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This! When I’m hamming I’m hamming and I’ll do it on amateur radio frequencies. If I’m GMRSing, I’ll follow practices that make GMRS work well for others as well as me.

MURS is 154MHz, the 900MHz stuff is NOT MURS -- heck 900MHz is not even a Part 95 service (as I recall, the devices fall into Part 15 and the Industrial/Scientific/Medical band https://afar.net/tutorials/fcc-rules/ )

There's a few that pop up on a couple of the ham networks when they're in range There seems to be a few still there. If I'm near the big freeways solo I'll usually throw a cb in the truck and try for responses occasionally, especially if there's something interesting going on. Gotten a few coming back in the last couple years on not too many tries, actually.

In my humble opinion, hams calling other hams on GMRS defeats the entire purpose of being a ham in the first place. There may be situations where everyone in a group has a GMRS license but not everyone has a ham license, so hams would be calling other hams on GMRS by necessity, but for me, if everyone in my group is a ham, we stay in our own yard.

Hi "UncleYoda"... Somehow, your emotions are deleting the core part of the suggestion. There are 8 channels. I have never read that "hams should be banned", yet I am suggesting that "hams" unwittingly develop operating habits that do not blend well with the 8 channel spectrum allocated. My vision for even bringing this up, is to call attention to this which may cause "hams" calling other "hams" on GMRS to politely say, "OK let's roll over to 70cm or 2m or some where else so that we don't clog the space..." that's all. No malice, no hidden advocacy, no "ham loathing"... Just bringing the idea that setting a precedent where we all behave as gentlemen and ladies and handle things with decency is encouraged. That is all.

Not to mention...unless youve prearranged with someone else to meet there, it may not do much good to look for simplex contacts in a portion of the band where others aren't expecting to find simplex contacts...if that makes sense.

We should always be considerate of other users. Rag-chewing on GMRS doesn’t fit that model. It makes no sense to limit the length of a transmission, but allow a conversation to totally monopolize a channel. Yes, it does specifically mention “transmissions” because conversation is built on transmissions. It’s clearly intended to promote brevity, which include the conversation as a whole, in order to share the limited number of channels. That spirit is reinforced by the very next requirement: § 95.359 Sharing of channels. Unless otherwise provided in the subparts governing the individual services, all channels designated for use in the Personal Radio Services are available for use on a shared basis, and are not assigned by the FCC for the exclusive use of any person or station. Operators of Personal Radio Service stations must cooperate in the selection and use of channels in order to avoid interference and make efficient use of these shared channels. And for the record, I don’t think very many people believe hams should be barred from GMRS. They just want to be able to use GMRS as a personal radio service, rather than have it taken over by a small number of inconsiderate jerks who monopolize the limited number of channels with long winded conversations. It’s a matter of politely fitting in to the purposes for which the service has been established.

This is true…in many cases. However, as stated earlier, the band plans do vary locally. As an example of this, many years ago, I had a group of ham radio friends that operated simplex FM on 146.400. That frequency was designated as a simplex frequency in our coordinated band plan. It also appears on modern amateur transceivers with no pre-configured offset, nor does any other frequency offset to 146.400. At some point, we received emails from Riley Hollingsworth, who was the legal counsel for the FCC at the time. Hollingsworth stated in the email that he had received complaints regarding interference to a repeater over 160 miles south of us, in another state, and asked that we contact him, in order to get more information in the matter. Each of us talked to Hollingsworth, and explained how we used the frequency (simplex FM operation, either mobile or base, how much power, antennas used, etc.) The issue at hand was this…the repeater to our south had numerous input sites, and one of those inputs was about 90 miles away, on a tall tower, and the repeater had no PL tone on it. Further, the output of the repeater was on 147.000, and the input was on 146.400, the simplex frequency in our region. When Hollingsworth told us of the issue, he asked we do some testing, and we did tests and found that a 5 watt HT signal from a third floor apartment in an urban area, 90+ miles away, could hit this input with mild band enhancement. Now if you take your modern amateur 2m transceiver and look at the “automatic repeater shift” setting for 147.000, you will find it will indicate a “+” (positive) offset. However, the repeater in question used a negative offset, putting the input on a designated simplex frequency in our coordinating region. I recall mentioning this to Hollingsworth during our phone call, stating that my FCC approved equipment puts me on simplex on 146.400, and that the input to 147.000 would be 147.600 on my Yaesu radio. Upon completion of his investigation, Hollingsworth told us that we were operating correctly and to continue doing what we were doing. We were operating correctly and in compliance. The repeater owner had been told many times to tone the input to the repeater, as he had filed other complaints with the FCC regarding the same matter. The FCC determined it was unreasonable for a high profile repeater to operate in this manner, when in fact, all FCC approved gear will indicate a positive offset for 147.000, and tone access has been an established convention for nearly two decades at this point in time. The repeater owner had been advised to tone his repeater several times by the FCC, but refused to do so. So here is a case where the band plan in one location was different from that in a neighboring state, as conceived by “coordination councils”, and the typical ham transceiver would have a different repeater shift from what was in use. And to put the cherry on top, we contacted the coordinating councils in the two regions about this matter while the FCC was doing it’s investigation, and both council bodies responded with “you are wrong. You can’t interfere with a repeater, so you must change frequency”. These “councils” were, in fact, wrong, and went away with their tails between their legs when presented with the findings from the FCC. it is always best to understand the rules of amateur radio, and the conventions of operation within your region, so that you have the FCC on your side, and you can educate arrogant hams who “think” they know what they are talking about.

