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It would make much more sense if folks would say "allegedly" from the FCC Enforcement Bureau, because simply saying it was from the FCC gives it credibility that it neither has nor deserves.

I also don't understand why they shut them down. Just shut the linking system down and keep the repeaters working in the local area. You fix the violation, not burn down the house.

Where would the additional pairs come from? Any petition would have to solve that.

I think the FCC should just leave GMRS as is and if you want other frequencies, use other radio services. Simple as that. If you are wanting to experiment with radio, get into amateur radio. If you need frequencies for business, use LMR. I doubt there is very much room in the UHF band there for more pairs as there are commercial freqs peppered throughout (at least here in the midwest).

You probably mean MXTA26, which is still my primary antenna on the vehicle. I'm using the Comet in a different application where I wanted dual-band without compromising tooooo much in GMRS. It's the first one that gets my antenna count in this application down to one. If I had to rank the antennas I've tried on GMRS performance I would go with Midland MXTA26 (6dbi) > Laird TE B4505CN (5dbi, NGP) > Comet CA-2X4SR-NMO (6.2dbi) > HYS SDN1-T (3dbi) > Midland MXTA25 (3dbi) > Midland MXTA13 (2.1dbi). But that's just ranking how I sound from 3-miles away on simplex as well as some signal reports from distant repeater users. Each of these have their own strengths. The MXTA26 is just a good solid antenna, 32 inches tall. The B4505CN is a pretty solid "no ground plane" antena. Good signal reports, good SWR without a ground plane. The 2X4SR is not bad at GMRS, and also good in MURS and Marine VHF ranges. The SDN1-T is only 17.7 inches long, and works pretty good for closer-in repeaters, not great over longer distances across the city. The MXTA25 is so compact and doesn't draw much attention, still working alright given its form factor, and the MXTA13 is perfect to keep in the glovebox or put on the packing list in case of an NMO mount failure. Lightweight, it travels easy.

I would do as @LeoG said, turn off the linking and keep the repeaters up unlinked. Then, with no possible violations present, have a lawyer contact the fcc enforcement department to find out if they sent an email.

I have been keeping up with this thread and also just watched the video. I don't know what to make of that email. I personally would want to see the entire email to include the address that it came from. As stated, the federal govt. will give a "verbal" warning in person and not through an email. And All of the written warning that I have ever seen have been via regular mail using an official letter head. I willl wait for more information before passing judgement one way or another.

I'm not going to straight-up say the letter to that club is fake because I have not seen the letter, and whoever supplied the letter failed to identify either who sent it or the email address from where it was sent. All we have seen are portions the "offending" radio club's communication describing the letter. But there more red flags than a Cuban May Day parade. A "verbal warning" is when one person speaks using a human voice to another human. An email is not a verbal warning. The FCC would probably not suggest that anything be done "by the end of the day". I cannot imagine the FCC expecting a repeater operator to rat out all the users by supplying call signs. As a repeater trustee myself, if there was anything amiss with our repeaters, such as spurious emissions, or any of a litany of problems emitting from our equipment, they would contact me, not the members of my club or users of our repeaters. By snail mail, not email. That's why the FCC requires your physical address (or PO box). If a licensed operator is violating rules, the FCC would go directly to them without the need for a radio narc. Apparently, according to the letter, the FCC has the roster of all the offending club's members, including email addresses. Another red flag. To me, the letter sounds like an angry GMRS user who is trying to bully a club by generating a letter that sounds just legitimate enough to scare them out of linking repeaters.

Which closely resembles 1.5^2.

Indeed, the math does not add up.. Follow-up with the club-president coming soon.

I was looking for a low priced radio option to take to the beach and came across the MP31 radios. For ~$10 ea they have an IP54 rating and can be programmed using a Baofeng specific software. They are only narrow band but we’re pushing right at 2w. I programmed them to my local repeaters and everything seems good to go. If they make it back from the beach they will become my “hand out” radios next hurricane/cell phone outage. I’ll give a better AAR after we use them more.

Yes, they will notify you via email, but many people (such as myself) never see the email. it usually takes 2-5 business days and you can check the status by logging into the system with your FRN and stumbling your way to the "my licenses" (i don't recall the exact wording, but you'll see it) link.

And still many people seem to forget that GMRS/FRS including the repeater option and usage is meant for personal family usage. i just LMAO over the number of people that treat GMRS like its meant as a tool for business purposes or similar to communications in the HAM radio world... And i get a bigger chuckle over the good handful of folks out there that have 10,15 and even 20 repeaters in operation then get mad because someone is on 'their' frequency.. BTW,, FCC petitions is a standard way to blow you off. Have fun.. Some of us get a good laugh out of this.

