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I agree. I use expressions like "I'm Oscar Mike" and "my other radio is Tango Uniform". It's not really perceived as code. I'm just using nuanced words to convey the meaning of a thought. Or, when I am going to meet friends somewhere, I'll say "I'm 10 minutes from the spot." if I want to give someone an update. It's no one else's business where "the spot" is. No one could even remotely argue that you are being deceptive. If I am talking to my wife and say, "okay, I'll meet you at your mom's house.", someone can't seriously accuse us of using code, false or deceptive language because I didn't provide 123 Main St. Smallville, US as the destination. Mom's house is good enough and it's no one else's business. That said, if you're talking on the radio to a 'friend' and you say you are about to deliver 22 kilos of white bananas to the warehouse and you're expecting the customer to have 9 million gallons of green paint ready for pickup, I think that will raise some eyebrows of anyone listening. LOL

AND... in most of the nation, all of the services are grossly underutilized.

My opinion is that Baofengs serve as a great entry-level product (gateway drug) to generate new interest and new users (buyers). It is those buyers who will go on to buy more advanced (higher cost) products, keeping the "better" manufacturers afloat into the future If entry-level radios were all of exceptional quality, but cost $700, there would be very, very few future buyers and the companies (Kenwood) that produce higher-quality radios would simply die off.

Others may disagree, but the reality is that the English language is a very large and convoluted bunch of code words and phrases. One could simply agree on common innocuous phrases to have meanings such as "on the flop" - stopped, "on the fly" - en route, "on the fritz" - broke down, and as long as you don't refer to them in a cryptic fashion ("I send code "on the flop" to your station. I repeat "on the flop"! How copy? Over!!) no one is going to report you to the FCC for speaking in code...nor will anyone care enough, or listen long enough, to even understand that you are speaking in any "code" except English. What's more, if you stick to simplex your communications are unlikely to be scrutinized by radio aficionados or the FCC for codes any more than the lumber yard, the daycare, the garbage truck drivers, or the construction guys already transmitting code phrases on those channels.

Public Safety, LMR, Industry, etc. As the chart shows a lot. GMRS and HAM are one little sliver of the RF spectrum. GMRS nor ham can expand into the other bands. If anything HAM could very well loose spectrum in the future. GMRS will never expand past the current channels unless it goes to 6.25 khz spacing which would destroy the already messed up allocation.

Man, I have to be honest, I feel like the internet and my cellphone/smartphone has made me dumber. Like so much so, that I'm not sure I even spelled 'dumber' correctly, but I don't want to look it up because that perpetuates the problem. LoL

So did I. I went with a Vertex Standard EVX R70-G7 which looks identical to a Motorola XPR8300. The performance of this repeater exceeds my expectation with great portable radio coverage throughout my "Old People Community". I was driving around in my super zoomy kinda not-so-fast Golf Car with my Motorola XTS5000 portable radio sitting in my cup holder with the portable about two-feet off the ground using a speaker mic for my drive-around test and I was able to communicate through the repeater whereas, I was not able to do before with the CCR radios. A member of the GMRS Radio Club I am associated with helped me with the coverage test and he drove around with a portable and communicated within his vehicle through the repeater approx. 5-6 miles away. This evening I was able to communicate through the repeater with a portable about 7 or so miles away from inside of a vehicle. My antenna is a Laird FG4605 5dB antenna and is approx. 25-30 feet to the tip and the terrain is essentially flat with single story houses and commercial buildings and gazillion Palm Trees throughout the community. Today, I finished mounting the duplexer to a mounting board on the wall and built new short cables using RG-8X low-loss cable, with amphenol connectors from DX Engineering (sorry no affiliate link anywhere), between the repeater and the duplexer . The repeater receiver connector required a BNC connector and the transmitter connector required a "N" connector as did the duplexer requiring N's. I have a very short newly built pigtail cable between the duplexer output and the LMR400 cable to the antenna which is about 55-60 in length at the max. and equipped with a lightning arrestor grounded to the earth ground at the electrical panel. I connected my Bird 43 in-line watt meter between the duplexer and the antenna and I measured 24-25 watts out of the duplexer and no movement on the meter for reflected with a 100 watt slug. I put in my 10 watt slug to measure the reflected and the needle moved slightly to maybe .2 watt. I decided to compare my MFJ Digital Meter and I measured a tad over 22 watts with .4 watt reflected and 1.25 to 1.3 VSWR. Next will be conducting a radio coverage test with a 50 watt mobile using an unity-gain antenna to see what kind of "Fars" I can get throughout the West Valley area of Phoenix. Besides being expensive, this radio stuff is kinda fun. This hobby does keep me busy with all the ancillary mini-projects along with my car racing and doing a few "Old People Stuff" I wish I had more time in the day.

