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The only "dark side" of amateur radio is operating with NO license. Don't bash something you know nothing about.

Thanks for all the replies. It's not a question of making a GMRS antenna out of a CB antenna FOR MY APPLICATION. Yes, I could easily purchase a proper antenna. The reason I'm even asking this question is because I have a WWII Jeep with an antenna that would be originally used with a BC1000 pack radio that TX 40 - 45 MHz. The antenna is 10'8" long. I'd like to use the Baofeng hidden inside a radio case that I purchased that has it's guts removed (someone else, not me). Ergo, the radio would appear to work but using a GMRS radio inside. Thanks, Dave

In a large scale emergency (what ever that means) you might want to have a Short Wave radio and a random piece of wire for an antenna. You can get news from all over the world.

It seems everyone has lost sight of, or NEVER bothered to look at, the overall purpose for GMRS. It is a VERY limited service, INTENTIONALLY. As such, it makes perfect sense to limit power, antenna choices, and a maximum of 22 channels (some shared with specific repeater channels). It also makes sense to have minimal licensing requirements. As one poster mentioned, CB turned into the wild west. It too started as 23 discrete channels, then increased to 40, in the 11 meter band, AM mode (with sidebands). In the 70's and 80's, I had a Royce sideband base station with Astatic Golden Eagle D-104 mic, a 40 foot Rohn tower with Ham IV rotator, Moonraker 4 beam, and an Astroplane omnidirectional. My Royce was modified by a friend to have around 15 additional channels, and I had a 500 watt tube type heater. Living at a very high point in our county, I could routinely, and without using the heater, communicate throughout about a 60 mile radius. Great times, until the licensing was relaxed on that service. Between the jerks and the solar activity, it became largely useless by the 90's. GMRS is now essentially starting out somewhat the same, albeit in FM UHF, with the addition of repeater functionality, and greatly reduced options for antennas and power. Repeaters alone provide great functionality for their intended use...to reasonably expand a unique group/family communication area, whether that is a farm, ranch, or larger family business. Portable repeaters provide additional capability for those groups that travel together, such as offroaders, hikers, skiers, and the like. Neither of these services is oriented towards the same type of person as Amateur (ham) Radio. CB and GMRS/FRS are EXTREMELY limited as to total bandwidth allocated, mode of operation, and both are restricted to specific frequencies. They are intentionally, very simple in capability and operation. If you are not already part of a group, or plan on comms primarily among your family members, it is a mistake to believe you will be able to randomly talk to people all over the state/country/world. Certain locales may have heavier traffic, but you should determine that prior to purchasing equipment. Look for GMRS and Amateur Radio clubs in your region. There will be people there that can give you better local guidance. Here's a link to a graphic chart of all of the US frequency allocations. If everyone was allowed to just run amok with freqs and power, comms would suffer for all. There is a reason for Band allocation, and the restrictions placed on them. Amateur Radio OTOH, has relatively huge overall bandwidth available, across multiple frequency bands, and is very much oriented toward those that want to experiment with modifications to, and a wide variety of, antennas, transceivers, and ancillary equipment; utilize various bands and modes of operation, including various digital modes, some over internet; enables operators unlimited frequency choices within bands and ranges authorized with their license; and repeater linking by both radio and internet are common and well used. There are so many different areas you can learn about and experiment with in Amateur Radio. Moonbounce, talking to ISS, using satellite repeaters, slow scan tv, CCW (using Morse code), building hotspots that allow you to talk around the world from your HT, remote antenna control access, and so much more. Amateur Radio clubs are more likely to be affiliated with local or state Emergency Management, although certainly NOT all clubs are...many are primarily just into contesting. The simple fact is, a lot of those club members actually work at various Emergency Management organizations, and it is a mutually beneficial relationship, usually allowing club repeaters to be installed on govt towers, or govt actually providing their repeaters for club use. Very few govt affiliates are serious about GMRS, although may include it in addition to ham capabilities. OTOH, I dare say a large percentage of those agencies DO have ham capabilities, which of course still vary by locale, but are more prevalent nonetheless. GMRS quite simply doesn't have 1/100th of the capability or users worldwide compared to ham. You can't "modify" your way out of its perceived shortcomings. I did read somewhere that locally, we have about equal amounts of licensed GMRS operators to Tech grade only licensed Amateurs. It is still a very low number given the population. With population across the islands of around 1.4 million, in my urban location there is virtually NO random calls. Everything is clearly school, family, and small business comms. Do you know why there are multiple ham frequency bands, or what difference they make? Oversimplified, different bands react differently to solar activity, which in turn affects how far and how well your signal is transmitted. One band often outperforms another when trying for long distances, depending on current solar activity. this can change daily, weekly, monthly, and there are yearly cycles. GMRS is pretty limited to sightlines only, with minimal obstructions for greatest range. Urban areas will be very limited...I get about 2 miles generally decent, from a mid level concrete bunker; 3 or more miles only to other very high points. I did some testing with a ham buddy to determine actual range with the GMRS, and plotted it on googleearth for future reference. I have no plans to regularly use or monitor the GMRS, but have them as a Plan C or D... For all you Satellite phone types, whatcha gonna do when Rocket Man or Putin starts taking out our Satellites? You'd probably be quite surprised to find out just how many ham rigs are stored in faraday cages for TEOTWAWKI, if you survive.

