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Obviously it is an acronym because "ham" would not make any sense. H.A.M. makes more sense to anyone with a good grasp of talking english good.

It’s easiest to put it in the repeater (channels 23-30) section. All you have to do is select the correct channel and set the tone to match the repeater. The offset is already programmed in. If you try to program it in the channels from 1-22, there’s no offset. Those channels are preconfigured for simplex, which is when both radios transmit and receive on the same channel. If you have numerous repeaters you want to program you will have to program them into DIY (do it yourself) channels that typically exist above channel 30. You will have to enter the frequencies, using the correct offset, and the tones. It’s not difficult, as long as your radio supports that. (I’m pretty sure the 935 does. It’s highly recommended by folks who have one.)

Sporadic E, "E skip or Es" is fairly rare at 144 MHz but several instances are documented every year in the ham community. There are rare instances where Es has reached up to 222 MHz. I am not aware of any openings in the 440 MHz range so I would consider this propagation mode unlikely on GMRS. Es happens primarily in summer (late May to mid August). Tropospheric ducting or "tropo" is fairly common east of the Rockies, mostly in the summer through fall. Below is a current map of propagation links from automated data stations in the 144 MHz band, https://vhf.dxview.org/. These stations would be typical in power to GMRS, but at VHF. Paths in red may be usable at GMRS. Tropo commonly is usable above 440 MHz and even well into the GHz range with enhanced conditions. Tropo can cover a few hundred to 1000 miles plus and is documented at over 2500 miles. Here is a tropo propagation prediction map that shows strong potential paths in many areas of the eastern US last Tuesday. It does show a gap between MI/LA but it is only a modeled prediction based on weather patterns and at a specific time (1200 UTC). A path could develop as the weather changed through the day. These Hepburn, https://dxinfocentre.com/tropo.html maps are used by hams and other listening enthusiasts to find long haul propagation. Another way to find enhanced propagation is to listen to empty FM broadcast and NOAA weather channels in your area.

I don't scan GMRS. I only use GMRS to talk to friends when we are engaged in some activity. We already have prearranged channels and tones. If I wanted to reach out I would use my ham radios and call "CQ".

When I go off-roading I always have my mobile radio set to scan all channels. But GMRS isnt really intended to "reach out" - it is more of a person-to-person radio service and is not the best choice for finding strangers to chat with. For that, H.A.M. radio or the Grinder app are probably a better choice.

Until fairly recently, one legend about the origin of the word "ham" as related to amateur radio operators, did admit the possibility of an acronym, made up of the first initials of three amateur operators who had one of the first call signs. It has since been debunked, but honestly, the folks who get upset over things like this should just take a deep breath. Another suggests that the letters came from Hertz, Armstrong, and Marconi. There is an entire article about the etymology of "ham" in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_ham_radio#:~:text="A little station called HAM",-This widely circulated&text=An amateur station that Hyman,represent all of amateur radio. An amateur station that Hyman supposedly shared with Bob Almy and Reggie Murray, which was said to be using the self-assigned call sign HAM (short for Hyman-Almy-Murray), thus came to represent all of amateur radio.

Oh he knows… I think he just likes to see who will jump to correct him.

GMRS repeaters have a +5 offset. So the repeater you’re looking to program is 462.675. That means your radio will need to TX (transmit) on 467.675 and RX (receive) on 462.675. As @Sshannon mentioned repeater channels on your radio have the offset already set. You can see both the frequency of the channel and the offset in chirp. A repeater channel that matches the frequency of the repeater you want to program. That’s where you want to program your repeater. In this case channel 28, or 36 if you prefer and so on.

As @Sshannon says. The repeater channels have the +5 offset already. So for this repeater channel 28 would be appropriate. While the 935 (great radio by the way) is fairly easy to program front panel you may find it’s even easier to use Chirp. I find it helps to see things in this format too.

There is a full blown MotoTrbo DMR repeater that has been eating up 462.700 in my area for over 6 months. Running my MD-380 DMR HT with 3rd party firmware in promiscuous mode ID's it as MotoTrbo but can't get much else because it's also encrypted DMR. It forced a long time local repeater to move frequencies because of it. It sucks but not much I can do about it, had to remove the frequency from my scan list.

