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Not to disagree with my esteemed colleague Mr. @nokones, but, i disagree.. I have led groups of up to hundreds (HUNDREDS) of Jeeps/trucks off-road, and a large majority of them use cheap/narrowband FRS radios, while many of us transmit on wideband at high power (because we can).. and never once has anyone complained about having trouble hearing/understanding what we are saying - and in tests I have done, it is usually rare for normal people (with untrained ears) to notice or hear any difference.

Depends who you're talking to. Talking to other people w GMRS radios? Leave it wideband, that's how they're likely setup too (unless they're using some of those weirdo ones that don't). If you're talking to people with FRS radios, set it to narrowband. Which is to say, you want the radios on both ends to match bandwidth.

1-7 are authorized for 20 kHz 8-14 are authorized for 12.5 kHz 15-30 are authorized for 20 kHz

No silly! Everyone knows that an ASL image is a picture of yourself that you send to anonymous men to indicate your AGE, SEX, and LOCATION! You probably know it better as a "QSL card" ..

Guest John, I don’t see where you are but NOAA stations go down and come back up from time to time. Look on their website to see if the one in your area is offline. That’s especially possible since you said you could hear it and then it just stopped. The one near Bakersfield was offline recently. This shows their outages: https://www.weather.gov/nwr/outages

Sometimes the NOAA station near me is silent for hours. Perhaps check online and make sure it is transmitting. I have seen outages reported for various reasons.

Im going to make some popcorn and nuke some Hot Pockets. Im wideband all the way baby! Rails are coming off.

@GeauxGreddy greatest presentation of a question ever For what it's worth I like em wide...

OMFG, I would PAY to see how that plays out! OMG, OMG, what if EVERYBODY started to do that?!

Though in theory it shouldn't be this way, performance of a given radio on Narrowband vs Wideband can vary by make, model, and in some cases, individual radios. Personally, I program all of my GMRS radios for Wideband on channels 1 thru 7, and the eight repeater and/or 50W simplex channels. Channels 8-14 are I believe, hardwired for Narrowband per FCC regulations. Hopefully, OffRoader X will reply as he has a metric ton more experience in the off-road world than I.

Many decades ago, the FCC restricted the 462.675 freq pair for emergency use. At one point in time, the FCC no longer restricted that frequency for emergencies and various GMRS associations adopted 462.675 MHz and Tone 141.3 Hz as a nationwide travel channel. Overtime and with the influx of new GMRS licensees the National Travel Channel was no longer being recognized as a National Travel Channel except by the longtime licensees. The National Travel Channel should be recognized as such but it appears no one is willing to comply and there is no regulation to restrict that channel for said purpose.

If there is at least one FRS radio in the group, set all to narrow. If there are NO FRS radios in the group, set all to wide.

Got it this morning also. But right at the bottom. Had to put my squelch on 1 for it to break through. Thought I put this up already.

If you are using software always save a copy before you start making changes so you can go back if needed. I’m tapping out for the night. It’s been a long one. Let us know if you succeed and think about joining the forum. Good luck

After getting license, what should I do? -- Start talking with your friends Can I buy GMRS trancsiever? -- You always could, anyone can. Please let me know how to use my call sign?-- Press the talk button, say your callsign in plain, normal-person english, then start talking Should I say my GMRS callsign when I talk by transceiver like radio amateur? -- Give your callsign at the beginning of your transmissions or at least once every 15 minutes Please let me know the process after getting license. -- The process is: start talking to your friends on your radio

As the title says, I have entered the domain of GMRS. My spot in the corner of mom's basement has been secured and the chicken nuggies are warming in the oven. My license has been received from my overlords at the FCC and I have been accepted by the very knowledgeable and fine people of MyGMRS. Thank you for having me. I have wired up my Midland MXT400 and dropped the stubby little antenna that came with it on the bumper of my 1997 Jeep TJ (arguably the greatest offroad vehicle ever produced by man). I'm sure the ground plane is next to zero, my SWR is probably 5.83 repeating 3, and my radio will be fried within a month or two. That said.... Do I turn ON or OFF narrowband for channels 1-8? Likely only to be used to hear a sweaty middle aged individual standing feet away saying, "little more driver...little more... no too much driver...." or someone else calling for help further along the trail because they stuck their rig in a hole filled with mud. Midland has pre-selected narrowband to "provide optimum communication and spectrum efficiency with both FRS and GMRS radios". Which sounds very fancy. But, I can turn it off if it isn't as fancy as it seems and I seem to remember watching a video somewhere at sometime about narrowband on midland radios being the devil. TIA Greddy

Will the image run on a Pi 4... NO. There is a long discussion thread on here about getting a Pi 4 running on the system. But it's from long ago when the 4 first came out. If you have experience with the Pi, Debian and scripts, I would advise you to go load the available image on a Pi 3 and go dig through the 'repeaterfinder.sh script in the /home/repeater directory and see what it does to the Pi as it runs. That script loads Asterisk and several other applications that support the connectivity to the system here. Once you get a feel for what's going on, and look into what those applications are doing you might be able to figure out what more current versions of those applications need to be loaded that are supported by the Pi 4 platform. I can't remember the actual version that's included in the Pi 3 image, but it's not real current. Some of the stuff called in the script has depreciated as well. So it may or may NOT work correctly either. Even on a R-Pi 3

I started answering unknown calls with "this call may be recorded for quality assurance". They always hang up after that.