If you want to get a technician license, spent 20-30 minutes a day studying the flash cards and doing sample exams on https://hamstudy.org in two weeks, if you have any retention at all, you'll be hitting the exam in the high 80's low 90's and should sign up for the exam and pass it. Ham Study also offers online exams if you don't want to go to a ham club for the exam. I have two 12 yr old grand kids that did just that, and passed on the first try. It's not hard. There is virtually zero electronic theory on the Technician exam, it's mostly FCC rules and regs and operating practice. It's 35 questions and you can miss 9.

You're not the boss of him.

Got to do some small creek crossings. Buzzards Roost IMG_8577.HEIC IMG_8586.HEIC

Oh heck yeah. The Technician is a nothing burger...give the studying another two weeks and you can pass both. Nice job and congrats.

There is no setting to eliminate a strong signal.. Try taking the antenna off, and see if it continues - if it goes away without the antenna, that confirms that the radio is going its job by letting you hear nearby signals, even if you dont like what that signal sounds like. If it continues with no antenna, try in a different room/house to try and narrow-down if that strong signal is coming from something like LED or florescent lights, your computer, or some other nearby spurious-RF-generator.. If it happens all the time with no antenna, no matter where you are, then the radio might be broken and you will have to decide if it is worth the hassle of contacting BuyTwoWayRadios and asking for a replacement.

Heck, I guess anyone can say that with just about anything. We as Radio Ent heist can certainly say this about the Topic of Radio Typed Acceptance or Certification. I will never say that I fully understand or that I agree with the FCC about what is permissible and what is prohibited, as for as equipment and uses.

Yes, if they’re inverted they’ll have an I following the number usually. Of course it’s possible that the repeater manufacturer uses some other convention to indicate normal or inverted.

The solar option is probably the best other than a crank right on the radio.

Or something like this that can attach to a battery from a car/truck or solar

That is what I did but sadly I still don't have an HF rig to really make use of the additional privileges.

It took several hours on a bright sunny day but this panel charged a completely dead battery for a Baofeng GM15 Pro.

Yes. That is the way. But to be honest... if I did it over again, I would study for both the tech and the general and take both on the same day. Took the general exam 2 weeks ago (thanks Ham Study!) and got a better score on that than I did on the tech exam.

This is the only one I am aware of. It's not an HT exactly, it's more of a fancy FRS radio. https://midlandusa.com/collections/portable-base-stations/products/xt511-base-camp

All antennas have resonance - and that resonance is part of the entire transmitter design. In commercial LMR it’s why anyone says “stick with the stock antenna” as it’s been designed for that transmitter and for best performance. With these radios, there is no engineering going into the transceiver/antenna design and matching so I know some want to find something “better”. The Nagoya antennas are typically the “gold standard” but there’s A LOT of bad clones of them. The Abree “tape measure antenna” - skip it. Last few I got my hands on swept resonant in UHF around 420MHz - nowhere close to the 465ish range you need for GMRS/FRS.