Why does every new license holder want to setup a repeater? I would like to shed a little light on some of the important things to consider if you recently got your GMRS license and now want your own repeater. First thing to consider, are there any open well placed repeaters in your area that you are able to use? I can assure you most repeater owners want people to use there repeater. Owning several repeaters I can assure you all are welcome and encouraged to use my machines. Do you have access to a location to host your repeater? If your answer is your garage roof you should reconsider. Your garage roof will give you about the same coverage as simplex. Unless you’re on top of a mountain and all your users are at the bottom you will never be happy with this setup. GMRS is not as popular as one would like to think, unless your repeater covers 20 miles or more you may find you only have 1 or 2 users in the area. Unless you already have a group of friends together you may want to consider this before spending money on a decent well positioned site to install your repeater. So you found a nice high site and the price is right, all you need to do is get the repeater installed, sounds simple right? Some thigs to consider first and foremost are the costs because they can add up quickly. Are you on a commercial tower that requires a license and bonded climber? If so this could be by far your largest expense depending on your area. I have spent $600 to $1200 on a climber; I have had quotes as high as $2500 depending on the amount of work and heights involved. Keep in mind commercial sites require certified mounts, hard line cable, cable clamps, engineered grounding solutions and commercial grade antennas. No tower owner is going to let you install a comet antenna and 200’ of braided shield coax. This brings me to my next point, the antenna. Because of the costs involved with climbers you will want to expend your budget on the antenna. Remember a $2000 repeater on a $200 antenna is going to work about as good as a $200 repeater. Whereas a $200 repeater on a $2000 antenna is going to work like a $2000 repeater. On my first repeater I was gifted use of a 150’ tower, I installed a DB-420 on the top and 160’ of 7/8 hardline. Total cost of equipment for the antenna install was $2500, with the climbers labor coming in at an additional $800. This left me with enough to purchase an old Motorola R100 repeater running at 25W. To my surprise it had 30 miles of coverage, all due to the cash spent on the antenna and waiting for a decent spot. Things happen, more so if you have an antenna 200’ in the air with a conductive cable connected to sensitive electronics. Antenna issues, feedline issues, repeater issues all cost money and I promise at some point you will have issues that need repair and require your money! It is my opinion that the GMRS community does not need another 2 to 5 miles repeater as it just becomes background noise. What use is a public listed repeater if somebody in a mobile can’t use it 5 miles away while moving or the portable coverage is only a mile? If after reading this you are still going to build a repeater for your garage more power to you, just don’t expect 20 people to show up if it only reaches a mile. As the owner of several GMRS and Commercial repeaters I can attest to the amount of money and effort go into my repeaters. I have only touched on the basics, if you add in any kind of testing services, duplexer tuning, addition of a combiner channel to an existing tower system, RF engineering, rent and insurance your costs can sky rocket. The best advice I can give any new licensee is to try and use the available systems in the area. Take the time to learn a little about what you’re doing and to assess the usability of the service before investing in a repeater for the sole reason of saying you own one.

In researching this better I’ve discovered it’s a BX48, not the heavier duty HDBX48. That doesn’t bother me. It means that I am more limited in the antenna I mount. The HDBX48 was rated for an antenna that weighs 120 lbs and has an area of 6 square feet. The HDBX would have handled 360 lbs and 18 square feet.

Well, thanks for all the replies, I was reading on the FCC site, and digital data like Text messages and GPS location info is allowed on GMRS. Since Btech makes a radio that sends texts and gps info, that is probably what I am hearing. So for now, I will just set a tone on that channel when I hear the digital data so I can't hear it. Not much else I can do.

Based on the actual track-record of FCC enforcements since 2012, statistically speaking, they wont do anything.

In my opinion the FCC won't do anything unless it interferes with a life and death situation.

I have my various radios setup for scanning. The channels are programmed for FRS, narrow band. Most of the simplex traffic is done using cheap FRS radios used by local businesses, hotels etc., and kids. Businesses use them due to the low cost and no license requirements. The legitimate GMRS traffic is normally on the local repeaters. Additionally I have various business band specific frequencies programmed to monitor things like a couple of local malls security activities. At times that can get very interesting.

Yeah, they sell a base that gets embedded into the concrete and provides three stubs to bolt the bottom section to. Only one of the bottom section legs had three bolts. The other two were two bolts each. I don’t know if that’s because there was a different design previously or this wasn’t truly the bottom section but it’s beefy.

Welcome to the MyGMRS forums!

You might want to place the URL into the post text, not just the title. Edit - or I can: https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/business-and-law/ham-operator-faces-fine-for-disruptions-to-warfa-net

So in your original question you asked about placing a repeater into the “repeater section.” My answer was based on the preprogrammed channels: 1-22 simplex and 23-30 repeater. With Chirp, make the changes wherever they make sense to you and where they are allowed by Chirp.

Is it possible to guy wire the tower? Would you have the unobstructed space to guy it? What would the requirements be for the anchor points and will the soil accommodate the anchor points without any difficulty? More than likely the tower wasn't engineered/designed for being guyed since it is a free standing tower and you may have to do some modification to the tower. Just a thought.

Yeah, but short ones to avoid hurting the boulder.

Wood screws?

No. Generally mobile equipment is designed to operate at a nominal 13.8VDC plus or minus 15 percent at most. That would be nearly 16VDC on the high side. Take a look at the manual at the following link. https://www.buytwowayradios.com/downloads/dl/file/id/1411/product/5287/wouxun_kg_1000g_owners_manual.pdf Look at page 80.

True. I was talking to another ham across town in the Detroit area here on a local repeater many years ago. That repeater didn’t have a courtesy tone. If you didn’t know better it sounded like two guys talking simplex. Anyway another ham broke in on the output frequency, full quieting. We thought he was local using the repeater. Then he asked were we were located. We told him our approximate location by local towns around the main Detroit area. The guy didn’t seem to have a clue what we were talking about. When we asked him for his location we were shocked to discover he was on a mountain in New York State. This was all on the 2 meter band.