I use my UV-9Gs frequently. They just work and they sound good. Sure, my Wouxun KG-935G+ is a better radio, but it also cost a lot more. Make up your own mind I say.

First, you have to understand the history of the restriction. This type of rule is what is commonly referred to as a Sentence Enhancer. Meaning, if you are committing crimes... you are going to be charged with violating the law. If you use a radio to commit the crime, you now have violated another law and will be charged with another crime. If you used codded messages, concealment or some means to hide the fact that you are breaking the law while using a radio to do it, this Rule becomes a sentence enhancer for the Law you violated and you are now charged with 2 counts of violating the law restricting the use of the personal radio service to commit a crime. If you are very obviously talking in some type of code, are caught and are suspected of committing a crime because you are violating this rule, even if you are found not to be committing a crime, you risk getting anything from a No-No letter from the FCC to jail time. So, since I am pretty sure you already know the answer to your own question, just don't be a dumb-dumb about it and you will be fine. Don't attempt to define the undefinable. If what you are saying is public knowledge, generally published, or generally excepted as not a cipher, code or some form of concealment, everyone listing will know. Context is everything.

My UV-5r is my worst radio. I still find it useful. I do hate seeing radio snobs that have played with one that think all Chinese radios are that bad.

In all seriousness, I do applaud your effort and your passion, Kirk. I myself suffer from a lack of both passion and seriousness. That said...will you please expand your "rant" series to include a separate rant for each of the GMRS channels?

One of the very best chief engineers I ever worked under had no college degree and no P.E. He had been trained in communications by the US Navy, and he had the knack.

An SA is a spectrum analyzer, used to test electronic equipment of all types. While folks like me typically use them for two-way radio work, they are also used in the automotive world, computer manufacturing and testing, and many others you may not even suspect, like robotics. As far as a business radio license goes, keep in mind that your privileges will be regional. Meaning, you will only be legal to use the frequencies in specific areas. This is to reduce interference around the country, due to the limited spectrum. I am a Computer Systems Engineer and Systems Architect, with some background in Electronics Engineering. However, I am not a P.E., which as a very different thing. The National Society of Professional Engineers and Professional Engineer Licensure College of Engineering have more or less hijacked the phrase 'professional engineer'. They have sued people who have said they are professional engineers, taking the two words (used together) out of context and twisted statement to appear people were claiming to be College of Engineering accredited Professional Engineer (PE). So, again, not a PE nor do I do what PE's do. I don't have a LinkedIn profile, intentionally, for many reasons and won't be adding one anytime soon. While I can do some volunteer work with some organizations not related to my career and help friends/acquaintances with small tasks, etc., I am on a very strict limitation with regard to providing any commercial services. That said, notionally, I may be able to offer help/advise for things as they pop-up. Just PM me here.

Yep, GMRS has been around for at least 60 years. @kirk5056, the original service was formed in the '60s, called Class A Citizens Radio Service. It was renamed (and some rule changes occurred) in '87, to General Mobile Radio Service. The last round of rule changes occurred in 2017, including a lot of definition updates. On September 30, 2019, US legislature passed a law making it illegal in the USA to import, manufacture, sell, or offer to sell radio equipment capable of operating under both GMRS rules and FRS rules. This lead to the most recent round of 'new radio builds' we are seeing.

