM, DMR or dPMR, at at 0.5 watts. https://kenwoodcommunications.co.uk/files/file/comms/uk/pmr446/PMR446-White-Paper-V6_18AUG2016_JT_KB.pdf Makes one wonder why the FCC is dragging their feet here over allowing digital voice on GMRS. Also dPMR is allowed for their equivalent of our LMR business service, Part 90, at higher power. https://dpmrassociation.org/dPMR-a-brief-overview.html There is another issue I stumbled across with cheap Chinese digital radios. Apparently they have a habit of using Chinese codecs in many of them that are NOT compatible with the usual AMBE+2 ones that seems to be the standard in many of the higher tier radios from the big name manufactures. https://radiosification.blogspot.com/2019/01/dpmr-vocoders.html

Don’t drag me into this very annoying sidebar.

I'm game. It will have to be in a couple weeks though. I have a A LOT of stuff going on right now, but maybe sometime mid February? That should be enough time for everybody to think about it and get it planned. What do you think?

Because people respond to him instead of putting him on their "Ignore User" list like I did the first time he tried to sucker me in to an argument. Believe me, the forums are much more enjoyable that way.

What? Creating a context so that you can create a platform to contradict someone? OK, since you said that, I will accept that as being the case. Not my specific intent here, but since you choose to point one that was your motivation, I can go with it. Now of course, context, presentation, and lastly grammar is EVERYTHING. You made that as a statement, rather than a question that would imply that I was the one taking refuge. But your presentation is all wrong. By taking what I said, out of context, and then making a specific statement about what I said, you in effect agreed with it. And in doing so implied YOU were the one taking refuge. Which of course is actually the case. And with reviewing other posts you have created over time, taking those into account along with this, it creates an even better context that it's indeed true that you like creating platforms out of thin air to contradict other's for no other reason than the act of doing it. But that's ok. We all are motivated by different things. And have different personality traits that don't always mess real well with others, but we all seem to be able to more or less get along. And how did a discussion about digital modes on ham radio devolve into this nonsense anyway? I had to go back and look and here's what I am seeing. LScott commented about hams complaining about expensive microphones and then dropping money HF gear. This was a reply to a comment about HHCH configurations which are a thing with commercial P25 gear. So still technically on topic. You disagreed and said cheap wasn't 'appropriate'. Couple comments of real world situations about hams, still within the overall subject matter. And again, you needed to contradict things and point out analogies being stretched. Couple more comments,,, then I posted and you again needed to contradict me, and LScott. And here we totally hijacked once again. I rebut, you again take what I said totally out of context and attempt to further your straw man position. And here we are. So I guess the question becomes, just what is it that motivates you to come in and hijack threads on here? ANd what exactly in this ENTIRE thread that you posted has ANYTHING to do with P25 on ham radio to begin with. I see you contradicting others. I see you create a context out of thin air to further your contradictions, but I don't see ONE DAMN THING that has anything to do with digital VOICE on ham radio.

Super deal Rich! Move some gear and recruit more supporters for mygmrs.com We all appreciate what you do to support the community. de wrcu527 / k7vll Darren tucsongmrs.org swcrs.org Talkgroup 527 on TGIF DMR

I’m gonna put up a repeater and make it a requirement that everyone must use a roger beep and the more annoying the better. We’ll hold contests! And it’ll be on channel 19. ?