I never answer my phone. My voicemail greeting is "Hey, leave a message on who you want to speak to, who you are, and I might call you back" No one has left a voice mail in the last year.

In the absence of anything actually helpful I give you this...

I do have the ability to program it, and I did hook it up to the laptop to see what that would look like, but didn't change anything. The menu on the radio itself has a setting for nb on/off, just select that, turn the knob to on or off and hit select again. If its on, the radio show nar and if its off, it shows nothing. I bet that landcruiser is a dream on the roads compared to a Jeep. I must say, my old girl isn't the most pleasant ride above 45 mph. I also experienced the 35" tire tax, lol. But, she's solid now, hasn't broken in 10 years since going to an 8.8, HP30, with Warn Alloys up front. Knock on wood.

basically this, yes.

Think you need the programming cable and to be on later firmwares to flip to wideband. Don't have the radio so couldn't be exact. Hopefully, some one will chime in. The TJ 4.0l where awesome till you tried to jam on 35". Then it got pricey.. I think a CJ with a v8 swap is more fun and to the nature of jeeps. Although my land cruiser might not be set up for rock crawling (old 100 series) she is damn comfortable on the highway and off trail. All my friend's jeeps (even my dad's jku) beat the snot out of me traveling to the trailhead and on the trail as I get older even more so. Most mobile radios can deal with high swr so as long as you have some ground plane, or have a ngp antenna and didn't botch the install you should be fine. All the years, off trailing, fire roads and such. Never heard a peep on 2m/70cm calling or on gmrs for emergencies. We'll except for kids on frs in the neighborhood. Has to do with the trails around here being sparse and I wouldn't call it technical, unless oversteering between trees is your thing. Orv parks are a bit different. No one even responds, when I am following aarl wilderness protocols. Most of the gmrs/frs usage near trails that is heard for me at least, are parents calling their kids or the occasional spotter screaming driver, driver side, driver side...omg.... Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

You posted exactly the same question 9 hours ago in General Discussions. I didn’t know the answer then. You might want to explain what ASL is for those of us who don’t know, although presumably the folks who can answer your question will know. I’m pretty sure you don’t mean American Sign Language. Good luck getting an answer.

And it’s flaky ever since.

John did you notice @SteveShannon mentioned that Bakersfield recently had an outage?

As previously mentioned there is no official national channel/frequency for GMRS emergencies. Some areas have repeaters set up on GMRS for locals in case of flooding, fires and other things that may be common concerns in their particular areas. I have seen some like the one at Oroville that have time restrictions and split tones so residents can monitor through the night in case of a dam flood. Check with your local ARES group to see if they have adopted anything where you are. Our Emergency Communications Council has adopted 462.675 as “Emergency communications and traveler assistance in the General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS).”

I’m near the coast where it seems to be constant so I had not considered this. Thanks @back4more70and @SteveShannon.

Unfortunately the TYT TH-9800 doesn’t have SSB, if that’s important to you.

Thank you Steve, that helps clear things up.

I don’t know. The fact that you picked it up once indicates you should be able to get there again. Assuming you are at the same location probably not the antenna. Any chance you changed the frequencies that were programmed by accident or put a tone on them? Probably not the station itself being down as you can get it on your HT. Assuming you’re receiving other signals I would verify frequencies for NOAA are correct as @WRXP381 suggested.

I think I have seen radios come programmed with the NOAA stations in a different order. So potentially not having the same numbers from one radio to another. Just a thought but have you tried all the NOAA channels?

Yeah I hear you but I gotta figure something is making the Ht work better and the location of a NOAA station and you receiving it definitely can be affected by the antenna. I can pick up two stations where I am with a good dual antenna but only one that isn’t. Also if he can program an HT he probably can program his mobile.

Yes, you could have even before getting a license Just say your call sign once in a great while. You don’t have to spell it out. And if you neglect saying it probably nobody will notice. Push the button and talk.

You may have missed the real joke here… but it’s okay. It wasn’t meant maliciously.

Between the ears

You are absolutely correct that nothing changed, and in fact a number of us have pointed that out. However, what is notable is that this thread has been going on since February with no end in sight, and it's as contentious as the day it started. And since the FCC dictates and maybe even enforces policy, not the MyGMRS forums, to steal a line from Crocodile Dundee, it amounts to a bunch of fleas arguing over who owns the dog we live on.

Thanks for encouragement, definitely going for it....thanks again!

Try again when sober

No, It will be worse, they can also vote.

What a terrible day to know how to read