I guess my question would be did you put up a repeater to talk to YOUR family or for general use by all GMRS users? If you are putting up a repeater you need to decide what it's used for. No one in their right mind is gonna put up a repeater and link to one of the systems and then think it's gonna be a private repeater. Unless you are gonna leave the link down all the time. I just checked my repeater on MIDWEST. It's had over 6000 PTT's in the last 5 days. With over 24 hours of total transmit in that time frame. My other repeater does get some local use as well. And that's what it's there for, to be used. Both repeaters are for general use, and open to all licensed users. I certainly don't want to have equipment sitting dormant. If no one was on the repeaters, I would take them off the air and sell them. Now I would also not put up with it if there was some small group getting in there and keeping everyone else off the repeater tying it up all the time. But my personality allows me to be able to deal with that directly. I would just tell them they are not welcome. It's a shared resource and they can either figure out how to share or go do their thing somewhere else. I have in the past let others get under my skin. Get mad about the actions and behavior or others on my gear and then turn it off for weeks. Only to relent and fire it back up. I am not about that any more. If someone gets on my gear and acts dumb, they get told to grow up or go play in some other sandbox. As far as the original purpose of GMRS. I almost find those comments amusing. No one hardly uses GMRS for private family use any more, at least that I have seen. At least were they are ONLY using their license for family comms. I have no doubt that there are some that do. But I believe that is rare. And building repeater systems that cover 5 counties I can't see being for that specific purpose. And personally I see doing that as a waste of resources (the repeater pair being taken up). But we can do that according to the license rules. I just don't personally agree with it. But in saying that, far as resource utilization, is the reason I have my repeaters open to all and encourage their use by license holders. My crap does cover 5 counties. So I am not about to make it for private use. And I have other means that are equally robust to communicate with family in times it's needed. But that isn't a discussion for this forum.

Since this discussion is continuing, I will repeat myself from the previous discussion on hams using GMRS. I think it demonstrates that the amateur radio service is not providing the “service” it should be, to the community at large, in 2023. Many ham radio test questions are out of date or antiquated. They have no real purpose to the users who are entering ham radio, and these questions and tests only serve as a barrier. Some will say they want that barrier to exist, to keep out the unwanted, just as they did with the morse code requirement. To those hams, I say ‘get over it’. The days of most hams being aerospace engineers and having pocket protectors are long gone. Like it or not, we live in the here and now, and it is a “new normal”. It may not be better, but it is new. I thought there was a proposal in recent years to offer an entry level test of 5 questions, to give privileges on 70cm. That would be a step in the right direction for ham radio. What happened to that??? That is exactly what needs to be offered for entry level hams who only want to use an HT or mobile FM radio, with privileges only on 70cm FM frequencies. Give them privileges on 2m FM as well ! And in all reality, why do we even need test questions for those privileges, when it is basically the same as GMRS ? What do you need to know? You have a requirement to ID every so often, and you have to stay on these particular frequencies, and you would be limited to 50 watts TPO. No need to see if the applicant can recognize a resistor or a diode on a schematic. Who can do that today, with SMD components in everything? -/\/\/\/- is futile

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

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...

Should be easy to verify if radio actually transmits with wattmeter between radio and antenna, or better, between radio and dummy load.

Another complexity to take into account: the bandwidth of the mode you are using. A radio with +/-5.0kHz deviation would need to be at 144.005MHz (minimum) to keep the deviation edge at 144.000MHz, any lower and you are transmitting outside of the band. Similar for the upper end (147.995MHz).

Yes but that’s what he would get to talk to his wife, if he wanted to talk to her. ?

Yeah, it’s kind of bizarre, but I see lots of hams posting on Facebook that they’re on a particular frequency, either phone or ft8.

Hello WRWB509, I am also very new to gmrs and radios in general. I have found the Notarubicon youtube videos to be helpful and I have also been watching videos from David Canterbury on radios and antennas.

I picked this up on eBay and I'm about $300 into buying the Bird, The case, and an extra slug from Martin RF Supply.

You may communicate using simplex; you don’t need to use a repeater, but as others have pointed out you should adhere to the band plan established in your area. A local amateur radio club can help you find out what that is. If one hasn’t been established locally, then you should use this one from the ARRL site. Notice that Simplex appears in three or four different portions of this band plan, not the full 144-148:

The little buggers are like dandelions. You get get the first one, then another, before you know it you have a big collection of them all over the place.