This was a fun convo. This guy is trying to get a new channel going, and I figured I'd share. If you get a chance, check him out and see if its something you may like. I think it would be fun to call him up and help with content. K5KAB Ham Radio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Yj7gP19Xg&t=1s I love that I was able to just come in right over the top of everyone else. +5 - +10 dB on his end makes me happy. LOL

That's a ZING! Nail in the head! But let's discuss the "Roger Beep" vs "Over Beep". This topic will be much more interesting and revealing. And not enough attention was ever diverted to this very important aspect of communications. How the community survives without clear understanding and separation of what's "roger" and when it's "over". It is a mystery behind the veil, wrapped in enigma.

"(4) Music, whistling, sound effects or material to amuse or entertain" Does that mean if the roger beeps entertains me, it is against the rules?

Hey folks... I have discussed receive and transmit quality with many of you in the past. Especially focused around the quality of the transmit signal with regard to spurious emissions, commonly known as Spurs. I wanted to share this info because with the introduction of the TinySA, some YouTubers are using these in their tech reviews, but really don't understand what they are looking at and end up giving out bad information. Our friend NotARubicon recently reviewed the BTech GMRS 50V2 and did a great job of showing/explaining what is known as a harmonic spur. Harmonics are a subset of Spurious signals found at integer multiples of the fundamental frequency of the signal. If you haven't seen the review, I highly recommend it. BTech GMRS 50V2 - Review & Power Test - Is BTech's New GMRS 50V2 Better Than The GMRS 50X1? I got a couple of pictures I wanted to share, that relate directly to this. These images may help understand the references when you see/hear reviewers discuss this topic. I have a friend of mine who's repeater was not behaving well and upon testing with a tool called a Spectrum Analyzer, he found Spurs every 100 KHz above and below the carrier at 462.675 MHz. In the GMRS world, that translates to the signal being transmitted over and over again, every 4th channel. Below are the images he sent from both prior to the repair, and after it was fixed. Broken... Fixed.... There are many, many types of spurs that can occur. You are looking at the effects of noise generated by the exciter circuits (VCO for those familiar), known both as sideband spurs and Baseband Harmonic Images. If this doesn't make sense, its okay. Just know that if someone is doing a tech review and shows pictures or video like this, the radio is broken... not that it was designed poorly. The next two pictures are of two of my radio's signals on a TinySA. These images are great example of Phase Noise spurs. The first picture, the issues seem pretty obvious to me. The second picture shows one small spur. It's not terrible, but it really shouldn't be there. Warning... Geek Alert! Phase Noise spurs are unwanted signals that occur due to the random fluctuations in the phase of the carrier signal. Phase noise spurs can degrade the quality of the transmitted signal. Think audio and signal quality. This is a symptom of poorly/cheaply designed radios and use of low-quality parts; not something that is malfunctioning. This was by no means meant to be technical. It is just samples to help know whats broken vs. poorly designed, and a conversation starter. Let me know if there are any questions. Either myself or one of the smart people in the room will answer them the best we can.

I must have missed the website? I did t see it on here when I signed up. Thanks!

If the receiving radio has no receive-tone set, it will still hear the transmission. If the receiving radio has a different tone set, or of the receiving radio had a tone set, but the transmitting radio is not sending any tone, then receiving radio would not hear it.

Exactly. Some might see this as a function of good personal safety practice or situational awareness. Communicating without telegraphing location, destination, or personal information should be the rule...or at very least the goal, but it doesn't really require secret code. Of course, broadcasting a callsign that can be looked up in a publicly available database to find the user's address does compromise some of that security, but that is the tradeoff we make. Now, about my green paint...?

