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If it is bubble pack radios, you are hearing them on the output. There is unfortunately nothing you can do because the bubble pack radios use the same tones (PL and DCS) that GMRS users can use. What you are experiencing is what they call in Ham Radio, The Barn Door Effect. Hams get it on repeaters during times of tropospheric ducting where other distant stations, many times repeaters on the same frequency you are listening on but with a different tone will come into the radio. Because they are running a different tone, it takes the receive of either your radio or the repeater to open up and, like a barn door, allow all signals to come in regardless of their tone. I had a similar thing happen with a kid in my neighborhood that was using an FRS radio and he would come across the radio and interfere with my wife and I. I finally set a PL tone but the kid got the bright idea to play his musical keyboard over the radio. The tones he hit with many of the keys tricked the radio into thinking that the correct PL tones were being used and it would intermittently open our radios with this annoying tone and his voice singing. So, we switched to DCS tones and that helped, but when we got done talking, like a barn door, the receive opened back up and let him through. But at least we could set out radios down and not worry about his keyboard opening up our receive. But when it comes to your repeater, it isn't the repeater getting hammered, its your radio, and depending on what your terrain is like, they might be close to you, or possibly a good distance from you (up to 20 miles).

Dude - give him some time.

That’s true for simple 1/4 wave types. When you get into high gain verticals they can grow rather tall.

How does that work? If the input of the repeater is 467.xxx and the output frequency is 462.xxx, how does a GMRS radio with the right tone “allow the audio from the bubble wraps on the output frequency to also get in?”

Mine works just like the non-GMRS UV-5R, except with slightly less guilt when I use it on GMRS frequencies. It is 100% the same radio with just different programming.

I was thinking large heat sink.

You had your first practical experience with the losses in coax cable verses length. Some new radio users don’t have a good feel for it, or even know it exists.

How does a 2 watt FRS radio “key the RX side of the repeater?” It’s transmitting a full 5MHz off. Your duplexer should be filtering out any transmissions in the 462 range; after all it has to filter out the TX side of the repeater. I’m more inclined towards the barndoor theory.

For what? If they’re using FRS radios they’re well within the rules. It’s not their fault that the FCC put FRS radios on the same frequencies as GMRS radios.

So I just tested the Betec 50v2 power and SWR with a Surecom SW-102 meter and 2' RG 8x patch cable and connected to LMR 400 to my j-pole antenna. Here are my results across several channels: Low Power 6.4 watts Medium Power 24.6 watts High Power 55.7 Watts My first test was with a 12' rg8x patch cable and the numbers were considerably lower (eg 38.4 watts high power) then I used a 2' patch cable and got the higher above numbers.

Marc: Thanks again for the info. I find myself drawn to the Galaxy DX-959B. No FM, but AM/USB/LSB. Any special antenna recommendations? I would imagine they are all veritcal, not horizontal. Antennas would have to be pretty important to such low wattage rigs.

So the GMRS radio keys up the repeater. The repeater transmits the tone which opens the squelch on the OP’s radio while the kids with the FRS radios are transmitting on the same output frequency as the repeater. This lets the OP hear the FRS transmissions. That’s the barn door effect @WQRQI583 described. I agree, that’s very possible. To my sleep deprived mind it sounded like you were saying the bubble pack transmissions were coming through the repeater, which didn’t make sense to me.

Hi.. good questions. FM is a nice feature for CB and is capable of traveling thousands of miles. Just a few days ago, I talked to a person in Texas on 4w FM and it sounded like he was right next to me. However, SSB provides you both more power at 12.5w, and better weak signal recovery. So, with all things being equal, SSB is a better way to go, if you find a radio you like and it only has one of those modulation options. The majority of CB's on the market are only AM. Some are AM and SSB. Some are AM and FM. Very few are AM/FM/SSB, and they are a bit expensive.

Thinking I'll stick with my 6 dB gain for off roading and around town. It works and is flexible enough for what I need on & off road.

Lol theres a lot if info about him just in that image. We know his name, address, and favorite football team! And he's an amateur extra, but doesn't hold a GMRS license.

I spotted this one on my way home from work today.

The Comet 2X4SR covers the bands with some antenna gain for increased coverage. The Signal Stalker by Signal Stuff also covers the bands very well but no antenna gain.

Looks like I see another up and coming Kenwood fan like me. TK-780(H)_880(H).pdf

Based on where you are, the frequency you are hearing and your post on the Northwest Houston 725 repeater page where you say you hear them on channel 22. I would say you are hearing that repeater on simplex. They won’t hear you. You need to join their repeater network if you want to converse. You will need to program their tones on channel 30 in your radio which already has the needed +5 offset. Repeater channels/frequencies have an input of 467 and receive on 462. So this repeater is tx 467.725 and rx 462.725. You hear them but you are not on their input frequency and don’t have tones set to access the repeater. You can join their network here. It’s a membership linked network. If you haven’t already I would recommend you download Chirp for programming your radio. It’s easier and you’ll be able to see and understand what is going on more when you see things in this format. Good luck.

