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I've heard a bunch on FRS and simplex GMRS. A bunch of it has already been listed here... School pickup lines, traffic flagmen, 5 year old kids screaming and holding the call button for minutes on end, tree services, crane operators, the nursery next door to me, etc but these are the ones that stand out so far.... Guy called out to his wife while on the stool - "Next commercial break can you bring me some TP? I'm waiting". A local Gym was using FRS for a bit - until somebody started messing with them. Every time they transmitted, somebody else keyed up with a recording of Cheech and Chong's "Dave's not here" skit Last night was a winner though - a man and woman talking on FRS that thought FRS was wonderful. It couldn't be traced like their cell phone and the guy with the ankle monitor was far enough away as not to violate the terms of the personal protection order and still be able to communicate.

Someone using the built in scrambler in some inexpensive radios will sound like they’re on the wrong sideband. It’s really just inverted frequencies.

You get to decide whether you see chronological or vote-based sorting:

There are several license free radio services in the European Union, PMR446 (narrow band FM), Digital PMR446 (DMR Tier-1), dPMR446 (dPMR). These all operate from 446.0MHz to 446.2MHz. The Ham band there is only from 430MHz to 440MHz so it's outside of their segment but within ours in the US. The licensed power is only 0.5 watts like our old FRS standard. I would suspect hearing them around popular tourist destinations for international visitors. They likely would bring their radios with them unaware they would be operating in the middle of the US Ham band. There is a forum where EU radio use is discussed. Some of the old posts are fun to read. https://transmission1.net/viewforum.php?f=4&sid=a74e04a3a9d842dce32abec0669cc532 PMR446 White Paper.pdf

To fold, grab a meaty part pull up, then try to fold it over. Go slow it's fairly stiff the first couple of times. The hinge has been known to fail over time. Another thing get extra grub screws. They are really only designed to used once. But go through clean them with isopropyl alcohol and blue loctite them. They have been also know to loosen up overtime. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

In spite of the fact that I hate this format of votes vs. chronologically sorted; I will give this some thought. In the meantime, I will ask you on your other post to identify the items in your Yellowstone Go-Box; thank you!

We just got back from a week in Yellowstone with some family from France. My uncle was considering bringing his pair of PMR446 radios down. I explained why that was sort-of a bad idea (would it have bothered anyone with half watt radios? Probably not) ...but that I had us covered

The 2x4SR is an excellent antenna and works very well on 2m, 70cm, and GMRS. I run one on my Honda Pioneer 500 SxS along with a 20 watt radio. The highest SWR reading on the three bands is 1.8 which is good to go. I am using the Midland magnet mount with the antenna on an expanded metal rack.

Capital (15 miles) and Ogden (43 miles) are no problem for me. I'm a mile west of Wasatch near Little Cottonwood Road (near the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon) at 5080 feet elevation. The Capital repeater is on Ensign Peak, so good elevation, and the Ogden repeater is on Mount Ogden -- also good elevation.

Anyway, that's not GMRS. On GMRS I enjoy when I hear traffic on the Promontory repeater, because I believe that's 63 miles from my house, and with the right $60 antenna, sounds like it's next door. That's on 462.700 / 21R. I've hit it with a UV5G with an external antenna, though I get a lot better signal report when I hit it with a mobile at a little higher power.

You got some winners, there. Last night on a 70cm repeater I overheard a net that was mostly mapped over to VHF, with people checking in from Vegas/Nevada, Montana, Arizona, Utah, and Idaho. The strange thing was that the repeater I was receiving this net on was based at Brighton, Utah, which is a ski resort; not one of the "big" repeaters near the city. They must have a very well placed antenna to be able to tie into a relatively spread-out network of repeaters from 19 miles up the canyon in the mountains. The "tarzan call" guy is pretty annoying. Every morning from about 7:50 through 8:00am he shouts sort of singing war cries on GMRS 18. They're mostly impossible to understand, though they mention the time. I think today I heard him say "Ashton it's almost 8AM!!!" (in a singing / shouting tone of voice). And then a little later, "It's 8:00am, Ashton!!!" (along with more chanting and singing). I think he is his son's alarm clock, and GMRS or FRS is his tool. But the signal is strong for several miles. I'm often driving my kids to an activity they participate in daily at this time, and I hear him equally well whether I'm a few miles to the north of my home, or a few miles to the south -- stronger than I would expect FRS to carry. If you're this guy, and you're reading this, please switch to channel 12; that sort of thing doesn't need to be transmitted at more than 500mw.

Keep in mind that it's GMRS, and no one cares about anyone else. You may have been heard reaching out, but it's a "bring your own friends" service.