You were doing so well until you said the above. I would agree that the role of ham radio is not what it once was, because of things like satellite communications like you mentioned, but in any true emergency, there’s always a role for yet another avenue of communications. Compared to the number of hams, satellite phones are very few. As such, they should be relegated to the higher priority tasks. But many people won’t have access to satellite phones and they will still crave hearing from their loved ones and still need to hear what’s happening in the rest of the world.

First off, reliance on 'linked repeaters' for emergency service, outside of stuff built out to public safety standards (meaning NO Internet links) is a bad idea. You are putting reliance in something that's probably not going to work. Second, GMRS is NOT an emergency use service. Yes, it's radio, and it could be used for that purpose, but so can childrens walkie talkie's. But it's not ideal. The underlying technology and equipment would support it. Before the advent of the huge 700/800 Mhz radio systems, public safety used UHF radio in many locations. But getting back to the linking. And I am not going to debate the FCC's latest opinion. Only the methods used for linking, why they are not good for mission critical communications and what actually would be useful for linking and why it's not possible with those technologies. Common use linking was being done over the Internet. And the connected Internet relies on a multitude of things to function. Power and management being the top two. In a SHTF situation, power isn't going to be available everywhere in most cases. Never mind the repeaters will require power. But a local repeater can be solar / wind powered in some cases with battery backup for nights and windless days. But you are NOT going to be able to maintain power everywhere that needs it in order to keep the Internet working. So reliance on it is a dumb move in truth. So what do the public safety systems use? Mostly microwave linking. All equipment is housed in the same location and the links are wireless, so as long as the towers are in the air, the links are running on the same power source that the repeaters are. You have local control of that. The solar / wind system can power all of it if it's built out to support it. The drawback to it is the distance you can run microwave links. The practical limit is about 30 to 50 miles. So you aren't going to link large distances with it without additional hops. The tower heights to get those distances are NOT going to be reasonable in most cases for you to have in your back yard either. 200 feet of height on both ends is going to be required for longer distances. And if line of site isn't available, it's not going to work at all. Coupled with the fact that when you have that sort of tower height to work with, the UHF radio propagation (how far it will talk) will exceed the distance the microwave can communicate due to the lower power microwave systems (typically they are under 1 watt) and the path loss of the higher frequency (GMRS is 465 Mhz and microwave is above 2 Ghz). So then you run into taking up multiple repeater pairs, or running simulcast on a single frequency which is possible but expensive and requires additional technical skills and specific hardware to implement. Then you get into the issue of being linked to other places that don't care what your situation is. By that I mean that if there is some wide area situation unfolding and multiple major population centers are being effected, population center A is not really gonna care about the issues that population center B is having. They have their own problems. People for get that there is more to managing a disaster situation than just being able to communicate it. If Columbus Ohio is burning, Cleveland is NOT going to send fire trucks if Cleveland is on fire too. So you deal with your situation by yourself. The truth is that localized communications in a disaster are FAR more important than wide area linking. If you and your neighbors all have the ability to communicate locally, then you have the ability to assist each other and check on their well being. If there is a shelter in place situation and someone 3 blocks away needs some bottles of water, then getting them water is a possibility. If you are informed in Columbus Ohio that someone in Ft Wayne Indiana needs bottled water, and there is a shelter in place mandate, are you gonna drive 200 miles to get them bottled water? Of course not. This is why ham radio isn't really relevant in disaster communications any more. And are a solution looking for a problem that no longer exists. They tout that they can communicate anywhere, relying on HF radio for long distance communications when the people that actually NEED long distance communications have satellite phones and then own HF nets to communicate on if needed. The technology that public safety uses now is vastly superior to the old FM technology that hams and GMRS uses to communicate. SO don't worry about linking in a disaster situation. Build out a couple repeaters that have good backup power or alternate power sources from the grid and go with that. It's going to be money better spent.

You showoff you, lol. I am on 3.5" with 37's. I know, I know, I wish I was 4.5" with 40's.

Dickey Bell, as a Trail, went through the rehab and is in fantastic condition. However, Little Daniel is really washed out a lot compared to my trip in 2021. A lot of those out-croppings are extremely more difficult. I would say more difficult than any part of the topside of 390/Daniel. People with 3.5" of lift and 37" tires were taking 7 to 10 minutes to make it to the top. With my Jeep being on 4.5" long-arm with 40's, it was a walk in the park. less than 2 minutes.