It happens in a lot of places. Recently, on another site, I was reading about a guy in Georgia who was paying $150/month for a primo GMRS repeater site so he could communicate with his family. He had the misfortune to be located where all eight pairs were clogged with repeaters that were part of a linked, mega wompus, system. He noted that for large chunks of the day, all eight pairs carried the same people, having the same conversations, about the same thing. IMHO, this goes against the original intent of Class A/GMRS and is just wrong. In my area, two repeaters are linked to a four repeater system. For the most part, it isn't too bad except for Sunday evenings when they are tied up with an inane regional or national net, or the occasional needy sounding guy mumbling on and on in broken English in the next state. Then you add another guy piping in drivel from all over the country with the possibility of adding "nodes" to clog up other 50W simplex/repeater channels and soon you have a big, unnecessary, cacaphony, tying up those few pairs for people wanting to utilize them for local comms. It just isn't necessary. If you are the only networked repeater in your area then Kudos for putting up a stand-alone for local comms. I don't believe I mentioned simulcasted repeaters but it did cross my mind. I am fully aware of how expensive they are and how tight tolerances have to be, therefore I did not mention it. It just gets aggravating that most people I hear talking about putting up a repeater seem heck bent on either linking to other repeaters in their area or linking to a network, apparently just to keep noise going across the frequency, and not caring that they hinder people trying to use GMRS for its original intended use of local area communication.

OK, and where is that happening exactly? Certainly not on the MidWest system, or the MYGMRS system for that matter since that is specifically watched for and not condoned. Now, true simulcast would be nice on GMRS. Where the same frequency pair is used at multiple overlapping sites to provide coverage to a larger area without taking up additional frequency pairs. It's also quite expensive, requiring voters, simulcast audio controls that are GPS disciplined to enable the ability for it to work. Not to mention that EVERY repeater on the system would need to match exactly, same model and even firmware so the delay internally to the repeater would all match. Yes, that's possible, yes it works, and I have personally done it with public safety radio system on VHF / UHF and 800 Mhz. But again, it ain't even close to being cheap. I run two repeaters. One is linked and the other is NOT linked. Reason for the second repeater is simple. It allows locals to chat without tying up repeaters in 4 to 6 states for a conversation that is happening in the coverage area of my single repeater. The repeaters are all on the same antenna system and run the same power levels so the coverage is a dead on match. These three antenna's (one receive and two transmit) have a total of 3 GMRS repeaters and a UHF ham repeater currently. There will be an amateur radio packet data repeater added later this year. But since I have a large coverage footprint, I of course run all my GMRS repeaters as OPEN repeaters for all to use that have a license to access them. This keeps folks from needing to spend time and a lot of money to put up a repeater, but also leaves open pairs if they want to do so.

I love this subject. Mostly because I like both for different reasons and because of the responses I get to what I am about to type... Hopefully I don't catch too much grief for writing an unsolicited novel. LOL Bottom line is, on a peer to peer level, if a CB (HF) radio is properly installed and has a proper antenna and antenna installation, CB radio (HF radio as a technology) absolutely destroys GMRS in overall performance. CB provides great line of site coverage; the same coverage as GMRS, but also provides ground wave propagation, sky wave propagation and weaker signal receive capability. Combined, those propagation methods make CB a much better platform. I dare say far superior segment of the Personal Radio Service, due to having coverage inside of potentially 1,200 to 2,400 mile radius, depending on the propagation models used and atmospheric conditions available at any given moment. A GMRS radio, in a standalone configuration like CB radio, will never be able to compete with CB. Sure, there are very limited conditions that occur throughout the year and solar cycles that allow GMRS radios to cover anywhere from 300 to 600 miles, but they are extremely rare and can't be counted on for day to day use. Reality is, 99.999% of the time, you are bound to RF Line of Sight. Depending on where you are, that can be less than 1 mile or as much as 150+ miles. It just depends on your elevation and the elevation of the other station. Now... that opinion is supported solely on the precedent that the CB radio and antenna are of proper quality and installed correctly. The biggest problem that has led many to believe the CB is not good, is the overwhelming amount of trash radios and short antennas on the market, combined with almost never having the system properly installed. Enter GMRS. Again, just my opinion... people getting frustrated with supposed poor performance of CB, pushed a large segment of the 'license by rule' users to look for another option. With GMRS being on the bottom-end of UHF, the antenna installation is significantly less temperamental, making it so you almost have to try to do a bad install. Combine that with the point that the market has some quality radios that can be purchased easily and for a reasonable price, plus FM sounds more pleasant to listen too, and now people start flocking to FRS and GMRS. For more advanced users, GMRS wins over FRS due to the higher power available, the mobile and base station capability (removing dependencies on AA and AAA batteries and improved range) and the fact that we have networked repeaters available in many locations, and now the masses move to GMRS. In my opinion, is GMRS 'better' than CB? No, but it sure is a lot of fun and provides a much easier platform that fills the need to a larger group of non-technically skilled people, making it better choice than CB for many. And that is an important distinction.

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.

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.

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.