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Maybe a little late to the party, but I hope this helps new General license holders. I am a pretty new ham who, for now, just uses voice, and I too have the 11x17 band plan chart on my wall. I found this somewhat difficult to read at a distance, so I made a spreadsheet, voice only frequency chart, that I printed and laminated. I made a little stand for it that I keep right next to my radio to help me stay within the General license Voice portion of the bands. To the amateur operators that are more experienced than I, please let me know if I have made a mistake in my chart. I hope this is of some use. James WROD278 / K8JCL Amateur Radio Voice Privileges for General Class Hams.xlsx

Hopefully you can still see my like.

Wow, so I finally broke down and added three specific individuals to my 'Ignore" list, and *man* is this a much more useful and enjoyable forum all of a sudden!

Look into getting one of the cables that has a stranded center conductor. I think most of the coax companies make them, but I’m familiar with M&P. They have an UltraFlex line of cables.

@Blaise I've been yelling at your for 20 minutes now! Why don't you respond?

You may find this video helpful as well. It was put together by one of our regular contributors here @marcspaz

There's no reason why Ch. 19 can't be the National Truckers' channel. The truckers can choose whatever channel they want, and there is no reason why Ch. 20 can not remain as the National Highway Travel/Calling Channel. In my opinion the travel channel should be CSQ on receive but if a tone has to be associated with this channel, 141.3 should be the National Travel Tone, just keep the receive side CSQ.

Hope you and your family make use of your GMRS license, because you'll want to get accustomed to using radios, especially when cellular service and land lines are down. Not Just during crisis, because even normal conditions, a Cellular Phone will not work due to lack of towers. On High Power Channel on simplex you can expect a range from 3 miles to 5 miles on an HT and about 8 to 10 miles even more on Mobiles. That's depending on your surroundings and the antenna being used. Take Care! Don't stop asking questions, because that add tools to your Comm Plan.

Funny enough at dinner with a local guru/ multiple repeater owner. He was joking around about not doing or changing his antenna presentation. Kinda focusing on the basics. This, after hearing how Marc's presentation was received. I said please no.. let Marc handle the new guys. We all want to reserve you for why a bed spring may not be an optimal antennan even if resonant type questions. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

Good question. No, you do not need to use a receive tone. If you don’t you will hear everything transmitted on that frequency. That’s what WRXB215 was talking about when he recommended setting it to Tone instead of T-SQL.

I know of no written document, however, one of the regulars posters here, marcspaz, has produced a primer type of video. Good information there. Of course offroaderX produces videos for those with a sense of humor.

Oh, you *are* a sneaky one!

Yes. Repeaters listen on the 467 MHz channels and retransmit simultaneously on the 462 MHz channels. Transmitting while receiving is called “full duplex” and requires that they happen on slightly different frequencies. So, a common repeater channel is 462.550. You’ll hear people refer to that as the 550 repeater. You would hear that at 462.550 MHz but to transmit to someone else listening to it you would need to transmit on 467.550 MHz. For regular communications with your family on a push-to-talk radio, you take turns transmitting and receiving. You don’t do both simultaneously. A single frequency is enough. That’s called “simplex”. Unfortunately, the channels established for GMRS by regulation allow simplex communications on the same frequencies you receive full duplex transmissions from repeaters. So 462.550 MHz appears in two different places in your channel list in Chirp. But only one of them results in programming your radio to transmit on the higher frequency needed to use the repeater. So, in your case “COWFAR” will work to transmit into the repeater on channel 23 and REALFIN must be programmed on channel 24.

I'll second what @WRZD706 said and add that you may want to start with Tone instead of TSQL. This is a common method when first programming a radio for a repeater. That way you hear everything until you are sure you have everything else set up correctly. Then switch to TSQL to squelch out simplex signals. See https://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/MemoryEditorColumns for more information on this.

Yep. That is not quit right. It looks like you tried to program them over the simplex (radio to radio) channels GMRS 1, 2, and 3. Undo that. Program them in their corresponding pre-programed repeater channels (REPTR3, REPTR1, and REPTR5) and make sure that you have a +5 offset. Once you confirm that works, change your "tone" to "TSQL" and make sure it works. Then you will hear only the repeater on that channel and not simplex. There are some really good youtubers that have videos that make this process super simple.