Our ham radio club will be providing communications for a bike race called Race Around The Pintler in One Day, RATPOD for short, which raises money for Camp Make A Dream. We’ll travel along the course with mobile and handheld radios making sure the racers are safe. By afternoon most of the racers are exhausted. https://www.campdream.org/events/ratpod/

It’s Hispanic. For what you may ask? I don’t know.

@marcspaz you did get good results with your Comet SBB1. I have a SBB1 NMO and the SWR on 462 and 467 are over 2.0 while 2m and 70cm are under 1.5

Some folks are gullible enough to fall for crap like this. Scammers love them.

Edited my comment after your reply it seems. I did add drop the links. Hope the Notarubicon Center keeps us updated out there on YootOob

I have a couple of MP31s and I love them. They were my first GMRS radios. Sound quality is better than I expected. Easy to use and quite durable. These are my go-to radios for anything short and simple like going up in the attic to work. Used them on the beach once and talked for exactly 1 mile clear as a bell. Up in the mountains in New Mexico they did fine. Every time my son disappeared around a finger out of sight, we still had coms. Down at White Sands, the dunes were no problem. Nice little gems these radios.

How long do you wait for something that might never come.

I approve this message.

@HeinousAnos Welcome to GMRS. Love that name "HeinousAnos"

The main idea of the ground is to help the surge to ground. I'd up your wire from 10 to at minimum 6 guage. Lightening arrestor should be as the coax enters the building.

I got into GMRS so that I could have sort of a family radio situation. Big home radio and mobiles in the cars. It would be cool to be able to use it for that, if it weren't full of 40cm ham radio like traffic. Kind of makes it intimidating for the wife or kids to hop on and raise me on my way home with plans, grocery list, or any other pertinent info for a 3 minute radio exchange.. In one case my wife being chastised for "interrupting a conversation" (about nothing in particular). I'm not going to pretend that radio isn't a hobby for me as well, and I definitely nerd out on it and appreciate why everyone else does as well. But guys,.. TECHNICALLY "all of this" isn't the correct use of GMRS.. It's not a coincidence that GMRS is FRS adjacent. The technician ham ticket is super easy to obtain. It's 26 right out of 35 multiple choice. It's like a driving license written test. Just read the pamphlet a bit before you take it and you'll pass. Now you've got endless 440 and even 2 meter repeaters to do the radio guy thing on... The repeater situation is a mess. I appreciate the effort and money that individuals choose to spend on erecting them, but I also worry that they might do it with the mind of the aforementioned "ham type activity". There's some AWESOME repeaters out here, and I love to use them (unlinked). But then made to feel like an intruder for wanting to use it for the purpose I am trying to. The sentiment is then, "well it's their machine".. That's true but it's not their repeater pair. If I were inclined to put something up high myself, like one of those Retevis things, WHAT FREQUENCY PAIR AM I TO USE? Because they're all used up with this kind of stuff... I don't want to fight, but what's right is right (and I'm about 85% certain that I represent righteousness on this issue lol). There's clearly a place for hobby radio and we all know where that is. GMRS is more of a practical use band. When the people trying to use it practically are being made to feel out of place from the ones doing ham radio lite, I think it's a problem.. I don't think "the framers" of this GMRS thing envisioned enormous repeaters, and even linked ones. That's why our current 8 allotted is getting slammed. It was probably more along the lines of a Retevis thing, and in that case, spread around the country it would've never been a problem.. There's a gentlemens solution to it. Yield to the family or group users and be nice. They're the ones actually in the correct spot. Just keep that in mind. Otherwise, it's really easy, inexpensive, and nearly impossible to solve the issue of a person whose decided to wage a war on an obnoxious repeater, and I'll let you interpret that any way that you'd like... So let's all just be a bunch of Fonzies..

i agree 100%

My club is setting up our emergency coms trailer in a local park for this weekend.

I just tested the 2x4SR versus the SBB1 on the Melowave magnet mount. Granted the SWR will be a little higher since I tested with the SxS parked inside the garage. The 2X4SR was 1.8 at 467.600 and below 1.5 on 462.600. It was 1.6 or below on 2m and 70cm. The SBB1 was at 1.8 at 467.600 and at 2.5 at 462.600. I then put the SBB1 back on my Ford Escape. Inside the garage, SWR was 1.7 or lower on 2m and 70cm. On 467.600 it was 2.2 and on 462.600 it was 2.8. Again the low ceiling along with the metal garage door tracks and garage door opener being close to both antennas will affect the SWR readings and make them higher. I then pulled the Escape out of the garage so that there was nothing close to the antenna. This was using the Midland MXTA12 magnet mount. SWR was 1.6 or below on 2m and 70cm. SWR at 467.600 was at 1.6 and at 462.600 it was 2.2 I can say with my non scientific experiment that the Melowave magnet mount works better than the Midland magnet mount. Both mounts are 3.5 inches in diameter but the Melowave is not as tall. I used my Rig Expert Stick Pro analyzer for testing. For the OP, the 2x4SR antenna will work fine for 2m, 70cm, and GMRS. PS: I tested both antennas with the Melowave mount on the expanded metal rack and also on top of the aluminum tool box (with steel plate attached). The SWR did improve with both antennas on top of the tool box. There was not a big improvement with the 2x4SR. The SBB1 had more improvement on top of the tool box. With the SBB1 mounted lower on the rack, the SWR at 462.600 was at 2.8 and at 467.600 it was 2.3.

