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You need to understand how tones work. When a radio or in this case the repeater has an input tone, it will squelch out any signal that does not have that tone. So, the repeater will ignore you unless your signal has that tone. When the repeater sends out a signal with a tone, you can still hear it when you use no tone at all. But you also hear all other signals. To squelch out all the other signals and just hear the repeater, use the repeaters output tone.

GMRS radios are only allowed to transmit on GMRS frequencies/channels 462/467 Mhz. All other bands covered are receive only. 70cm and 2m refer to the wavelength of the band. Very High Frequency VHF is 2 meters long and Ultra High Frequency UHF is 70 cm long for one full wave. The higher the frequency the shorter the wave length. Antenna's are made to transmit within the advertised band but can usually receive a much wider range than they can transmit on.

I've had a amateur license for decades. Got it for the communications aspect during desert adventures. Unfortunately most of the folks I went with decided not to get a license. Moved to GMRS because most of the family and friends I am around now will use it. A couple of friends and some other family members have GMRS licenses now. I'm talking to a few neighbors about getting GMRS licenses and using the radios to check up each other during winter weather events and during wildfire season. I have a couple of older neighbors that don't have cell phones. I will keep my amateur license as well. As others have said, having more tools is good.

That concept of “additional tools” is why our club is discussing putting up a commercial repeater at the same site of our Amateur repeater so that in an disaster we could hand out commercial radios to specific unlicensed people.

It never hurts to have more useful tools in one's toolbox. And that is how a few of us sold the idea of a GMRS repeater to our club too.

I didn't choose GMRS, it chose me.

I didnt take a very big computer.

As you can see my assistant @Sshannon answered for me, and correctly - and yes, I have had a lot of people ask me.. And there is no need for an entire forum dedicated to my greatness when there already IS an AI version of me here: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-lltaQJ8ro-learn-gmrs-with-the-notarubicon Although to use it you have to have access to GPT+/ChatGPT4.

The problem is that there is no standard format for the exchange of GPS information between the different manufacturers. Wouxun has their own version in their KG-Q10G too. It's kind of like the digital modes for amateur radio. You have DMR, Fusion, and D-Star. None of them work with the others.

Same, and the license term and cost finally got reasonable too.

I should add, I generally use the output tones in my area. Otherwise, I would be hearing all the kids, lawnscaping companies Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

Oh.. yea I agree. Listen to aprs frequency in a dense area. What I was referring to was the amount of data that can be sent. Especially, something like FT. Damn symbols rate caps, lol Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

Hello and welcome! The problem is that in a grid down type of situation repeaters can be down as well because most are powered from the grid, although some have back up batteries or generators maybe solar even. So they can not be relied on for emergency communications planning. VHF and UHF (GMRS is UHF) are basically line of sight communications. If the two antennas can see each other then they can talk. If you can both get enough altitude as in hill top to hill top you may get 100 miles or more. 250 miles? Not likely. For that distance you will need to look to the ham radio world. There is a lot to learn about radio comms for it to be effective in emergencies or just to be competent with it in general. Look for better quality radios for emergency use. They need to be reliable.

Probably not general electronics, but someone who fixes phones and tablets. Surface mount requires some specialized tools and lots of practice.

Welcome to the forums. Without telling us what radio you’re using and what software you’re using it’s impossible to say.

It is the USB port for CAT control. I am using a Yaesu SCU-17 currently for CAT control for WSJTX/FT8. The SCU-17 was a whole lot cheaper than sending the radio in for repair.

I stuck your comment into the AI version of me and this is what i said:

I can’t wait to see one AI arguing with another about Roger beeps!!

Heck it will likely be able to replace these forums, as in all of us.

Don't get too excited Steve, A.I. will soon replace most such jobs. It's already replacing Randy.

Obviously, I had no such compunction. Maybe there should be a forum called “Ask Randy” where his favorite viewers can ask his AI alter ego questions. @OffRoaderX, what do you think? Should we ask Rich @rdunajewski for an “Ask Randy” forum?

That's why I didn't respond. Didn't want to impose.

I'm not sure if our club's emergency trailer has any commercial radios or not. But we do have all amateur bands and GMRS covered now.

The Garmin Rhino series GMRS radios have had it for many years, as well as very well done mapping and location exchange. It works well. I use that, but I’ve not used the GMRS pro.

I’m not Randy, but it’s a well known problem and the subject of several threads on these forums. The best thing to do is send them back to the vendor and get replacements that work, but there is a firmware upgrade that is reported to fix it. Just search for “channel 15”. Welcome to the forum! Here’s one of them:

Same for me.

Joining a club will not make the tones show up on myGMRS.com. You need to get the tones from the club or repeater owner.

You can do either. If you are in an heavily used area or have multiple repeaters on the same frequency. Then I would suggest using the output tone. Even then always open squelch (or use monitor) to verify input frequency is not in use, before transmitting. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

We have to keep in mind that the primary purpose of GMRS is for families and other small groups. Using repeaters is just a bonus. For everything else, HAM is the way to go.

Until you have a dozen or so stations doing it on your channel. Then even a short data burst at frequent intervals is going to be irritating.

