Leaderboard

Quick question, if there are so many ham repeaters that it's so difficult to add another one, why would you need to? Just use the existing repeater network.

Yeah.... This is a tough one and don't take it personally. I have a repeater and have not yet decided if I want to post it as available or not... In an ideal setting, I would like to give access to everyone with GMRS users having priority over "ham" type users. Ham types have plenty of other places to go, and from the perspective of providing public access, I want to do this. Yet, I worry that users that have come from the ham side have learned some operating habits that are not the best at times. I honestly don't know how I am going to address this issue if I take it public. I get 40 miles of coverage so the system is working really nice too. On the fence on this one myself so I suspect the owner you are describing thought about these issues also. Too bad the interpersonal skills were not up to par though. J

Almost forgot: A lot of sad-hams like to slum on GMRS - so turn on your roger beep, then kerchunk the repeater a few times - They'll come at you like The Walking Dead...

I'll hazard a guess that someone meant to add it to the map for coordination purposes, but inadvertently listed it as open, when they meant to post it as private. The request cued them that it was visible, and rather than correcting the listing they chose to delete it from the map altogether.

Ive actually found this forum to be fairly tolerant and respectful of differing viewpoints, for the most part. I'll admit, I was one that came to gmrs looking for "ham-lite", en route to getting my ticket (pandemic shelter in place, and no VE sessions). Learned some things along the way, found minimal traffic (and making minimal traffic of my own since the family has no interest in radio, like less than zero), and made the jump to ham. Also learned the reality is more "frs-plus", or as @marcspazputs it, "bring your own contacts". There's a bit more traffic now that an area ham club added a gmrs repeater...mainly the hams use it to reach their non-ham family, with the occasional radio checks. I chime in occasionally, but keep it to a minimum; to some extent it's also testing where I can reach it from as much as getting back to them, but I keep the majority of my ragchewing to the network of ham repeaters here that encourages it (when I actually join in).

"Last month" like 2 1/2 weeks ago? ? We did. But we must not have solved the problem, since the discussion has come back. I almost weighed in on the other thread, I guess I should have. Definitely YMMV, but as I said in my earlier post, around here the "hams" on the GMRS repeaters ... aren't. It seems to me that there are individuals/organizations/websites/whatever that are advertising GMRS as something that (according to the FCC) it isn't. We see evidence of that almost every day on these forums. "I just got my GMRS license and I can't find any random people to talk to." That is NOT the stated purpose of GMRS. Is that type of usage forbidden? Not that I can see anywhere. But if people get their GMRS license with the thought that they can use GMRS to talk to random people (just like on a ham repeater) without having to take a test, guess what? That's what they are going to do! Again, YMMV. Personally I think it's silly for hams to go hang out on a GMRS repeater as if it were a ham repeater.

That means there is a problem with this issue.... Larger than I had even thought. Someone coming from the "ham bands" needs to reflect on operating habits a little before diving in. GMRS is best served as a "utility" user area. People could discipline themselves enough to make this work because.... Oh am I ever going to get it for saying this... Because if people use it like "hams" do? It's shot for utility use when in range of a repeater. I know I'm a new poster here and that statement will likely get me banned for life when the flames start. It's OK. I'm still my own life path either way. thanks to everyone for the thoughtful posts. ---Joseph

My wife isn't interested in getting a ham license, but I wanted to have some way to contact her through a repeater from someplace like Mt. Baldy here in Southern California where cell service is pretty spotty at best, and occasionally on my commute home from work. Still, 99% of my time is spent on ham radio.

I can offer a couple of reasons why at least myself, an amateur general license for a number of years decided to get into GMRS. I was considering getting a CB for my little RV that I am trying to spend a lot more time in. However, CB is not my cup of tea any longer and GMRS seemed like a much better alternative for travel comms. It's a lot more likely to go on Randys "universal highway channel 19" (or scan for someone) and find a travel companion or road information etc. Trying that with my ham would not likely get me a lot of come backs. And for get togethers with the sons and their families, I can equip a number of people including the kids with cheap FR/GMRS HTs which I can not do with ham. Regarding local repeaters, for me it is just a matter of knowing what is going on. Local information is always better than what you may hear on the news or internets. In this case ham may actually be better at least early on.

I prefer being referred to as a Well-Marbled American, if you don't mind, sir.

