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Most (not all, but most) repeaters will give you a "kerchunk" or squelch-tail sound after you unkey. Some may have a roger-beep. If two repeaters in the same area are using the same channel and same tones, you wont know which you're listening to unless the signals are different enough to tell them apart; ie; one might be strong, the other might be weak. Generally speaking, you will never find two nearby repeaters on the same channel with the same tones because it would be a clusterphuc. My bet is that one is out of service or its a duplicate listing. (Bonus response!) Welcome to the exciting GMRS lifestyle!

That’s exactly the kind of thing you should turn in to the FCC.

My joking answer is, don't do it! Unless you want a hobby to become an obsession, profession, side gig, take over your life, etc. This leads to taking electronics classes, engineering school, geek related jobs, and taking over your life in some way shape or form. In all honesty, I have recently used FRS, GMRS and amateur radio to recruit future radio technicians, as this is a field that is not going away, and IT departments may only be able to take over some of the network connectivity aspects of larger radio systems.....but it can lead to a very lucrative hobby/career. The youngest technician I work with is 38 years old, came from Icom America, and will probably inherit an enterprise (nationwide) Motorola based radio network. Which started by him getting his amateur radio license as a teenager. (This was before the recent FRS/GMRS changes that took place in 2017, otherwise I would recommend starting with FRS and then GMRS - no test to take). Find a radio club, take the test, learn as much as possible (by doing as much as possible within time/budget) and one day it may pay the bills, fund the hobby/obsession.

I have my opinion... I have had many MXT400 radios. At least 5. They are great radios, but there are 2 generations and Gen 1 was less than stellar for the price. Gen 1 is where a lot of the bad press came from, too. Midland was selling the Gen 1 bundle for ~$460 or ~$480 and the antenna it came with was terrible, the cheap plastic and loop hanger on the microphone, and the narrow-band performance made the radio grossly overpriced. Then, many people used the Gen 1 in narrow-band on wide-band repeaters, which made it difficult to hear. The early Gen 2 radios were released with a tone scan function and wide-band already enabled, but after a few months, they started releasing Gen 2 with tone scan enabled, but defaulting to narrow-band, again. As an FYI, the tone scan only works when the radio is in the Tone Squelch (TSQ) mode. If it is in Tone (T) mode, it won't scan.

Yes, I got my BTECH PC03 FTDI cable working yesterday under Win11 ARM in Parallels on my Ventura Mac Mini M2. I did have to download the drivers and go through two driver updates (one for the USB cable, a second to create a virtual COM port) inside of Windows. There is an installation guide, along with the driver downloads at https://ftdichip.com/drivers/vcp-drivers/ Note that the ARM64 version of Win11 does NOT do automatic installs; the installation guide clearly notes that and has a manual install set of instructions towards the end of the installation guide. I have a Baofeng GM-15 Pro and used the Radioddity GM-30 CPS as suggested elsewhere. The thing is, it would work once, then freeze if I tried to use it again, and Icouldn't even quit the task. I eventually stumbled on the compatibility wizard in Win11 which set the CPS to "smart" emulation (or similar wording) mode, which seemed to fix the freezes. Why can't we just have native USB-C for charging and for programming? Seriously…

The smaller one is quite springy, but the larger one is VERY stout and VERY stiff. I would not recommend putting it on anything less than a large span of solid steel.

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’m new to gmrs and I just wanted to say hi hopefully we can chat sometime on the radio I’m in Ohio I don’t know to much about what I’m doing so I’m learning on the fly I’m a truck driver I run mostly in the Midwest states

Thank you Sir.