Only if your radio has gold fringe. Then it's an admiralty radio and you can do whatever you want

Yes it is. Now most people can get by just fine running two 50 mobile radios on one 30 amp (peak) power supply simply because most will never be transmitting on both radios at the exact same time. Now if people were to transmit on two 50 watt mobiles at the same time say like during a field day/demonstration, then some 30 amp power supplies might not be enough. It will depend on the continuous amp rating.

Let me also add that I'm coming from a musician's point of view with this question. I know that when I use to play electric guitar it could sound loud in the room but the high frequency didn't penetrate walls that well. When I switched to bass it might not sound as loud but the lower frequency could be felt through the entire house. Thanks for the great answers.

I will also add that if an analog signal comes along and happens to be as strong if not stronger than the digital signal you are trying to listen to, the analog will either make it impossible to hear the digital signal or you just wont hear it at all.

There’s nothing wrong with having a conversation and sometimes, in a conversation, a person will circle back to a question for more detail or even out of skepticism. “Maybe I didn’t hear that right?” “But what about this case — it seems different?” And sometimes, those of us who are explaining things answer the question we hear, not the one you asked. So, go ahead and ask as many questions as you want. But, understand that we might get testy if you ask the same question over and over in the same way. Repeaters do not need to be in-between two radios geographically. They just need to be within range of both of the two radios and the two radios must be within the coverage pattern of the repeater antenna. That pattern is usually described as fanning out circularly and horizontally. There are a few characteristics that makes a repeater more effective at achieving greater range: Their antennas are usually placed on high terrain and then installed on towers that raise them even higher, to improve the line of site, Their antennas direct their transmission power outward horizontally (and often slightly downward) to target a specific region. The better commercial repeaters are designed to have better receivers than off-the-shelf GMRS radios, usually much better. Being better quality makes a big difference. They have more sensitivity to pick up weaker signals and they have greater selectivity to help reject interference from other signals. The commercial repeaters are also designed with better transmitters, but for GMRS they are limited to 50 watts. What makes them better is the accuracy of their frequency oscillation and the absence of spurious emissions. Having higher power will help increase the range, but less than you might expect. The important thing is visibility, line of sight. There’s nothing about duplex communications that enhances range over simplex communications. If you and I each have a radio and we cannot reach each other, placing a repeater where one of us is standing, with its antenna placed down low like our antenna are will probably do nothing to help, but replacing one of us with an antenna that pokes out above all the surrounding buildings and hills will help a lot. If the repeater antenna is up high enough, and there’s a straight line of sight between your antenna and the repeater antenna, it’s entirely possible to get 10 miles or further. I live in the mountains. There’s a repeater to the south of me that’s 4000 feet above me and 9 miles away from my house in town. I can travel 16 miles farther north to my cabin and still easily reach that repeater with a five watt handheld radio, even a very cheap radio.. The people I have talked to using the repeater have been as far south of the repeater as 45 miles, as far east as 70 miles, and as far west as 20 miles. But because of an intervening peak of another mountain there’s one direction that’s probably less than a mile. It really depends on terrain, topography, structures, and quality. So the only two correct answers to your questions about flat suburbia and ranges are “it depends” and “maybe.” If you’re willing to spend the money to install a high quality commercial repeater with a high quality high antenna, it’s highly probable to achieve the range you want. In fact, simply connecting high quality antennas to your radios and raising those antennas up high might be able get you the range you need. So, more specifically, yes, a five watt radio can reliably reach a repeater five or ten miles away if the conditions are right. Can it work in your instance? You’re the only one who can answer that. Try it. If it doesn’t work with your handheld antenna put an antenna on your car roof. Or try it with a fifty watt mobile unit and a good mobile antenna on top of your car. Finally, hook up a fifty watt mobile radio to a base station antenna extending above the roof of your house. Please let us know. And feel free to ask more questions.

first question: yes, that's correct. i'll share a real world example from the ham side (on 70cm, which is nearly identical, signal wise, to gmrs), with the caveat that i don't do much (if any) simplex on GMRS, as the family has ZERO interest. using my base setup (which is a pair of mobiles and a base antenna in the closet) chatting with someone who lives in the next town up the highway via the local repeater, which is 23 miles from me. discover he's in town shopping at the moment, talking in on his mobile from a shopping center 25 miles from the repeater, and just 6.5 miles from me. i switched over to the repeater input to see if i could hear him, but not much beyond an occasional burst of static. i can hear the repeater clearly on a handheld inside the house, and can talk in with no problem from outside in the yard, but going direct just over 6 miles apart was no go. second question: hard to say on "reasonable"...is it possible? absolutely. it's going to be very dependent on height, but it's a little bit of a stretch to assume radio towers. some may be one of the users here, with a 5 watt Retevis 'repeater in a box' on a 20' top rail mast, or mounted on a barn. dealing with the high level stuff we have in CA, i've talked into a gmrs repeater over 60 miles out from the 3rd floor of a hotel with a handheld, and managed 75ish to a ham repeater in the same area from a high spot in the hills (basically clear line of sight over the valley), but those repeaters i'm working with are on foothill ridges at 3000-4500 ft above sea level. obstructions are the biggest challenge for a largely line of sight signal like gmrs. here's a quick edit to the diagram in the first post illustrating my example (though i'm using gmrs frequencies in the diagram, illustrating hearing via the repeater was no problem, but listening on the repeater input, no luck.

Just declare GMRS is the novice class for amateur radio and allow access to 70 Centimeter band Problem solved.....