Yeah, there is some truth in what you said... I agree on the task being accomplished vs. some type of title. Yet, where it no longer applies is in liability. If there is a question, investors, insurance underwriters, lenders, risk management, and all... When this "thing" was done, did the person doing it have all bases covered with the current knowledge at the time? What did they know and not know? That is where the road can lead. It is indeed impressive that you have this title on the federal payroll. I have had some government jobs, and while I'm not an "engineer", they always fully vetted me beforehand. I expect it, and would not have it any other way. There is a large amount of fraud out there as usual also so that is part of the problem too. Ability, talent, formal training, can all be independent or unified. On the other subject of national frequency coordination, according to the coordinator I'm working with (and what Gortex said), it is normal and common. The only caveat is that some locations we may hear each other, yet that likely will not be an issue. National coordination will really help! It will make things 100% legit and I can issue temp operation to anyone I need to... way overdue!

Will it be available in paperback? YouTube guy six months from now… “today I’ll be reviewing the Wouxun, ocean KG-936G now with both roger and over beep. Over beep. Affiliate link below. It will transmits a beep before you talks and after you talks. But the question everyone wants to know is how many fars will it talks…”?

I 100% understand that. I am pretty sure you and I have discussed that I use a Comet SBB-1 when I am going offroad or in a known limited clearance area. A slight performance tradeoff for survivability is definitely a smart choice. A high performance antenna that is broken because of a tree or i-beam doesn't help at all.

Need more testing step forward in clearance. Step forward in survivability. Step backwards in reception and transmit. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

Thanks Sshannon! Wow! I was thinking "South Asia"... Glad I asked as it seemed a super weird thing to say as the context was not clear on this. lol

We have a GMRS repeater sitting at 5,700 feet here in southern California that reaches from San Diego to well north and east of Los Angeles. Hearing all these folks whine about adding channels, modes, bands and frequencies to GMRS makes me laugh, because It is quiet 90% of the time. Its members don't even use it much, let alone the affiliates like me who pay $12 a year. Most of what I hear on GMRS is simplex, and not much of that either.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people post on this forum about how GMRS, MURS, FRS or amateur radio should do something or include something they don't already. The general public has available bandwidth and modes up the yazoo between CB, MURS, amateur, GMRS and FRS, and still that's not enough. Sheesh.

I've laid the sti co almost flat to the roof out of the NMO and it didn't damage it. Its made for mobile abuse. I use them on the SXS and Gators now as its more durable than the 1/4 wave stainless.

This chart shows most things: https://www.ntia.doc.gov/files/ntia/publications/2003-allochrt.pdf Here’s an enlargement of one portion:

What happens when a soldier speaks to a truck driver? Both have special acronyms and codes, Then a LEO gets involved, again different codes. So, a lawyer who speaks in circles and is incapable of answering a simple question gets involved with alot of leagaleese and double speak so it's nearly impossible to get a clear message. The FCC does not understand or really care so the OK it and there we have it..Everything should be in clear and concise English. And Alice Cooper says "mixerthingwhaynowbatcrapwhatdaywasitbefore." and we are all confused.

Yep, went back and reviewed his other posts. 6 to 8 lines max and then all of a sudden this stuff. Personally I think we need to put a stop to this nonsense right now. If you want to get on here and write a novel about a topic, then YOU need to be writing it, not ChatGPT. Because screen scraping someone or someTHING else's work and calling it your own is still plagiarism and BS. Is this what the world is coming to that people refuse to have an actual thought or opinion and instead ask some AI thing on the Internet to form an opinion for them? We just gonna forgo free thinking and jump on the InterWeb bandwagon of BS and allow others thoughts to be combined by some computer system and just go with that? Ok, how about we just forgo voice communications of any kind, run some voice recognition program on our computers and and then connect that to our radios and let the computers talk on the radio and not bother to actually communicate with each other any more. Personally I think this stuff is getting out of hand. And we are only beginning to scratch the surface of the coming dumb. The WORST is yet to come.

Plus Signal Sticks are made in the USA by the guy who also runs HamStudy.