No FCC, means more radio frequency interference, higher telephone bills, and more scam telephone calls 24/7, and undesirable language on TV and Radio. Doing away with the FCC was a stupid suggestion.

19 can't be used by the something like 20% of US citizens who live above Line A...

My over-the-air TV reception went out a little after 10pm EST. That's unusual when there's no storms.

I just got back and picked up some groceries... I bought some extra PL-259 connectors in case if I need to cut the home base coax later on. The antenna is gonna be mounted like right in top of our bonus room. On a straight line is not even 10 feet from my desk. This like some work. I have an old Palomar power supply that I bought in my old CB days. I should recap it next week. I was looking at the newer power supply and It feels so light. That's why I didn't buy a new one yet. Well see whats gonna happen. There's only one way to know if this is gonna work or not. If no, I'll be using a smoke signal for back up.

I'll second what @Sshannon said and go with a good cable and stranded center conductor. Look at LMR400 Ultra Flex coax cable.

It’s a good plan. It’s short enough that losses won’t hurt you too bad. There are always some losses but most of us will never suffer from them.

I'm using LMR400 Ultra Flex for my GMRS and 2m/70cm antennas. The coax going to my GMRS antenna is 32 foot long and the one going to my dual band antenna is 82 foot long.

its a good thing youre here... I'm about to get this. I double measured and everything and I only need 19 feet. So I'm getting a 25 foot LMR-240 and 3 foot extra for SWR meter testing. Here is the lost and what do you think? Just to say... I really want a good line. But in reality, as a former two way radio user.. There's no way I will get this thing squared in 1 shot. I'm thinking I will I'll just go with the LMR-240 and if I got everything dialed then later on I'll get the most promising LMR-400 that I can achieve. If I continue working on this, I'll be losing money on my job.... Do you think thats a good plan? I have a very nice 50 watt radio. We tested it in the shop. It was drawing around 50 on max. I'll show it to you later. I am also Thinking about getting an okay radio for the car like AnyTone AT-778UV so I can just leave the other one for base station.

I don’t recall CB having any “official” channels except 9 for emergencies. People just started using 17 & 19 for “road comms” and it stuck. Of course, we didn’t have cell phones back in the 70’s either. No amount of discussion on any Internet forum is going to establish anything resembling an official or unofficial travel channel. Heck, with cell phones everywhere the use of GMRS is pretty much down to us radio dorks, outdoor enthusiasts, and off road folks. I think scanning and calling where one hears activity is about the best you can hope for.

Thank you for this. Comms was lacking from my preps and needed to get up to speed. I actually connected and did a radio check to a repeater. Small steps. LOL

Highly recommend. It got a lot of positive feedback. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

With displays like this, I would argue that for the folks who engage in such competitions, that’s exactly what it is, the “Wild West” where nearly anything goes.

The title is Elimination of the FCC but the content is asking if anyone knows "what gives the federal government the right to get involved in local wireless communications - or their justification to even exist as an agency?" So elimination of FCC is not a thing. Anyway, anyone who holds any FCC license should know the answer to the question. Congress passes laws, including laws that establish agencies of the government. FCC is one of those, in 47 U.S.C. §151: "For the purpose of regulating interstate and foreign commerce in communication by wire and radio so as to make available, so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, a rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges, for the purpose of the national defense, for the purpose of promoting safety of life and property through the use of wire and radio communications, and for the purpose of securing a more effective execution of this policy by centralizing authority heretofore granted by law to several agencies and by granting additional authority with respect to interstate and foreign commerce in wire and radio communication, there is created a commission to be known as the “Federal Communications Commission”, which shall be constituted as hereinafter provided, and which shall execute and enforce the provisions of this chapter." FCC preempts state and local laws in most cases. As the Congressional Research Service wrote: "The Communications Act gives the FCC broad regulatory authority and, along with it, the ability to preempt state laws that conflict with or frustrate its regulatory actions. When the FCC is acting within its proper statutory authority, the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause ensures that its actions prevail." But there is much more to that which is why there is a whole report on it.

Hi Murph, Welcome to the forums. You can have two way communications between you and your entire family without setting any tones. That’s easiest.

Ah yes. The infamous CB Keydown competitions. I've said it here before, I'll say it again. Keydown competitions are what's missing from GMRS.

As an internet legal scholar and couch-based constitutional expert, you should know that complaining about it here is not going to accomplish anything other a bunch of back and forth verbal & grammatical masturbation.

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.