Leaderboard

While I was traveling back from a car club driving tour outing up in the San Jacinto Mountains to the Resort where my car club is holding a week long National Convention, I came upon a multi-car traffic collision with the road almost completely blocked in a blinding curve, on State Route 74, between Palm Desert and Idyllwild, and I noticed several people trying to use their cellular telephone probably trying to report the collision. I assumed they were not having any success because we were in a cellular dead zone which was several miles long. I did not stop to check on injuries because there was no safe place to pullover since it was a narrow mountain road with essentially no shoulders. I continued on hoping to see some bars on my cell phone. Fortunately, I had both my portable and mobile GMRS units with me and I attempted to make contact with another station that could relay the incident to the California Highway Patrol. I knew there were two repeaters in the area so I tried Coachella Valley Repeater and called out in the blind asking if any station would relay the incident to the CHP. A station in the Salton City Area answered up and relayed the incident and came back to tell me he was successful in making contact with the CHP. I signed off and continued my drive back to La Quinta It pays to have a GMRS Radio as an additional means of communications to report emergencies to public safety agencies. Also, it pays to be prepared and know the GMRS system in the area you are traveling in and have your radio units programmed accordingly just in case. This was the “just in case”.

Hey folks, I am scheduling a radio expedition up to Flagpole Knob. Lets bring handhelds, mobiles, whatever you have. This is going to be a chance to set a personal-best for range of a contact and soak in some nice fresh air. If you have any non-GMRS gear you want to bring, this is a "let play radio" event. Bring it out. Additionally, I will be setting up my HF radio. Anyone who is interested in trying out the amateur bands and possibly talking to someone in another country from radio to radio, everyone will be welcome to operate my equipment. No need to worry about licensing, as you can operate under my station ID up to the limits of my privileges. No amateur license needed. As a side note, while will we be taking the easiest entrance to the top of the mountain, a high-clearance vehicle such as a stock SUV or pickup truck is recommended. If you don't have one, post up here and we can see if you can ride up with someone who does. This is a "weather providing" event. It will be rescheduled if there are chances of rain and lightning. SATURDAY, JULY 15, 2023 AT 9 AM We will meet at 9:00 AM at the Sheetz gas station in Harrisonburg VA on route 33, just west of route 81, and head up from there. Anyone who plans to arrive at the mountain top later (or earlier), we will be monitoring channel 20 (462.675) while we are there.

Hey folks, I figured I would put this on the books. Lets meet at 3:00 PM at Longhorn Steakhouse in Falls Church / Bailey's Crossroads on July 1st. This is going to be a causal get-together for the group to shake hands, showoff any new toys and gadgets, and chat about radio stuff (or whatever). Hope you all can make it!

Yeah, I use mine. I don't enable alerts but I do program the Wx channels at the very top end of the memory channel list and set them to skip so that I don't have to hear them on every scan but can still easily navigate to them when I want. That came in handy last week in the mountains to let me know that a particular route was temporarily closed, then last weekend to let me know how hot and miserable I was going to be cleaning up brush by the pond...then again this weekend to let me know I was going to get wet while camping. Until you asked, I didn't realize how often I used them.

I don't have the official answer, but from what I have observed/heard they are still analog. I have been around several huge rail yards and all of the radio traffic was analog. The EOT/FRED are analog tones as well. I have poked around on the interwebs and I can't find anything about moving to digital.

I think you're right on that one. I got GMRS to be legal when I installed a Midland 15w mobile in my Jeep. I quickly realized the limitations of that setup. I started playing around with a Baofeng, which was a trash radio, but it opened my eyes as to what else was out there. I got my Tech ticket and grabbed a Wouxun UV9PX, intending to mostly scan/listen but then it became apparent that digital radio is where most of the action is (or at least it seems that way to me). Now I have an AnyTone 878 HT and a 578 mobile. I'm still barely getting my feet wet with the ham stuff but it's pretty neat. Doubtful that I will ever get a general or extra class license, as I just don't see myself trying to bounce HF around the world just for the sake of it but for where I am currently at with the hobby, I am glad I got my technician class license. Obviously, most people are put off by having to take a test to get the license, which is too bad. There are so many 2m and 70cm repeaters out there. I've been listening to DMR through a local repeater and there is actually a lot of chatter on the local talkgroups. I rarely hear anything on the local GMRS repeater I can get into or when I am scanning while traveling.

I have it in the car. Better to listen to the updates on the road then mess with the phone. Don't use alerts, and don't use it very often, but it's nice to have when needed, especially traveling in unfamiliar places.

If routinely in areas w/o cell it starts to make sense to have a satellite SOS box.

I bet that was "Auto Repair Randy" in Salton City! He's always monitoring that repeater.. We chat every time i go 4X4ing anywhere in the area.

My admittedly poor attitude is that if a repeater owner doesn’t respond in a timely manner to access requests they probably won’t notice that you’re accessing their repeater unless you do something wrong. Do as Randy says and scan for the input tone. If they object to you accessing their repeater they can always say so.

There may be other ways to get the repeater information such as the local ham/GMRS group or by scanning the input frequency with a radio that can scan for the tone, then connecting to the repeater and calling out/asking for permission, or just using it until someone tells you to not use it.

Yes, Sir. 100%. Even on the hard trail, you would be good to go. The trail we are going up is a shade rougher than a poorly maintained dirt road. I mentioned high clearance vehicles because there are a few spots that are rutted and a "car" will almost certainly get stuck. Anything with about 4.5"-5" of clearance or more and you will be fine.

It's horrifying. People can disagree with me and spread hate and disinformation??? They must be stopped to save free speech!

There are a few digital voice repeaters on 2M, but nowhere near the number on 70cm. You can discover that easy enough by simply doing a search for one or more digital voice modes on "repeaterbook.com". There is far more spectrum on UHF for various modes that is in short supply on VHF. I also started a thread on this forum some time back on the same issue. The general consensus was UHF is where most of the digital voice mode activity is found.

Digital voice modes are mostly on UHF, the 70cm band too.

We are moving to Cheyenne WY in a couple of weeks. There is a 1,000 watt NOAA station there, pretty sure I'll tune it in easily! Especially with the crazy weather changes out there, it may become my new favorite frequency.

I hex edited the UV-5R's image file to enter 220 freq's before uploading to the radidio.

I paid about $99 for my Tram 1486 which is on one section (9 feet) of a telescoping flagpole, attached to the chimney, no guy-wires. I get about 50 miles of farz and have not worried about it since I put it up 2 years ago, making it, by definition, a "worry free" base antenna. I use it as both a repeater antenna and as a base-station (simplex) antenna.

Yep, I haven't figured out how to TX on 2m with the 935G. And even if I could we all know that would violate numerous FCC regulations and I would never, ever, at any time, do that!

Indeed. Here the link to the original article: http://www.w6nbc.com/articles/2016-03QSTdishslot.pdf And it will continue to work with your DirecTV!

Well… I don’t hate you.

I have convinced dozens of friends to join the "GMRS fun" ... ...they all hate me now and think that I'm weird.

Sorry but in the event of a disaster 90% of those links will be down. Most are on consumer internet circuits at homes with no generator. Ham is in the same boat 95% of the time. Unless its a hardened site with hardened internet it can't be relied on for anything. Again if you want to talk across multiple states pick up your cell phone or get your ham radio license.