Sorry to stray from the OP’s post, but this is of interest to me, and may or may not speak to the OP’s question. I changed the status of my repeater after receiving requests from people who were nowhere near it’s very limited coverage area. It just became pointless for me to offer access when the majority of requests were obviously not going to hit it, and many of these people were looking for repeaters with activity for the purposes of “conversation”. There are several open repeaters in my region that cover 50+ miles, and since the lowering of the licensing fee, these repeaters are occupied by hams and CB’ers, who have moved their lengthy and pointless conversations onto the extremely limited GMRS channels. Some of these conversations run for hours throughout the day, as these people are often retired or unemployed, and due to the large footprint of the repeater, make that particular frequency pair unavailable for others to use. I think this is inconsiderate, when the amateur radio service exists for this very intended purpose. You mentioned hams have other places to go, as do CB operators, but in my region, they have flocked to GMRS. Of these high profile repeaters that exist in my region, I have heard practically NO family communications on these wide footprint repeaters, because they are occupied by older men who sit around and BS for hours, as if they are sitting at the corner bar. I can tell you that any reasonable parent would probably not want to use these repeaters with their children, for many reasons. Your desire to have GMRS activity take priority over ham-type activity is understandable. I don’t know if that can be accomplished anymore, since the FCC lowered the fee, and the Chinese are cranking out inexpensive radios.

Absolutely. It's a tough sell to get people to understand that for as many similarities there are between GMRS and ham radio, (push the button and talk, your voice comes out of someone else's radio), GMRS and ham are completely different in a lot of ways in terms of their intended uses and user base. It's more likely you'll hear someone on GMRS say real quick their Jeep is stuck again, but on ham you'll hear a 75 year old giving you 15 minutes about how his gout is flaring up for the fourth time this week.

I ask this question every day when hams tell me UHF is full. There are a ton of repeater pairs but many are tied to xyz ham who may put up a repeater someday. Thats the issue with the "coordinators" in my opinion. I live in them middle of no where. Have 1 2M repeater within 100 miles and when i asked for my own 2m got told no. So I just put up one on my pair. But I agree. Tons of spectrum in ham bands

Yes, There are some thoughtful posts here and commendable. I thought many things that were typed by others, yet was trying to be as polite as possible. Rants and raves don't help anything. IF any good can come of this, I would like it to be known that it was a polite suggestion that eating the rag, endless weather chat, and a parade of random electromagnetic FM is kinda hard on "utility users"... This is what I meant when I said, "hams develop some operating habits that are not the best"... This was not meant in disrespect in any way. It is an empirical observation. Those techniques need and want to be in the ham bands so I only ask politely, not with hidden advocacy. Steps to help with this could be as simple as resisting the urge to xmit if you honestly have nothing to say. It would really help a lot! By the way, I had NO IDEA that the license fee was 35 now! OMG! Chinese radios and this? I had been accumulating quality commercial hardware to put my system up for almost 5 years now. This indeed could potentially become an "issue"... Knowing all this? I am off the fence and it will stay private for now, yet still open to public use if I don't start to hear fresh dung hittin da fan...

Sure will. Give me probably till tommorrow. Will post soon!

Thanks - I can understand not wishing to raise a repeater only to have it taken over for rag-chewing. I get the idea that a lot of people buy GMRS licenses because paying $35 is the same for either hams or GMRS, but GMRS doesn't require a test. It sounds as if the people flocking to GMRS are simply looking for an easier way to play radio. I don't understand why someone who is already licensed as a ham would be attracted to GMRS for that reason. Maybe these are people who either couldn't pass the test, were too intimidated to try, or it's just easier. Perhaps the price for GMRS should be raised to $70 again and the price for a ham license be removed? ?

They have that but its called Amateur Radio.

Sorry. That’s all we get. ?

That should work. For me it’s easier to think in terms of repeater input (467) and output (462 range) and that’s exactly what you are doing. Maybe the repeater is on a different frequency or out of range. No luck contacting the owner?

That might be a better choice for the moment. Get a cheap GMRS specific radio and experiment with programming it. Once you feel comfortable with the basic concepts then you can move up to a commercial type radio. That’s what many people do. The commercial radios have a significant learning curve if you never programed one before. They have a multitude of options that you may or may not want or need. Trying to figure it all out from scratch is not for everybody. It took me a while even through I had done Ham specific radios before. The commercial radios were different enough I spent some time reading the help files in the programming software and experimenting. If all you want is just a plug and play radio then having a radio shop program it is the way to go. However if you’re the type that wants to get your head wrapped around the idea there is nothing like trying it yourself. Of course you’ll make mistakes, but hey if you didn’t you likely won’t learn anything.

OffRoaderX beat me to the punch because I'm a little long-winded today. LOL Unfortunately, it can be, depending on where you live. It's not like CB or Ham radio, as far as the social aspects are concerned. I typically tell people its a "bring your own contacts" type of service. Just my opinion based on anecdotal experience, most people who get into GMRS are either looking for 1 or more of 3 things. 1.) Emergency/backup family communications where cell service is poor. 2.) Communications with family and friends while doing outdoor/adventurous activities. 3.) For community service. Providing repeater service for the community and putting together emergency planning in the event of a disaster. It's not really a rag-chew type of service... though in highly populated areas, there is a little of it.