There is an easy fix for your two repeater problem. You can either program the two 675 repeater freqs and tones in the custom programming channel slots, 8-14, or one repeater freq and tone(s) pair in one of the 8-14 channel slots, and set the appropriate CTCSS/DCS tone(s) for the other 675 repeater on Repeater Channel 28. Don't forget to set the other parameter settings that those two repeaters require such as the bandwidth/channel spacing setting, etc. One of the problems that I have with the Midland GMRS radio is that CTCSS/DCS table does not include extra non-standard tones in their table and they have no intention to include them in the future. Another issue with consumer grade GMRS radios is that they don't have a true monitor feature whereas the feature will put the channel receive in a carrier squelch mode to defeat the PL Tone Decoder, and a Talkaround/Direct feature whereas the radio will transmit on the programmed receive freq setting instead of the transmit freq setting when you want to transmit simplex. You have to burn one of the precious channel resources to have a talkaround/simplex channel to do so. My first GMRS Radio was a MXT400. It's not a bad radio but, you're limited in what you can do with the radio. If you only need to have access to just a handful of channels than it's not a bad radio. The price for this radio with just a few capabilities is a tad high for a consumer grade radio. I sold my first GMRS MXT400 radio within three weeks after I got it and bought a better quality mobile radio that has the features I was looking for in a mobile radio.

Midland FRS/GMRS radios, IMHO are junk. Their design engineers from what I have seen, apparently never used an FRS/GMRS radio, or talked to anyone who did. Let's start with their ht's. AFAIK, none of them are repeater capable. Last time I checked, their "go-to" ht battery was a whopping 700mAh. You would think that a company that pushes its stuff as being for people enjoying the great outdoors would offer something considerably greater (at least 4×) for portables than 700 mAh. This includes their "Base Camp" radio. I guess they figure you won't wear out your hand OR the hand crank charging it back to 700 mAh. Then there are the mobile radios. Again, far as I know, none of them have dual conversion receivers, which can make a big difference in keeping noise and interference from nearby transmitters on GMRS as well as other sources out of your speaker. They have some great designs as far as "controls on the microphone" go, but drop the ball with the rest of the package. With the exception of their current "top-of-the-line" mobile @ 50W, none of their mobiles allow for adding additional channels beyond the packed 22 for repeaters or simplex. Midland tries to excuse this incompetence by saying it makes the radio easier to use for people wanting to just communicate vehicle-to-vehicle such as off-roaders, which are one of their targeted bases. What they don't tell you, is giving you the option to add channels would in no way make their mobiles more difficult to use and would greatly enhance their usefulness down the road if/when a customer decided they want to have access to repeaters. For instance, what if your off-roading buddies and yourself explored an area where the two nearest repeaters were on 462.675, one 20 miles east of your area of operation with a 141.3 PL and one 20 miles west of it with a 173.8 PL. Depending on where in your area you are, you will pick one up much better than the other. Should you need help from outside of your group, one of those repeaters will be necessarily how you summon help (breakdown, tow, medical, etc). If you have one programmed into your radio, to access the other, you will need to program in its tone, first. If it is an emergency, it will be a pain to have to change the settings, especially if you have not done so before and are well-versed in the procedure. Having the means to add channels, you can have them both in your radio and changing from one to the other is as simple as turning a knob or pressing an up/down button. Midland design engineers decided you do not need that convenience. Ditto if you travel between the two repeaters regularly. You might live near the 141.3 repeater but drive to work which is in the 173.8 repeater's coverage area. To be able to use the 173.8 repeater, you will need to pull over and change the settings going to work and again going home to use the 141.3. Being able to just turn a knob or press an up/down button would be much easier but again, Midland design engineers decided that you don't need that convenience.

Welcome @WRWQ613 to the forum!!

Welcome! We were all new once.

No, but people do it all the time. Not just DMR but P25 and NXDN also. It is much annoying.

I just set my unit to SCAN all the channels....

Yeah, i never understood that personally. There is a pretty valid reason for using ch19 on CB. It is the center of the band and most AM and SSB radios were tuned for max power on 27.185 MHz. Also, properly tuned antennas are tuned for that frequency as well. That mentality is non-applicable because the center frequency on GMRS is not a usable frequency and no where near channel 19 or 20 (462/467.65 or .675). So picking any channel is really just picking a number for the sake of picking a number. It doesn't serve a purpose. Honestly, I don't even think saying that copying CB for ease of use is valid, because of all the GMRS users I know personally, many of them never used CB and think ch19 is "the trucker channel ".