SUPER long-time CBer. VERY long -time ham and yes, now repeater owning GMRSer. Besides just trying to be as cool as Randy, I wanted a way to be able to talk to my family without the internet or being at the mercy of some technocrat app like Facebook. After all, The Zuck shut even my messenger down that I use with my children that drive to school nearly 30 miles from home. Plus we live rural and cell coverage is just getting up to speed out here anyway. Only one of my sons got his hammy-ham license and my wife and daughter have no interest at all. They (The Facebook Police) would even look at or use AI to look at our private texts and shut My messenger down during elections, inauguration, J6, again as we (The US) began to support the proxy war in Ukraine and any time I mentioned the global warming coincidence AKA 'Died Suddenly'. Now, most the time they would reinstate me after a week or so but this time they permanently suspended my account. Long story short I needed or wanted a backup way I could communicate with non ham licensed family members that can't easily be shut down during your average TEOTWAWKI--SHTF event so now we use the encrypted Signal App and our family's GMRS repeater as a back up. Well of course when I am doing serious testing or just want to let down what's left of my hair, it's GMRS and also of course most my friends are experienced licensed ham radio operators and yes, we do indeed talk 'Radio' and about everything including ham radio and ham frequencies. IMO the best range tests should include and ongoing conversation to identify holes or lack of coverage. And yes, I am sure some of the jargon bleeds into our GMRS conversations but those are the guys that will recognize problems with the signal or give me the best reports and ideas on how to make improvements. The only real difference though that I think might stick out to GMRSers is our group tends to me a bit more anal about IDing to stay in compliance than most the other GMRS only users I know, not that we care though, it's just what we are used to. Like other hams, I don't feel I must give anyone an explanation per se but if this helps pure GMRS guys understand when and why I personally use GMRS then I will share. Now to find that Affiliate Link for the Mossberg Parts mat...

Maybe I didn’t understand what you were asking when I answered earlier. I thought you were asking why hams also use GMRS. That’s the question I answered, thinking in terms of different services used differently. Or are you saying that they’re taking over GMRS and bringing with them traditional ham activities in an effort to make it ham-light, such as calling CQ, using Q codes, and ragchewing on GMRS? Steve

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Your point ? I said in the past I was a ham, and for many years. Just because I'm a ham doesn't mean anything. Its a service I use for a specific purpose. GMRS was never the place to be a "ham" until as of late. That's what this thread was started about. But some folks as your self can't understand the difference between the services. And as reference the ham came to me because I maintain many public safety and business license and am in the FCC system daily doing updates. You do realize some folks actually have paying careers in RF right ?

This is what I set it to. It seems to work better than the standard settings. I may tweek them more later on.

This is the way

Even though this is the first post I’ve read today, I’m unable to “react” with a like emoji, so I want to say this is an absolutely excellent post! As far as licensing goes, that’s how it is here in Montana as well. I’m literally the first person I’ve met in Montana with a license. I requested an FRN many years ago (pre 2005 I think because it was before my job change) for the purpose of obtaining a GMRS license, but then the FCC said they were going to request to make GMRS licenses free. So, I thought I’d wait. I and everyone I know who owns GMRS radios have been using them ever since without licensing, until I decided to get legitimate in 2021. None of the people I speak to using my GMRS radio have a license and most of them couldn’t even describe the licensing process. Our usage of GMRS radios happens entirely at our monthly rocket launches so we can keep in touch if we need to. We don’t have conversations on the radio. We have conversations while we’re sitting together, but when we’re recovering a rocket the radios allow us to check on each other, or to offer suggestions “I think it was more east than that!” Most of us went to an outdoor sporting goods store and bought a Garmin Rino for the mapping ability. When we’re walking around in the hills looking for our own rocket we appear on each other’s maps screens, at least the last known location. We may only speak on the radio for a few seconds once a month, but those few seconds are important to recovering rockets that might be worth thousands of dollars. Having radios also allows us to react in case one of us has a medical emergency. Many of us are in our fifties, sixties, or seventies (some are even older) and hiking up and down rock strewn hills stresses the human body. Plus, it’s easy to get turned around on an overcast day. We don’t use networks or repeaters and we never ever hear anyone else on the channel we’ve agreed upon. I have toyed with the idea of setting up a portable repeater on one of our hills to keep in better touch, but that will result in losing our ability to see each other on our maps. I still have only physically met one other GMRS licensee, other than on this forum. But I know a lot of unlicensed people who use GMRS for purpose driven communications just like I did. They don’t know or care about the regulations and they’re not hurting anyone. They’ve never even heard the word “interstitial” before.

