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The travel tone of 141.3 was adopted because it is what REACT uses as their tone for the most part. Kinda makes sense.. lol Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

All repeaters online but West Lowndes. Still waiting on antenna work to be completed.

Yeah and that explains why it is more likely used for open repeaters.

While there is no official coordination for GMRS repeaters the Mygmrs map page can help repeater owners see what’s in an area ahead of choosing a frequency. At least the ones that are listed. I’m going to guess the tones in question being used would be 141.3. While it’s not a hard fast rule this is generally accepted as a tone used on open repeaters and sometimes referred as the travel tone. That said an owner can still require permission through in my opinion having chosen this tone and or one that overlaps they may want to be somewhat forgiving. As mentioned by @kidphc it really is up to you how you want to set your radio up. Like you, I have some channel’s and tones installed more than once. For my personal set up I have programmed the first bank of the eight repeater channels with those that are closest to my home. The second bank is all eight repeater channels with the 141.3 tones labeled travel and the number for just that, travel. Finally the banks after that are repeaters I may use when further away from home. In the one case where there is a frequency that is being used twice near me I only entered the one that has more range and I am more inclined to use. I’m aware the other one is there and it’s an open repeater as well. The reason I set things up this way is I can separate repeaters closer to home from others by the use of scan groups. I like being able to only scan one particular group. With all the fire threats here, I have a channel group for the two counties near me so I can be a bit more informed when I’m hearing sirens near me. It came in handy last year as there was a fire less than a mile away. It’s all your preference and you may find you change things more than once. Hope this helps.

Thank you! My car is very old but I am going to try my best to make it. I haven't been to any hamfests or anything so very excited but don't know if I can make it with my car situation. I really need an antenna tuner! I have three I need tuned and have barely been on the air (gmrs and ham) in 8 months!!!! It's driving me nuts. Thanks for the welcome!

I deleted that account; looks like someone tried to use your callsign to register. You should be able to register for an account now.

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.

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”.

Yes, I program NOAA Wx into all my radios that can receive those freq's, be they GMRS or HAM. It's handy if I go driving cross country. Here, north of Dallas, when the conditions are right, I can pick up NWS transmitters on all or most of the freq's.

I have a Laird 5 dB Omni hanging on the side of my garage connected to a 50 Watt Repeater Station using LMR400 Coax with a lightning Arrestor grounded to earth ground at the electrical panel.