Thats an awful lot of equipment and feedline for a UHF repeater at 45' off the ground. Are you on a 5000' mountain ? If not I dont see why a decent duplexer would't work better than trying to be separate antennas. Normally when separate antenna's are used its adding multiple TX and RX channels to a system. For a single GMRS/ UHF repeater I'd just use a duplexer and a single antenna. What is the reasoning of using 2 antenna's vs one ?

Uh...MY father had a GMRS license when I was a kid. Thats 40+ years ago. GMRS is way not a new service. I think you need to do some reading.

If any kind of officiality is desired for things like this, GMRS users should first establish some kind of users group. Perhaps one even exists in stealth mode. Clearly the FCC intends GMRS to be used to provide traveler assistance: § 95.1731 Permissible GMRS uses. The operator of a GMRS station may use that station for two-way plain language voice communications with other GMRS stations and with FRS units concerning personal or business activities. (a)Emergency communications.Any GMRS channel may be used for emergency communications or for traveler assistance. Operators of GMRS stations must, at all times and on all channels, give priority to emergency communications. (b)One-way communications.The operator of a GMRS station may use that station to transmit one-way communications: (1)To call for help or transmit other emergency communications; (2)To provide warnings of hazardous road conditions to travelers; or, (3)To make brief test transmissions. (c)Travelers assistance.The operator of a GMRS station may transmit communications necessary to assist a traveler to reach a destination or to receive necessary services. (d)Digital data.GMRS hand-held portable units may transmit digital data containing location information, or requesting location information from one or more other GMRS or FRS units, or containing a brief text message to another specific GMRS or FRS unit

I didn't mention the radios because the images of spurs are not radio specific, they are symptom specific. Meaning any radio can have those spur types. Also, none of the test were conducted with coax or antennas connected. For the one that was damaged, it was a QUANTAR repeater. As mentioned in the original post, the VCO in the exciter had gone bad. It was repaired with a card swap, placing a new exciter in the radio. After 26 or 27 years in use... I'm sure some silicon-based part went Tango Uniform. The other images, from the TinySA, are from my BaoFeng BF-F8HP handheld and my Yaesu FT3DR.

@kirk5056 I enjoyed reading your post. It was well written and you did a nice job of summarizing the issues. Unfortunately, I agree with @WRUU653 that it probably won’t make any difference.

@WRQC527, the FT-70 chews up batteries. I sold mine within a few weeks of getting it. The FT-3D and FT-5D have much better battery use and standby times. I used my FT-3DR as a remote net control operator (via my xband repeater in the truck) for a Marine Corps Marathon event. I was non-stop slammed for 5 hours, 50% duty cycle, at 5w. It also has about 6 weeks standby, with the battery in the radio, before the voltage drops to 7.2vdc. With the battery disconnected from the radio, I have no idea how long the storage time is, but I know it's more than 6 months, because that is the longest I ever went between charges on my spares. Even then, they were above 7.2vdc, and I just charged them for an event.

Hi Dave I looked them up on the map, if you select the gear in the upper left corner and turn on stale repeaters they both show up. It is likely the owner needs to just go in and update them. It's been said that the owner just needs to log in and they will update.

I'm just wondering... And anyone feel free to chime in here. Who, exactly, is monitoring my GMRS communications for hidden meanings, and more importantly, am I going to get busted for asking my wife to "Rendezvous at Location Sierra Bravo" instead of saying "Meet me at Sonic Burger"?

Good grief, you're right! Somebody better tell OffRoaderX...

Way more than once and as a PE I was responsible for regulatory compliance matters (interpretation and implementation) for over twenty years, working very closely with lawyers and our compliance department, so I would like to think I’m pretty good at reading and interpreting regulations. But the regulations I worked with were strictly enforced with huge fines and very costly periodic (every three years) audits. The FCC doesn’t act that way. That’s a good thing.

I put it to you that anyone who compares a $20-$50 Baofeng to a radio that costs much more and expects it to perform like that radio that costs much more is the fool. Those are the people you need to watch out for.

@Radioguy7268 to restate the obvious, is a rule unenforced, really a rule at all?