@SteveShannon No i dont think that is the issue. Depending on configuration they could be reprogrammed for local use. Its up to the club and tech working on the stuff. For reference on a similar system deployed - 4 Quantars, 4 MLC8000 IP Gateways, 1 MLC8000 Comparator. IP linked via IPSEC tunnels on private microwave service. All 4 are setup for BASE only configuration. If I drop one link the other 3 still TX and RX. The 4th sits quiet. If the link is pulled from the comparator all sites RX but have no comparator to tell them to TX. As said previously I could set one site for local "fallback" but if that is the site severed now when a user keys up both that site and the simulcast sites will key up and casue distortion for end users. Unless you can 100% control the link from the comparator to the site it can casue alot of trouble. With different frequency use it can be mitigated but thats how it works in the MSI world. Our SAR folks had a similar setup in the past with 2 TX sites and 3 RX sites. That was on T1 and used 4W circuits to the comparator. Same thing could happen but the comparator and one RF site was in the same site so the other site could drop and the main site would stay on the air. I think the "link" word can be missrepresented a bit as the majority of the users think of the repeater having a link to another site via allstar/mygmrs/etc which normally runs on a Raspberry Pi or similar non critical device and not the traditional industry networked solutions. I'm sure this will get worked out and something will come back on the air. If the FCC determines and provides written information that this can't be done I would think it would be step one to end the linking systems in GMRS.

Apparently, the affected system is the NY GMRS Alliaance system and it appears that there is unconfirmed information that the said FCC Notification may be a scam attempt against this GMRS Alliaance. Hopefully, Randy has his hounds on the trail.

I'm less "base station GMRS" and more "in the backpack and car GMRS" haha I don't really have any kind of antenna except for a nagoya mag mount on the top of a cabinet in my office. That said, I've had an HT with me all morning, and I'm up on the hill overlooking the valley so usually if it's out there and has decent punch, I can hear it, and so far I've got nothin.

Even if they are gullible enough to fall for it, you don't shut the whole thing down when they are only complaining about a small part of the system. You disconnect the offending part and continue on until notified otherwise. Just to be on the safe side that this is an actual email from the Ef Sea Seas.

Got it. Larry H Miller Ford dealership / service department in Draper. Some of the names he called out are people who are listed on the dealership's website. That puts him almost centrally located at 5 miles from my home, and 7 miles from Herriman. To be getting out with that amount of power he can't be using FRS. The call-outs are probably coming from that booth in front.

Well, I keep waiting on that big Powerball win! But I'm thinking for the moment, in the absence of any official notice here, I would keeps things running status quo, or at a minimum drop the links and not reply to the e-mail.

All good advice given by others. Definitely go with 6 gauge wire for grounding the mast/tower. I do run 10 gauge from my lightning arrestors to ground, but that is such short run. I made my own wall passthrough which has a piece of 1/4" all thread for a grounding point. All of my lightning arrestors are attached to it with 10 gauge wire and I have a single 6 gauge wire going from the all thread to my ground rod.

Except for the last sentence I fully agree. And I admit that the last sentence is a possibility; I just don’t know enough about the situation to suggest it as the motivation.

I know of two other simulcast systems with voting comparators in play but I don't know how the voting comparators are controlled.

The alleged violation was for being interconnected by "wireline" in violation of 95.1733.a.8. The warning that Randy conveyed didn't mention anything about the "internet". The "wireline" and "internet" systems are totally different media and infrastructures.

I rather wonder about this as well. I don't know of any Government agency that would send an e-mail notice of this nature. In a similar way that the IRS must notify a taxpayer in writing, via US Mail (registered/Cerified if it get to that stage) for it to be considered an "Official Notice". They do not call or e-mail people, people call them. Unless the repeater owner was listening 24/7 and logging, there's not much chance they would know every callsign using the repeater, unless it was a closed system with limited, i.e. family & friends, usage. I think my first step would be to call the FCC and make a determination to the validity of the sender. If someone is spoofing the FCC, or using this as a scam bait, I would think they'd like to know about it.