Yes to both questions. You can start off with a cheap 1/4 wave magnet mount. The antenna will only be about 6 to 8 inches tall depending on the exact magnet mount used. The antenna will be short enough where you likely won’t have to worry about clearance issues parking in a garage, going through drive throughs etc. This will at least give you an idea of potential improvements with a better external antenna. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/338-cheap-14-wave-gmrs-antenna/?context=new

Highly advisable, practical and doable. Think about this. If you hardwire a GMRS mobile radio into your vehicle, it's useless to you unless you're driving. If you use your HT with both a mag mount in the car and with the stock antenna when you're out of your vehicle, you've doubled the utility of your HT. Five watts is plenty if you have decent repeaters available.

I have a Retevis RA87, and so far I like it. It has really good ears and the squelch is easy to turn up or down. This is a great radio to get if you're looking for one that will pick up a lot of things.

I can regularly hit a repeater 17 miles away with my TD-H3 HT that outputs 4.7 watts. My voice volume is definitely soft when receiving on another HT in the within the same couple of towns still 12-17 miles away from the repeater. The repeater is 1000+ ft up on a mountain and I'm 62ft above sea level. Yet going HT to HT is usually limited to about 2 miles or less depending on what is in the way. I have another repeater that is 21 miles away on another mountain and that one is iffy when I can get in contact with it. Quieting isn't good but I'm still understandable. I pretty much figure that's the limit of range for my little HTs

When I first got the Midland LXT600 FRS/GMRS HT's for use up at the lake where there's zero cell service, My wife seemed to think she HAD to push the Call button before she could talk to me out on the boat from the cabin. I quickly explained to her she could just push the PTT and start talking... I imagine it might be useful in very high noise environments where you may not hear people calling you, and the piercing tone would alert you? Mostly when scanning the channels, if I hear these, it's kids playing radio. "It is about as useful as the 'Alarm' button on many radios." Or a Roger Beep! Sorry, couldn't resist!

That’s just how it works. You copy the url from the browser address and you paste it in your post. Then you click on it and you click on the next page arrow to follow it to page 3. I could have used this link instead: https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-division/amateur-radio-service/amateur-call-sign-systems#vanity-call-signs

Some youtube stuff is better than others. I still ask questions here

The one key factor in distance for radio is the height of the antenna. Higher antennas clear more obstacles and have a greater distance to the horizon. The next factor is the output power from the antenna as some antennas have a gain factor that negates losses in the coax between the radio and antenna.

Yes, causing interference is the main no no in all RF use

I think we "know" the same guy

I know a few members do emergency volunteer work. Anyone have a legit portable repeater setup? It's been about a year since I setup my portable "shack". Since the weather was nice today and I have a new repeater to field test, I figured I would do a dry-run at home before I setup in an actual emergency. It takes about 3 hours to deploy the portable setup with HF, VHF, and UHF amateur radio and GMRS. So, needless to say, unless it's a multi-day drill or real emergency, I'm not going all out, but it was time for that dry-run. I have a dedicated mast for the homemade 80m/40m/20m/10m OCF dipole, and then an additional mast for the VHF/UHF antenna(s). In these pictures, there is a Yaesu DR-1X and a Icom IC-7300.

If you leave the tone out of the receiver side you’ll hear everything transmitted on 462.675, regardless of the tone they use to transmit. For that reason I recommend leaving it out for new users. The downside (if it is one) is that you hear everything on the channel. That’s useful though if you’re just learning. If the station you are transmitting to has programmed its receiver to require a tone you must transmit using the same tone.

It's worth repeating. If you're running a compact "flat pack" duplexer - and you're pumping out over 20 watts, there's a real good chance that your system's measured desense is 1.5 to 2 dB. Seems like a small amount, right? However, if you can improve your receiver performance by 3dB -you have effectively doubled the area of coverage that your portables can talk back in from. One of my first Ah-Ha! moments in 2-way radio was when an old timer took me out to a tower site where a customer on the repeater system was complaining about poor coverage with their hand-held portables. When we got on site, he spent a bunch of time setting up his test equipment and taking measurements. He already knew what he was going to do, but he took the time to educate me. He showed me the performance of the system as it was and showed me the measured desense. He let me listen in to "weak" portables that were operating on the edge of the system. The customer had been sold a brand new high power 100 watt "high performance" repeater, but was running it all through an existing flat pack 6 cavity notch duplexer. They spent their money on more POWER, not on the duplexer - they already had one of those. Long story short, after showing me the system performance as it was - he turned the power down to 10 watts. Suddenly, the units "on the edge" were coming in much more clearly, and users that had not been able to get in at all were now using the system, but still were scratchy. He then added a tuned bandpass cavity between the duplexer and the repeater's receiver, and WOW, now they ALL sounded good. Then he went back and showed me what zero desense looked like. Couldn't even see a difference in the noise floor when the transmitter was keyed up locally. Now the repeater had good ears - an ability to listen that matched it's ability to talk out. Balance.