I can understand that. I thought of doing that myself but my want list keeps growing. ?

Count me in that group. A perfect example is the WinSystem. They have repeaters and nodes linked in all over the world. Jam one of them and you're jamming all of them. One idiot starts transmitting a siren from his Baofeng or going on a 30-minute political rant and it gets transmitted out of every repeater and node on the system. Plus, it takes away a local repeater pair and instead we're linked in to drivel from some insomniac in the UK during our drive time. I don't even think it's a potential problem, I think it's an ongoing problem. Not only that, it's populated with self-appointed audiophiles who pride themselves in providing nothing but unsolicited signal reports. Sorry, linked ham repeaters are a hot-button for me.

Exactly! While everyone else is a NY Strip, we're a Ribeye. LoL

I see allstarlink has a couple variants, this is why I asked if another hardware platform could be done: x86/amd, debian-strecth os. Which I see some Arm based hardware also support. Keep in mind I know that is a lot of work too. Thus, I would be a gunnie-pig if needed.

Bingo!!!! In an effort to link and expand coverage? This unwittingly expands the impact of non-utility behavior issues. North Georgia GMRS I used and subscribed until the linking started. The utility user numbers crashed, and the ham type numbers went up. It's a paid service so there goes the neighborhood. That was the catalyst for starting to acquire decent hardware to run my own cooker.

Nice link!

Something that perhaps isn't cited as frequently as it should be is this rule regarding Personal Radio Services. It seems obvious to me that rag-chewing is a violation of this premise: § 95.357 Duration of transmissions. Except as otherwise provided, the operator of a Personal Radio Services station must generally limit transmissions to the minimum duration necessary. See e.g., § 95.2357. Some Personal Radio Services have specific duration limits, which are set forth in the subparts governing those services. See e.g., § 95.957.

So, it appears we're seeing an excess of success. Cheap radios, easy licensing with very loose rules on who may use, increased number of repeaters, and repeater networks. That GMRS is regulated to be very easy for families to connect with each other under a single license, perhaps too easy. What could be done? Many people (myself included) would prefer that GMRS be used primarily for short messages, rather than long winded sessions. Actually that's good etiquette for any repeater usage. Likewise, although station to station conversations don't have to be limited in length for ham radio, they probably should for GMRS, since there are so few channels. Should there be a more public dissuasion of people who want to rag-chew on GMRS? Multiple times per week someone gets on here and says they bought a GMRS radio and they're dissappointed there's nobody to chat with. Should there be a pinned post that we can steer them towards, or a set answer that's basically "You've got the wrong idea," nicely of course. Randy has been good about saying that.

You are 100% correct. I don't think you'll get banned, though. You might even get some write-in votes in the 2024 General Election.

I got the replacement a couple of hours ago and it is like a completely different radio. Actually, it acts just like a real radio. Sits here and chirps, whistles and I heard a distant conversation that did not seem to be on the repeater but simplex. I have not had anybody answer a radio check but at least locally there isn't a lot of GMRS traffic going on. So yes, I am pretty convinced the first radio was a bad one. PS I realized after that all the radios will come with the antenna attached due to the data capability. But the new one had the bits and pieces tied up with the wire tie which the first one did not, everything was just rattling around in the box. PPS. I just A/Bd the 2 radios and the old one is just dead quiet while the new one squawks and chirps.

Short answer: No, you can not. You are only allowed to used frequencies that are allocated for Amateur Radio (if you have Amateur Lincese). 158.452 is not one of them. Long answer: For starters, see the frequency allocations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_frequency_allocations and http://www.arrl.org/frequency-allocations Or in graphic form: http://www.arrl.org/graphical-frequency-allocations

Thanks all, I am pretty sure it was the radio. The replacement got here and it is much more sensitive than the original. As soon as I programmed it, which was easy peasy since the program was still on my phone, and I set it for my closest repeater, it immediately started to show signs of life. Just like a normal radio it breaks squelch often and I have heard a few times people keying up on the repeater. I have not had anyone answer back to my radio check yet but I feel a lot more confident with this radio than the last one. Everything seems proper compared to the first one. Thanks for all your comments.

We have a number of GMRS repeaters in our area, including at least six that have been stood up in the past year. Of all those repeaters, I can only think of a couple examples of 'family' communications. The first was a small footprint one set up by a friend of mine that he used to check in with his mother-in-law every day. Unfortunately someone else stood up a high power repeater on the same pair that drowned him out, and I think he moved it to his camp. The second is a guy I've heard do a radio check with his (I think) brother-in-law that lives quite a distance away a few times through one of the large footprint repeaters. The rest of the traffic on the repeaters? Radio checks, "nets" or rag-chewing. One thing I've noticed that appears to be different in our area is that a lot of the repeater users are NOT hams. Yes, there are some GMRS users who also have an amateur license, but they appear to be in the minority.