One thought on where additional pairs can be reallocated, is mandate Narrowband emissions (2.5 KHz/12.5 KHz) on all GMRS/FRS channels. Regulate all FRS to only .5 watt ERP and allow the existing Interstitial channels be additional main GMRS channels with 50 watts of output power to the antenna. That would provide a total of 15 main GMRS channels without any refarming of spectrum from other radio services.

I think several of us are waiting to see exactly what really happened. I haven’t heard of the FCC emailing someone telling them to shut down a repeater before. This sounds more like someone running a scam. You did nothing wrong.

Well, for that to go anywhere it would be a year or so of petitions, a couple years of hearings, and a couple years before manufacturers start making radios with the new pairs (of course those with chirp or proprietary software for programming will not need to wait). But even with new pairs, and software, a lot of radios aren't going to transmit outside of today's GMRS frequencies. They're not supposed to be easily modifiable, right?

Mine arrived today. I tested it on my vehicle; at 462.xxxx and 467.xxxx it produced SWRs between 1.1-1.35:1. It was better than expected. Mounted on a magnetic mount on my super-sketchy window air conditioner it produced SWRs between 1.01 and 1.3:1 in the 462&467 range, and 1.01-1.5:1 in the VHF range. I haven't tested fars yet, but really I don't need to. It's going to be just fine for my needs. It's so true that this is a big, heavy, ugly antenna, by some definitions of ugly. I don't mind it. I also tested it on both MURS and GMRS frequencies mounted on a camera tripod with a GPK-01 ground plane kit. With the kit its SWR at MURS frequencies was still 1.1-1.3;1. And at GMRS frequencies things got a little worse, like 1.7-1.8:1. Without the GPK-01 ground plane kit, mounted on a camera tripod, it was more like 1.7-1.8:1 in the VHF range, and 2.4:1 in the GMRS range. Great antenna. I'm glad I got it. At some point I'd like to do a shootout of the antennas I've collected: MXTA13, MXTA25, MXTA26, HYS SDN1-T, Laird TE B4505CN, and this CA-2X4SR-NMO antenna. If anyone has parameters or methodologies they'd like to see, let me know. I can toss the GPK-01 ground plane kit into the mix as well, if we want. For mounts, I have that kit, plus a hood lip mount (positioned such that I have at least seven inches of vehicle body steel all around), and a magnetic mount.

This is why i come on here daily, so many questions i have get answered. Thank you all

Laird also offers the C27 series of antennas. C27: 49" NMO, chrome/silver C27S: 49" NMO, w/ spring, chrome/silver CB27: 49" NMO, black CB27S: 49" NMO, w/ spring, black

What kind of SWR do you get with the SBB-5 antenna on the Ham bands, MURS and GMRS? I'm still looking for a 1/2 wave ground independent antenna I can use for Ham, MURS and GMRS. I need something that will work on my luggage roof rack rail mount. The CA-2x4SR is a 5/8 wave design which requires a GOOD ground plane, which I don't have with the mount I'm using. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/473-close-up-of-mobile-mount/?context=new https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/471-mobile-mount-with-antenna-rear-view/ https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/472-mobile-antenna-install-side-view/ Old installation on my Jeep. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/259-ca-2x4mb-jeepjpg/ https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/282-ca-2x4mb-scansjpg/

If it was already written with CPS 2.0 - then there's no going back. (Well, there are ways, but nobody wants to send a rookie down that path!) Good news is, if they already did the updates & got it to 2.0, then there's little harm in using CPS 2.0 to make the changes you desire. You will need to activate that EID for the software in order to write a wideband frequency back into the codeplug. Hopefully someone already walked you through that part. You have a much better repeater than a Bridgecomm in my opinion, and I wouldn't get too worried about writing to it with CPS 2.0 The troubles come if you take something with really old original firmware & try to write it with the latest/greatest. Sounds like Used-Radios already did the work to get you up to date.

The NotARubicon Institute Research Staff is digging deeper and there IS something to this story - and the results may shock you... Stay tooned for the upcoming video.

The comment section never fails to deliver

The only time I've ever legitimately used a call button was when I was trying to get my kids' attention via their handhelds. They were at home, watching TV, and were ignoring the radio sitting right next to them. So I hit the call button on my MXT575, called for them again, and got a response. Every other time that button has been pressed has been by accident.

First, depending on how much real estate you have in your vehicle or home, I always recommend having it all.l I have HF, Ham VHF/UHF, and GMRS in my home and in my Jeep. Don't think of it as better or worse. Just different. What differences serve a purpose for you at any given moment is the right answer.