@WRVM506 that is very interesting. Maybe you should leave the big antenna as is for looks and add a small, inconspicuous GMRS antenna that actually connects to the radio. A "ghost" antenna might fit the bill.

Yes, I would like to see it. We also will be headed back to Uwharrie in October. We didn't get to Dickey Bell when we were up earlier this year, it was closed.

At least you have a circle. I have a tiny pie slice...

I am known in my circle of friends as "The dream crusher"

Well, given we've seen no enforcement action yet on the linked repeaters, I don't see they "attacked" GMRS per se; they clarified to their view of specific regulations, to some degree. CB has generally been ignored for enforcement other than in egregious cases of jamming or interference by operators. Amateur radio has been around longer than the other services, has a better record of self policing and coordinating, long standing agreements and participation with EmComms , etc.

Yep, just when I was starting to regain a little hope in humanity, @OffRoaderX comes along and CRUSHES IT!!!

That is the stuff nightmares are made of. I fully expect to wake up screaming, then whimpering, tonight; after reading that. Gee, thanks.

No repeaters on CB.

Not worth the aggravation. Most likely you won't be able to climb the tower, or use your contractor to install your antenna. You will have to contact the government and coordinate with them and use their contractor. Too much misery for little gains. Stick with private sites.

Good one! Because I’m pedantic, or hung up on semantics, he didn’t say “large-scale emergency”; he said “there is a good chance that no radio service will work large-scale in an emergency.” So my question is what does he mean by “working large-scale”? Is he suggesting all of the various bands available to hams would be congested or something else?

Yes.. TWO different cities, miles from each other.. Both were terrible and frustrating experiences and in the end, nothing was accomplished - imagine trying to deal with the biggest and worst HOA ever assembled... Hopefully YOUR town is better.

Well, the 7-11 in his neighborhood shut down. You know, large scale emergency I would suspect multi state.

Keep in mind that there is a good chance that no radio service will work large-scale in an emergency.

Any unlinked repeater drama?

Not a lot of research I guess. GMRS is a family radio service for close communications with the ability to access a repeater to help out range. The linked repeater thing has been going on now for months and months and repeater owners have been disconnecting there linked systems to avoid FCC reprisal. If this post was a year old then that would be one thing, now most of us know the FCC has reiterated that linked repeaters aren't allowed. Still better than no communications during SHTF times. I'm sure the $35 didn't hurt that much.

That is the nicest compliment I have gotten in months!

Well, i know people still using the original 6666 that came out a decade ago. In todays throw away world, i say 10 years out of a CCR is pretty damn good. Also 90% of the President radios now come from China. Only a few “flagship” models still come from Vietnam. At any rate the QT80 is a great rig. Just talk some SSB DX and you’d be amazed how many are using AnyTone/Radioddity products because they are spot on frequency with great audio for a respectable price.

The QT80 is just Radioddity’s rebrand of the AnyTone 6666 Pro. Not a cheap radio at all. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. I have the AnyTone AT5555+N and the Radioddity QT40 (rebranded AnyTone Ares II), along with both the smaller AM/FM versions (AT500M II and CB500). Great radios for the money. I would have bought direct from Radioddity.com though instead of Amazon as they offer a warranty and support. Amazon retailers don't.

OK, I think a number of folks saw this coming. It sucks, but it is what it is. Answering the question of NOW WHAT?!?!?!? Couple options. First is moving linked repeaters to ham frequencies and re-establishing links. If you are interested in doing that and need guidance get a post started in the TECHNICAL Discussion part of the forum and we can work from there. The technology that is the in the background for the system is the same stuff that Ham's are using to do their linking. You are gonna need a new SD card and new software. Of course you need to be a ham and will need your repeater reprogrammed. Lets not open 30 threads on the topic. One thread and we will support each other and get it done. I am gonna check with Rich about something offline before go any farther. But there may be options for those that are hard core and have decided that they will continue to remain linked. Or to rejoin the links if their node drops off. More to come on that.