If a Factory-Reset does not help, throw them in the trash and spend $40 on 2 new ones from Amazon - problem solved and lesson learned.. That lesson being that eBay is a den of liars and thieves.

People started telling me about this a few months ago and I thought they were full of it, but I finally saw the listing on Amazon... My biggest issue I see is the confusion it will cause when telling "some people" that you're using a UV-5R on GMRS - "some people" wont know if they should report you to the FCC or not. Rumor has it that a very popular and beloved YouTuber will be making a video about this in the coming days.

In my first rant I defined what I think a Travel Channel should or could be. I discussed how some other radio services handle that concept. In my second rant, I gave my opinion on which of our very limited frequencies should be used for our Travel Channel. In this rant I want to talk about ways to make the GMRS Travel Channel more used and usable. Because if you may make a lot of calls on the GMRS Travel Channel but if no one is there to respond to you then it is not very useful. So, instead of talking about who is making calls and how those calls are made (like most other posts), I want to talk about the people on the other end that may be there to answer you, and maybe suggest ways to increase the number of potential GMRS operators available to respond the calls. THE POTENTIAL LISTENERS I think the listeners out there can be broken into four non-exclusive groups. I think at some time all of us have been in each group, changing groups from time to time, maybe even hour to hour. I know I spent most of my FRS/GRMS time in the first group, but now I move from group to group. 1) NON-LISTENERS: This group does not know that there is/could be a GMRS Travel Channel, nor do they care. They got into FRS/GMRS (like most of us) to solve one or more communication problems. If they positively affected those problems then they stayed with FRS/GMRS. These people have no interest in talking to anyone outside of their group and would (mostly) not be very happy if an outsider started talking on what they think of as their discrete channel. For the most part the people in this group do not know about the GMRS forums and have probably not seen any of the GMRS Youtube videos. I was in this group for 25 years. This is probably the largest of the groups and least likely to be available to respond to your calls. 2) CASUAL LISTENERS: This group has some idea that there is a GMRS Travel Channel (and may be somewhat confused now that there is more than one choice). For this group a GMRS Travel Channel is very much a low priority but do, from time to time, give it a try. This group gets bored or annoyed quickly when there is nothing to hear and even more quickly when there IS something to hear but it is (like CB 19) full of boring or obnoxious talk or worse nothing but poor rx or static whether man made or environmental. So, they tend not to listen for very long and therefore not likely to be there to respond to your calls. 3) AVID LISTENERS: This group is very interested in the GMRS Travel Channel and it may even be the reason they got into GMRS, to contact strangers. These people, at least occasionally, scan all 22 rx frequencies without any PL filters trying to hear everything there is to hear. Ironically, they are the same people that complain when they hear too much, like kids calling their teddy bears or highway flaggers. These people, when they can, will listen to the GMRS Travel Channel all of the time, but this may be the problem in the context of this rant. They probably listen the same way that I listen to my police scanner. My scanner is on all of the time and becomes back ground noise to me. My brain/ears filters out everything until I hear a dispatch alert tone, or back ground siren OR someone’s voice goes up 3 octaves. In other words, this group may miss your Travel Channel call if it does not get by their “ear” filters. 4) MONITORS: This group really wants to monitor the GMRS Travel Channel but does not want to hear chit chat/rag chewing, nor do they want to hear distant tx or environmental static. This is the group that I would like to be a part of most of the time. This group would be very likely to respond to your GMRS Travel Channel call, but not if it was part of a chit chat channel. POSIBLE SOLUTIONS 1) The main thing that we (GMRS users, forums readers and Youtube influencers) can do to recruit potential listeners is for us to encourage manufacturers and retailers to include some mention or maybe instructions on what the Travel Channel is how to use it in their owner’s manuals, advertising and (if we are really lucky) in the pre-programing. This tact should help encourage some listeners from ALL four groups to be actually listening when you make your call. As I am writing this very section I came across the perfect example of this interaction with Manufacturer/retailer. The new (upgrade) Wouxun KG-935G Plus seems to have many bells and whistles recommended by some of our Youtube/forum influencers. Notarubicon even got an LCD display named after him. I believe that he is responsible for many radio features and new GMRS licensees. He was able to get us things on our radios that we didn’t even know we wanted. I really like