Only reason I am asking is because I have had 3 - Pi 4 on Backorder since October 2022, Last time I asked for another update was Jan, 2023 and was told they don't have a clue and the supplier can't tell them. The was Newark. Mouser has none also. I know the Pi 4 is not listed as ready for mygmrs, but they could free up my Pi 3 devices. But if the supply chain is this horrible, is it better to look at x86 low end devices that maybe an image could be made for one.

I have the tone on the frequency that I am transmitting to the repeater aka the 467.xxx, and no tone on the 462.xxx. Hope that is correct and not reversed lol.

And if you asked if he had any "Dave Made" he likely would have asked you how many watts.?

There are some set screws where the bottom element slides into the base. Just loosen those and slide the entire antenna down a bit to raise the frequency. DON'T mess with any of the other elements. I've ran some SWR sweeps on the one I have and a buddy with one on a lip mount for the hood on his pickup truck. The match can vary significantly with the mount type and location. I would be VERY suspicious of the SWR reading changing with power level, it shouldn't. That could be due to the output of the radio generating a lot of harmonics at the higher power, or the SWR meter itself isn't functioning right. I would recommend you try another SWR meter, another manufacture if possible, and see if you get the same behavior. As a side note this issue,with changing SWR reading with power level, is something I've read about online from other people who have this model.

Always good advice. Have found some very nice test equipment (HP8920, Bird wattmeters, and antenna analyzers) cheap at hamfests. Also vintage tube type radios....although I would say that is a niche area of the hobby now. I always see something I never even heard of at local radio club meetings and vendor tables.

One other suggestion. Start going to local hamfests when they pop up in your area as you will always find some deals there. Plus, you can always find other stuff radio related stuff you never new you needed and want.

Welcome back to GMRS, just another thought, make sure no tones are pre set by Retivis that may filter your reception. 73s

Some areas are, mostly because GMRS is intended for purpose-use. ie; when you go hiking, off-roading, etc, to talk with others in your group. Its not primarily intended for chatting with strangers.

I don’t know of a single introductory thread here. If anything you’ll be permanently scarred by the arguments about what kinds of radios are best and whether a roger beep portends the end of the world as we know it, but it’s actually a pretty fun bunch of people. Some of the best introduction to gmrs is in the form of Notarubicon videos on YouTube, although you will also want to pay attention to some of the people here to hear some reasoned differing opinions. In particular, look for his GMRS for Dummies video. Don’t let anyone tell you your radio isn’t good enough. Eventually something someone says may sound like that, but don’t take it personally. You’ll quickly learn what’s good enough for your own needs. Welcome to the forum!

I have tested with the SWR meter for the Nagoya and the Aubree 18" Inch. The results are about the same. I just like the Aubree better because I can fold it up, and its more sturdy. 1.03 for the Nagoya and 1.02 for the Aubree The performance is close enough that its a matter of preference at this point. This is strictly on GMRS freqs.

Check these videos out: https://www.youtube.com/@HamRadioCrashCourse/search?query=antenna shootout

I am not a lawyer nor a law enforce officer,, but I spent a long time studying constitutional law and criminal justice. Almost a decade. I have a high degree of confidence in stating that if something is not explicitly prohibited, it's assumed legal. There are very, very limited exceptions where guilt is assumed until proven otherwise. In those cases (statutes) it is very clearly defined as a prima facie prohibited act until determined otherwise allowed. I am unaware of any law that has actual assumptions.

This is not accurate. You can use any modulation type (including digital) on any HF band except 60m. Also, there is extremely limited bandwidth restrictions on all HF bands (depends on modulation type) except on 60m, which is heavily restricted.

The GMRS antenna on both my Jeeps is at the rear-passenger corner. Its not the most optimal location, but it works just fine. SWR on the LJ is 2.1:1, and on the JKU is 1.6:1 .. Range is great and I regularly get simplex fars of 20+Miles and can hit one of my repeaters from 98 miles.. So dont let any of the "experts" tell you that this mounting location "wont work"... Both Jeeps have Motorola XTL5000 radios. CB (when I used it) was same location, but dont use CB anymore.

I think there is an ongoing impression, especially amongst people new to GMRS, that repeaters are somehow part of GMRS and generally available to licensed GMRS users and that this site, or any other, is somehow involved. It has been posted here before, but perhaps it needs to be made sticky, that: A GMRS license includes the right to use simplex communications on all 22 GMRS channels, subject to the published power and bandwidth limitations. While a licensee also has the right to operate a repeater, the license does not include the right to use other repeaters. Any such access, if permitted, must be done in accordance with the operating practices set by the repeater owner.

Not everyone lists there repeaters. I have multiple that are not listed and know of others out there. Its a volunteer thing to go in and ujpdate and many don't care.