Early January 2022 here in Alaska we had a horrible winter storm that knocked out power to thousands as well as cell service to some, I lost heat, power, and cell service in my area for 3 days and I was completely unprepared. I have four children my youngest was 10 months old at the time. After that happened I promised myself I will never let that happen again. I then stared going down the "prepper" road and doing research on the subject. This is when I first learned about GMRS. When I Youtubed GMRS the first video to pop up was NOTARUBICON and his videos on GMRS. I took it all in and began taking the steps to get my license. I then watched a video with him and Josh at HAM RADIO CRASH COURSE talking about GMRS and Amateur radio. Then I found Jason at HAMRADIO 2.0 along with this website and ARRL and Radio Reference etc. The biggest thing that drew me into Randy, Josh, and Jason was that I could identify with all three in them as far as age, family/young children, similar interest, and their ability to explain everything rather simply and with some comedic relief. I have now since received my tech license (KL5LD) and I give full credit to Josh and Jason because their YouTube channels and the information they provided helped me tremendously in passing my test as well as taking a class with Bob Phinney over at New England Sci-Tech, Thanks again Bob (K5TEC)! I now have both GMRS and amateur radios that I use everyday, and I enjoy using both. With family it is mostly GMRS, while my kids are studying for their tech license and I for my general and with ham it is mostly for the entertainment of listening to all the old timers gripe at each other over ALLSTAR LINK on the the east coast repeater, it is quite hilarious to me personally (I'm just kidding guys), but there are also some really solid guys out here in Alaska that I have met over ham and they have been extremely kind and helpful in so many ways I couldn't even begin to list them. Heck, just a couple weeks ago my family and I got invited to a local clubs pot luck and gift exchange for Christmas when I was trying to find info during another horrible winter storm we just had before Christmas(It was pretty bad)! Yet, when I have talked to people over GMRS it is pretty straight forward, kinda like having a conversation with somebody in person. I'm going to be honest and say that I have been meeting more and more people in my area that have GMRS radios and they just use them. No license, no call signs, no codes or other things of that sort. It is just people out and about enjoying the great outdoors and using their radios as a means to communicate because there are many areas within our state where there is very shotty cell reception if at all and using these radios are literally life savers for people. This past September I went Moose hunting with my son and we ran across a bunch of guys using GMRS radios and when talking with them I would bring up the whole license issue and they all just laughed at me as if that was actually a thing. I guess up here in Alaska a lot of people just have a different mentality about how they utilize this tool. Everybody gets along great with no issues that I have ever heard of and it seems to be a growing "hobby" for us up here with new repeaters popping up, which is great! Sorry for the long winded comment, but with all that being said I guess it is different in each region and how people are using GMRS and ham. Down in the states you guys seem to be using it for, well, the reasons you have stated, but up here in Alaska, in what I have seen and experienced, we are not using it as simply a "hobby" (this is not to say you guys are "just" using it for the same reason) to meet new friends, I feel it is much more than that, it is literally a life line. It is a way for us to stay connected to each other during our rough winters when the power goes out and its -20 outside, it is a way to communicate while out in the bush chasing down a 1,200 lbs moose to fill our freezers for the year, it is a way to tell the guy further down the river to get ready, the salmon are coming, it is a way to tell our family and friends to watch for that bear out in the tree line with her cubs while out picking blueberries, from what I have seen up here in the Great North it is much much more. And who am I to tell anybody how to use their radios? I'm just another voice over the waves. To each their own. Be safe and respectful, have fun, and watch your six.

If one can live with 12.5kHz NFM rather than the 20kHz FM bandwidth allowed for GMRS.

Small tiny correction: narrowbanding was mandated by FCC for the commercial Part 90 radios. GMRS is still wide band. FRS was always narrow band. Midland took easy way, and decided that their offerings will be narrow band. There is some logic in this decision, if you take in account Midland's FRS offerings and desire to make the whole universe of Midland to be compatible with itself. Sure, they made it less compatible with wide band GMRS equimpment, but maybe it's their intent, to lock users in their universe.