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.

Yeah, after working in and on communications gear professionally and being a Ham for as long as I have, there really isn't anything that would shock me as far as range goes.

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

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

Depending on the DMR radio it might have a monitoring or promiscuous mode. That allows the radio to decode any DMR signal without the necessity of using the correct color code, slot number or talk group. For example my D878 has this feature. Turns out to be handy at times. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/270-d878uv-model-1/?context=new

Digital data transmissions.Digital data transmissions are limited to the 462 MHz main channels and interstitial channels in the 462 MHz and 467 MHz bands. But, that’s not the same as digital voice, such as DMR. Digital voice is not allowed on GMRS with the exception of some sites that applied for experimental usage.

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

I think that the original Garmin waiver became part of the current rules. So, currently, location data is already allowed to be shared, but the antenna must not be removable and digital data may not pass through a repeater. Midland is stretching those boundaries. If they’re successful and nobody has problems, I would expect the waiver terms to become codified. I haven’t followed what the Talkabout does.

They don't have to be Part 95 type-accepted to be legal to use on Part 95 Subpart E freqs. Part 95 allows the use of Part 90 type-accepted radio units on GMRS channels.

I'm sure this will spark an argument... but I want to make a few corrections. I'm not trying to pick on you... just want to put a tad more accurate info out there. Like you... my post is not very technical... more of a general concept. You are mistaken about wider signal having more range. The opposite is true... narrow band has better range. Wide has better audio fidelity. Wide receivers have less usable sensitivity than narrow bandwidth receivers because the wider the receiver, the more it fills with the broad spectrum noise. It then takes more desired received signal to pull the data out of the noise, reducing range per watt. This is why major manufactures collectively agreed, many decades ago, that 2.5 kHz bandwidth for SSB voice transmissions would be considered "normal" bandwidth. Also, the "bandwidth" and "channel spacing" are not the same. It looks like you may have mixed them up. In real-world application, GMRS WFM (aka wide band) "channel spacing" is 25 kHz and the typical occupied bandwidth is 20 kHz. The NFM (aka narrow band) channels are spaced 12.5 kHz and are typically 11 kHz occupied bandwidth. I measured one of my radios moments before posting this. My radio on wide band is 19.3 KHz with 4.4KHz deviation and narrow band is 10.3 KHz with 3.5 KHz deviation (a little hot). In laymen terms, the more bandwidth you use, the more data you can send. The more data you send, the better the fidelity can be. In GMRS voice, that data is your voice. Therefore, on wide band, you can have better audio fidelity due to more information transmitted and received. The reason audio from a narrow band transmission has low audio on a wide band receiver is because the receiver is tuned in such a way that it is listening to a wider spectrum of radio than the transmitted signal, and it is expecting more deviation than provided for the voice. The empty RF space is filled with random noise (same noise that reduces sensitivity / range) and the lack of deviation leads to lower audio levels. You combine the two and it can sound like less than half the expected/normal audio levels. The inverse is true when a narrow receiver hears a wide signal. The receiver is only hearing about half the signal (making it sound lower in tone) and the over-deviation causes a loud audio level... sometimes sounding a little distorted.

Bob was one of my heros. RIP

Personally, depending on location. Ie mountains and repeater availability. Usually, 20 watts or so are nice and adequate. Most will let you trim the power back some even enough to get on the frs interants and still be close to inbounds according to some rules. Plus most are economical compared to a 50 watt model. Most 40/50 watt radios can't turn the power down enough to play with the entire allocation. Hence some channels are blocked etc. But it is always nice to bump up the power when at the fringes of a repeater or in the woods. With uhf and vhf. Gmrs is uhf. Focus on the antenna setup more then the radio. 15w with a properly setup 5/8 antenna gets you out further and cleaner then a 50w with unity gain antenna with no groundplane and crap coax. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

Newer guy here. I’ve done tower climbing before (for a wireless internet company). If there was anyone around me that needed a climber for a fraction of the claimed cost (not debating that price, I just have no idea what climbers charge. I got $100 per climb (yes, it was for a friend)) I would consider getting certified. Never knew they charged that much

GMRS repeaters do not have to ID. The users of the repeater must ID when they use it. When I first became licensed, about 25 years ago, you had to designate on the application IF you were going to have a repeater, how many mobiles, how many portables.... also you had to designate which pair you were using for the repeater, your LAT/LON and calculate your ERP. You don't have to do any of that now. If the FCC needed repeaters to be "registered" they would still require that. Tower wise, mine is beside a barn on a hill, it's about 35 feet with a 18 foot ASP fiberglass stick on top. There was never a requirement for a site registration because we are under 200' tower height, and not in a flight path. There are TV antenna towers at 60 feet around here...so no issue there.

Wish I'd have read this post before I ran off 'half-cocked' *like I always do!

Staff Memo - The subject of this thread is important enough, for newly licensed user reference, to pin it to the top of this posting area.