I agree. When I was up north we had 3 UHF repeaters. One had really good coverage and wa kinda quiet so a few of us would use it alot for small chatter. Never long draw out conversations but to be honest more like GMRS. "joe im on my way to xyz. meet you there, ok, etc" The local club linked it to a STWD system (before DMR) and now we had to listen to guys clear across the state rag chewing all day. Insert DMR and now not one repeater in that area is a local repeater. Now none of them are used. Since moving I found 2 DMR UHF repeaters. Neither I can hit from my house so dont use them but when in those are's they are non stop chatter and never with guys nearby. If you switch to local its crickets. I use GMRS as a utility 99% of the time. Calling a jeep in front or behind me, talking to my father in his MH in front or behind me or local chat with wife or parents, "grab milk" etc. The thought of meeting folks and being a place for that baffles my mind as thats never been what GMRS was for. Not sure where folks keep seeing thats the purpose for GMRS.

Actually, my first radio purchase was 2 Btech GMRS Pros. I just bought the UV-5R to play around with monitoring Ham radio and to see what all the hype is about.

Yeah I know. I could have worded that better.

You can’t in Chirp. I was just saying it doesn’t lock frequencies out in frequency mode that’s all. Sorry for the confusion. You look like you have things correct so the only thing that seems different to me is that you changed things before the reset so I don’t know if that had an effect. I would try resetting again but do so at your own risk. Maybe someone else has run into this.

This gentleman's agreement is so universally known and adhered to that it's actually built in to a lot of transceivers. If you select a certain frequency on a 2-meter tranceiver, for example, it will automatically know if it's a repeater frequency that needs a positive or negative offset, or if it's a simplex frequency. Same with HF radios. Traditionally, different bands operate on either upper or lower sideband. Radios will automatically transmit on these upper or lower sidebands depending on the band.

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

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.

I see a confusion between the owning a ham license and not owning a common sense and manners. Different things, really. If you can magically ban all hams from GMRS repeaters, you'd still be stuck with local lunatics and know-it-all a-hole youtube influenzers. And they are plenty around!

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

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.

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.

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.

WRAM hit the nail on the head. I had this same issue arise on my main repeater. I've asked about this before and gotten beaten down on all the reasons hams are moving to GMRS. I get part of it. But I don't care to hear what you had for lunch, or why your doctor is asking you to take this or that med. Go back to 440 and do it. I had one repeater that had a great footprint. Working with the AHJ of the area put it in a county park, for folks to ask for help and work with SAR folks on incidents. In less that 6 months it turned into 3 guys gab site. I would hear the same conversation in the AM on 2M while driving to work that I would here on GMRS after lunch. Thats not why I put up the repeater. Not once did I ever hear one of the 3 hams call their spouse, child or parent. It was just a spot they would chat to get away from the 2M repeater. I finally removed it and unlisted it. Over time we have reinstalled it but its not listed. I'm sure at some point someone will find it and as long as we dont get the 2 hour booboo chats it will be fine.

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? ?

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.

Just for shits and giggles, try listening on the input frequency (with no tone) for the repeater that’s only a mile away. That way you can see if anyone else is trying to hit it.

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

Try saying "Wxxx000 listening" and someone may answer.

Since I use my HT's (GMRS and dual band ham) on commercial roofs while I am on break from work and I work on a LOT of equipment with VFD's, I read the article. I have NEVER heard a VFD making noise on VHF or UHF. If I read the article correctly the VFD in question was Chinese JUNK AND incorrectly installed. All of the ones I see at work are Korean, Japanese or European. I have never come across any equipment using the Chinese JUNK in question. Despite this solid example, I think you are much more likely to find solar panel controllers making spurious RF than a VFD. There are numerous examples of solar panel controller manufacturers getting caught distributing crap.

Yes, the UV-5G doesn't allow transmit on the additional channels when programmed from the radio (VFO mode). Someone else here said using the Chirp software will allow transmit on additional channels. I haven't tried using Chirp on these yet; just changing the tone is easy enough for my use.

it may not be so much that you're doing something wrong as just being excessively locked down; some of the Baofeng and Btech stuff (the gmrs v1 handhelds, the gmrs 50x1 mobile among them) disallowed adding any new TX channels beyond the hard coded 30 (22 simplex, 8 repeater)...had to use what it came with, and anything else was RX only. you may dig back through the documentation (or the listing) to see if this is the case. Btech has started moving away from this with the gmrs v2 handheld which allows adding some new GMRS TX channels, and it appears the upcoming GMRS50V2 will as well.

WELCOME! You followed these manual instructions? Which GMRS frequency did you enter (the example frequency listed below is not GMRS). Transmit Tone is not needed unless you are trying to access a Repeater.

I've been listening to local fire and sheriff's dispatch in addition to air traffic control in my area as well. My kids get a kick out of hearing me at work on it. Has anybody tried the Wouxan Bluetooth mic? I'm also looking for a good external speaker for it but I can't find what impedance the radio wants. It's just not loud enough in my noisy Jeep for me.