the stiff channel knob on my KG UV9gx (I didn’t even know it was a thing, I wish I had IT when I was still involved in public safety). Thanks, Randy. I have not always been a big fan of his ideas. I still have a hard time wrapping my brain around his love of the “Roger Beep”. I have been in my deer blind, everyone on the radios were being very low key, then that damn Roger Beep screams out. By the way, “Roger” beep is a misnomer, in the old timey radio world (like military or aviation) “roger” means “I understand”, the beep at the end of your transmission should be called the “over” beep. “Over” means “I am done talking, it is now your turn”. The “Roger Beep” is not the only mis-labeled item that we deal with almost every day. “Private Line” “PL” “Privacy Codes” or any other privacy sounding thing associated with CTCSS/DCS. But like the “Roger Beep”, we have been using them for so long it is hard to use a change to the proper terms. I bring up the KG 935g Plus manual because, like I suggested in the first paragraph of this section, we really need to get the manufacturer/retailers to help us get the word out. It says “Channel 19 (travel channel) is a favorite by default”. However, I have to wonder how the FCC feels about the official manual implying that GMRS Channel 19 is a nation wide frequency, it is not! That line in the manual should be followed by the disclaimer: “unless you are within a certain distance of the Canadian border, at which time in is unlawful to use GMRS Channel 19”. We all can make what ever choice on how much we want to be legal but the Manufactures/retailers should use that disclaimer, in my opinion. Unlike “PL” or “Roger beep” it is not too late to change to the proper term, a true nationwide channel, in my opinion. In a year, maybe less, it may get to be too late to change. Therefore, leaving a small, but significate, number of us without a lawful “Travel Channel”. I am sorry, I get carried away. I am very happy that we have one or more people representing GMRS to the manufacturers/retailers. Please don’t stop. 2) Another thing we can do to encourage more GMRS Travel Channel listeners, if my concept of the who-is-listening groups is even close to being accurate, is to have two “Travel Channels” like aviation and marine radio services. One for Calling/Hailing/distress (in other words, a channel to make initial contact) and one (or more) where the Chit-Chat, Rag Chewing etc (in other words, a channel to have the conversations) can take place. Even public safety, although not a nationwide channel, do a similar thing by having non-dispatch channels (car-to-car, tactical, fireground, records, training etc) to take as much radio traffic off of the dispatch channel, so it is more available for dispatch/emergency traffic. In my groups above, in my opinion, many more people might monitor our main (call/hail/distress) channel if they did not have to listen to unwanted “noise” (whether man-made or environmental), like that sometimes heard on CB 19. Having a two channel “Travel Channel” would put us in line with how aviation and marine radio services handle the concept. But almost ALL radio services, to one extent or another, do the same even at the local level. Railroads have “yard” and “road” channels, marine radios have channels set aside locally to call the marinas, service boats or to open draw bridges and locks. Aviation uses channels locally for tower, ground control, approach/departure etc. And, as I mentioned before, public safety uses alternate channels to help keep the dispatch channels available. I see my idea of two “travel channels” would do that for us, except on a national scale. 3) So how do we do this two channel option with only our 22 rx frequencies to work with? Most of the other radio services have more, sometimes a lot more, frequencies available to them. In reality, as I talked about in a previous rant, we only should consider the 8 high power frequencies and then only the 6 of them are truly available nation wide (the pesky Line A thing). So, instead of using up 2 of our 6 frequencies for one purpose, I suggest using just one frequency but divided into two channels using the modern technology (OK 70+ year old technology) of what I been calling “PL filters”. I know many of you actually hate PL filtering but read on with an open mind. To make my explanation a little less wordy (I know “too late now”) I want to propose labeling for the two channel option. Since our GMRS radio have very limited characters available for labeling I think they should be limited to 6 characters. For the channel used for initial contact I was torn between “CALL” (like many radio services use) and “HAIL” (as in Capt Kirk telling Lt Uhura to “open a hailing frequency” when he wanted to call another ship). I think “CALL” may be inferred as, like in “phone call”, a place for conversation, so I suggest “HAIL”. And I suggest for the longer conversations (rag chew, chit chat) channel that we use “CHAT” instead of “TALK”, for a similar reasons. Then, in case we don’t achieve a full consensus, we add the common FRS/GMRS channel number, shown as “xx”, so as not to reopen the actual frequency debate. So we would have “xxHAIL” and “xxCHAT”. If my two channel option does not take hold then we could have “xxTRAV” and pronounce it as “number travel” (ie “nineteen travel”). I suggest the xxHAIL channel use PL to filter out the xxCHAT noise (voice or static). It seems that PL 141.3 is well accepted as the travel PL filter, so we could continue that. It is also the legacy PL filter used when we actually had a more official Travel Channel. Then I suggest that xxCHAT have no PL filter and therefore be able to hear all traffic using that frequency within range, INCLUDING xxHAIL traffic. If you are mostly into the social part of radio or if you really dislike PL filters so much then you could probably stay on xxCHAT and be very happy. From a listener stand point it would seem that xxCHAT might be the channel to listen to, but “some people” do not want to listen to the noise but do want to hear any initial contact calls. From a caller stand point why would they use xxHAIL? Because, using xxHAIL for the call it is heard by people on both channels, filtered and unfiltered. Therefore increasing the number of potential listeners. If no response to the xxHAIL call is received after a few attempts you could switch to xxCHAT in case someone did hear you but has a radio that can not change from PL unfiltered to filtered easily. Once initial contact is made, both users could go to an agreed upon channel for the longer conversations, xxCHAT would be the default but it could be any channel they have programed in common. Very short exchanges and distress calls could stay on xxHAIL. It should be noted that most other radio services lose the ability to hear the hailing channel when they switch to the conversation channel, but using this structure, we would not. POSIBLE NEGATIVES 1) As mentioned above, some radios, mostly “bubble pack” and some Midlands can not program frequencies with more that one PL filter. Changing the PL filter from “none” to 141.3 can be done on most of these radios, but probably will not be. For these users they can decide (if the information is available to them) which channel (filtered or unfiltered) would meet their needs the best. I can see pros and cons to each in this case. 2) How does this Travel Channel structure affect repeaters? Since repeater input frequencies are in the 467.xxx range then input would not be affected. On the repeater out put side the repeater owners could decide which group they want to hear their channel. If they see themselves as oriented toward the traveler then they may choose no PL filter or PL 141.3 so they can be heard by radios on the simplex Travel Channels. If, on the other hand, they see themselves available to traveler but do not want to compete with the simplex Travel Channel users they could use any PL filter other than “none” or 141.3. In most areas I do not see much problem with simplex and repeaters sharing the same channel. CONCLUSION If you got into FRS/GMRS for emergency communications you may be disappointed. Unless you know before your emergency who and how to call others you will probably not be able to call anyone. Ham is a better option but your cell phone or a satellite distress device would be a much better option. GMRS could be used to help rescuers find you once the initial distress call is received. OR FRS/GMRS could be a poor, but available last chance. If you got into FRS/GMRS to meet and talk to strangers you may be disappointed. Ham is a much better option most of the time. In fact, Ham is much better at most things “radio”. They are great at innovation, radio science, radio etiquette. GMRS is not “ham lite” and I hope my proposals here does not turn us into ham lite. I think having a small part of our radio service used for this would make our radio service more valuable and our radios more valuable, but it is not what GMRS does best. In my ¼ century on FRS/GMRS I have talked to exactly one stranger and I have talked one exactly one GMRS repeater, both were in the same conversation. I really have no plans to contact strangers. Although we are caravanning to Moab, UT next September, I may give it a try during the boring times. I only started this discussion because the topic comes up so often on the forums and “the Youtube”. If we are able to get a consensus on a national frequency, with the two channel options we would, in effect, have channels similar to public safety dispatch and tactical options. I, for one, would use the channel this way. I would make xxHAIL my stan dby channel, both at home and in my vehicles hoping to be contacted by strangers AND members of my GMRS groups. My hope in taking this very long look at the GMRS Travel Channel I can get everyone, especially the GMRS Travel Channel Committee and other influencers, to revisit the idea and make best decision for our radio service. These ideas are MY opinion and I do not wish to argue my opinions. If you think that I am wrong, then I probably am. I know my writing style is, at best, convoluted and disjointed, so if you want me to clarify a point or two I will. I offer these ideas as a way to get discussion and conversation started. I am not the final word on this. In fact if you think I wrote this to prove how smart I am, I suggest you read it again and you see how little I actually know. So, as Mike Myers, in his “Coffee Talk” sketches on Saturday Night Live (back when SNL was actually funny) would say: “TALK AMONGST YOURSELVES”

When we choose a GMRS Travel Channel what are some of the criteria we should consider? I have thought of a few, I am sure there are more. When I refer to GMRS I also mean FRS unless noted. This is my second rant of three on the GMRS Travel Channel. In my first rant (yesterday) I gave my thoughts on what a Travel Channel is and how some other radio services have handled the concept. To review, I suggested that a Travel Channel is made up of three components, a Call/Hail component, a Chat/Rag chew component and a Distress component. And we saw that some radio services have all three components on one channel, some have each with a channel alone and some combined them on two channels. These are my thoughts on the criteria, you may disagree. CRITERION: HIGHEST TX POWER It seems to me that we should choose from the highest allowed power channels (GMRS 15-22). This gives the prospective caller the most choices for TX power. CRITERION: BE LIKE CB Since many come to GMRS from CB those people may be expecting GMRS 19 to be like CB 19. Those coming from public safety, military, ham, aviation or marine may not have those same pre-conceived notions. I am not sure that nostalgia should be an important criterion. CRITERION: FCC LINE A There is an international agreement (signed in 1965, so it is nothing new) between the US and Canada that restricts the use of certain frequencies within a certain distance of the Canadian border. The FCC calls this Line A. For GMRS that means we cannot use GMRS 19 and GMRS 21 in those areas. I cannot find any documentation to show why those only GMRS frequencies and not other GMRS channels. Now, only effecting areas near Canada may not seem like much of the US but a look at the FCC website map shows something else. Looking at the FCC map it appears that GMRS 19 & 21 cannot be used in some major metropolitan areas like Seattle and Everett Washington. Nor can they be used in the major metro areas of Detroit, Ann Arbor, Lansing, Flint and Saginaw Michigan. They cannot be used in the metro areas around Cleveland and Toledo Ohio. Also, cannot be used around Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester New York. Nor can they be used in about 20-30% of Vermont and New Hampshire. And others Also, looking at FCC’s map it appears that GMRS 19 & 21 cannot be used in about 80% of the State of Maine and about 60% of the State of Michigan-with their major adventuring areas. Speaking of adventuring areas, GMRS 19 & 21 cannot be used in New York’s Adirondack Mts or 4 of Michigan’s 5 National Forests. They also cannot be used on 4 of the 5 Great Lakes. They cannot be used in the Boundary Waters canoe area and the rest of the Superior National Forest. They cannot be used in several Indian Reservations nor in Glacier National Park. GMRS 19 & 21 cannot be used in several of Washington State’s National forests, most of Puget Sound and all of Olympic National Park. Nor can GMRS 19 & 21 be used at about 10% of the NFL stadium tailgate parties or about the same percentage of MLB stadiums. I almost forgot, there is also an FCC Line C. It seems to prohibit the use on GMRS 19 & 21 in and around the Alaska capitol of Juneau. They cannot be used in any of the Alaska panhandle and the associated waters, so popular in the adventuring and cruise industries. They are also prohibited from use in several National preserves, the Wrangell-St Elias National Park and most (if not all) of the US part of the Alaska Highway. CRITERION: COMMONLY KNOWN There is a channel that seems to be, by some GMRS operators, to already be the GMRS Travel Channel. The GMRS Travel Channel debate/discussion comes up frequently on the GMRS forums that I read. When it does some people always point out that GMRS 20 is, or at least was, the unofficial Travel Channel. I am sure many, like me, don’t post but also think this to be true. This shows at least some common agreement on the topic already existed. A google search also shows some references. It is listed on the 333 Radio Plan and even the flyer that comes with the Wouxun KG-UV9g PRO and KG-UV9gx from Better Safe Radio labels GMRS 20 (PL 141.3) as the Travel Channel. My un-scientific review of the repeaters listed on this site it appears that many, if not most, repeaters that claim to be a “Travel Repeater” are on repeater channel 20 (rx 462.670, tx 467.670). CRITERION: MOST IMPORTANT The last criterion, that I can think of, and the most important one, is a nod to, and paraphrase of, Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel. If Nigel was discussing the GMRS Travel Channel debate he undoubtedly would say that GMRS 20 IS one better than GMRS 19. Case closed. ? CONCLUSION We are a relatively new radio service so we could have picked any of our 22 rx frequencies. A look at my criteria above seems to me to make one frequency a little more desirable then the others. But choosing one of the two frequencies prohibited for use in a small but significant part of the country seems like a weak choice. “Some people” may disagree. Before the GMRS Travel Channel Committee gave us it’s decision we had two groups. One group had no idea that there was a Travel Channel and another group that thought it might be, or could be, or maybe was GMRS 20. So, to end the confusion between these two groups the GMRS Travel Channel Committee gave us a third group, the GMRS 19 group. Instead of picking one of the existing groups. I believe that the GMRS Travel Channel “Committee” included one of the most influential, well thought of and entertaining people in the GMRS universe. I agree with the “Committee’s” basic premise (someone just has to make a decision) but (mostly because of the FCC’s Lines A & C) I think the “Committee” was in error with it’s choice of GMRS 19. A similar GMRS “committee” recently declared GMRS 16 as the 4x4 channel using the same “has to” idea. That “committee” pointed out that in math 4 X 4 = 16 so GMRS 16 was the logical choice—THIS WAS INSPIRED. I was considering making the GMRS Travel Channel my stand-by channel so that strangers AND friends can find me, while I am still able to monitor the Travel Channel. But, even though I live on the good side of Line A, a lot of my travels and most of my adventuring takes place on the wrong side of Line A so I cannot use GMRS19 as my stand-by at this time. But this is NOT reason for my rants. Please read my next rant where I propose structuring our GMRS Travel Channel (regardless of frequency) in such a way that might encourage more use of it.

What I did was set up a cw wav file of callsign and then set up task manager in my computer to play it every hour (or whatever time frame you choose) and the headphone out from computer goes to mic input on a cheap baofeng on low pwr, VOX turned on and set to repeater rx frequency. For me was 467.550 pl 136.5. Seems to be working just fine

Zello has its purpose but its in that legal gray area. My argument against it is the waste of a repeater frequency when 90% of the time the people on the repeater are not in range via RF and now this signal is sitting there eating a channel.