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Stop with the negativity. We all know that you are just a hateful rude person with no friends. You really need to pull your head out of your forth point of contact and then see a doctor so that your headspace and timing can be reset. And to answer why someone would want to listen to the NOAA channels, the internet might go out during a bad storm or the person might be somewhere that there is no internet or cell service.

Is that what you kids call it these days?

Okay, here's a silly question. Why can't the collection and use of gmrs radios be a hobby? Folks will say they're for use as an adjunct to other "hobbies" such are hiking, off roading, fishing, hunting, etc. But I'd bet more that a few folks here have considerably more radios than they actually need for these activities. The whole programming thing seems to be an area that sounds hobbish. Then you get into setting up and maintaining repeaters. Other than for your personal use that sounds very much like a hobby. GMRS clubs, well that's definitely in hobby territory. Personally, I'm looking at it as just another hobby for my retirement years. Another new field to study and learn. And actually for the most part cheaper than some of my other hobbies.

In reading threads here I’m left with the opinion that some of you guys have never seen a woman naked.

Although GMRS regulations constrain us to transmitting on one of 30 designated frequencies, some GMRS radios allow us to program those frequencies into empty memory channels in our radios so we have more memory channels than just the 30 frequencies. In that sense they truly are DIY. Fortunately we no longer need to polish our own crystals.

Not exactly progress in my book. But it's a start. Got the tracking # for the antenna and waiting for the cable to be shipped. I assume a few days for that to be assembled since I'm having the ends put on it. And then the big wait for the bucket truck to become available for my use.

The "Digital Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005" mandated that TELEVISION move from Analog to Digital, to free up space for public safety. It did not mandate that public safety move to digital. Either you misunderstood your friend or he is misinformed. Federal grants for new communications systems mandate P25. That doesn't mean a new DMR, NXDN or analog system can't be set up, it just means that system won't qualify for those grants. There is nothing "illegal" about analog or non-P25 digital public safetey radio systems.

Why? If they are using narrow band FM they’re OK. The government recommends P25 for communications across agencies etc. However I’ve seen more smaller departments going with NXDN since it was cheaper than P25. Plus they has little to no need to communicate with outside agencies.

If they happen at night, would they be considered "nocturnal" ? Asking for a friend...

You’re exactly right. I asked a while back (slightly tongue in cheek) “What if my hobby is talking to people on the radio?” Unfortunately there’s always someone who thinks they’re qualified to dictate how someone else enjoys their life.

One other factor would be the individuals own sweat. The "salinity" of folks sweat varies. We ran some tests using a conductivity meter across the palm of numerous folks and the numbers were all over the place.

I'll let you in on a secret - if a Lovense toy is turned on but a) isn't connected to a controlling Bluetooth phone / etc. and b) doesn't have a password set (no password is the default and they don't explain why setting one is a good idea), they're discoverable via BLE (they will all be named "LVS", the firmware version, and the short product code for the device). Get a BLE scanner app for your phone and you'd be surprised how many of these are around and broadcasting. Since they're broadcasting, it's OK to monitor them with a BLE app. Installing the Lovense app and actually connecting to one of them would most definitely NOT be OK.

Just the opposite. Naked women cause Spurious Emissions.

He's referring to the RT97L, 50W GMRS repeater. I'm curious - was your 40Watt repeater new, with a warranty, is it FCC Part 95 compliant, did it come pre-programmed with the GMRS repeater pairs, was the duplexer pre-tuned for GMRS, is it portable, and water proof, and does it automatically heat up to remove snow/ice when used outdoors in cold weather?

So this weekend was the first time I had really interacted with folks doing POTA. Generally speaking, they were coming in here to Delaware at 5-7 on the S-meter, with periods of QSB. Which is understandable as they were probably operating at around 10-20 watts, I would guess. I had about 20 QSOs with them. BTW, my rig is 20 watts. My question pertains to "Activating". What does that even mean? What are they "activating"? Thanks in advance.

Sure there are. I would consider all repeater channels DIY channels. You have to program the radio to make them work if they are tone encoded. You have to do that yourself. The other simplex channels are all programmed to work as is.

I will share my experience as soon as mine arrives.

This is a common problem when you don't set your time zone to your location and leave it set to Beijing.

If he's that worried then consult this site for the status of various NOAA weather stations. https://www.weather.gov/nwr/outages

One is dyslexic.

Try the other 6 NOAA frequencies? Without knowing where you are, we don't have any way to know what NOAA channel you SHOULD be hearing them on.

Something in the 50s, yeah.

Activating a known state or Federal Park in the US, that's already recognized as a POTA site.

Yes is it only a joke, most of the time. I will mess with friends on occasion that work at Walmart.

Isn’t that radio inhibited from transmitting above channel 54? Or am I thinking about a different radio?

And Walmarts on the air!

Well I can tell you that not all have switched over to digital modes. The Montgomery County Missouri Sheriff department and Mexico, Missouri Public Safety (fire and police) most definitely are still using analog. And again a lot of the rural/small town volunteer fire departments around me are still using analog. Now the MCSD is currently in the process of switching over the state wide trunked P25 system. But they are still currently using analog at this time. And even the Mo Highway Patrol still have analog radios in their vehicles so that they can still communicate with agencies such as the MCSD that are still using analog. We were listening to a car chase on Interstate 70 in Montgomery County just yesterday afternoon. MCSD and MoHP were using analog radios the entire time. MCSD is on 158.730 analog and Mexico Mo PS is on 155.925 analog.

Yes most are using P25 and trunked systems. But some are still using analog and have not made the switch to P25. I know of at least 2 law enforcement agencies in my local area that are still using analog. And some of the small town volunteer fire departments are still using analog also. Missouri is a very rural state once you get outside of the 4 big metro areas of Columbia, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Springfield. Even the state capital is not that big.

They are activating a park. If they receive a certain number of contacts (10) while operating from that park they have activated it. It’s all spelled out on POTA.app. https://docs.pota.app A successful activation requires a minimum of 10 QSOs from a park in the designated list within a single UTC day (Zulu day). Courteous activators will still submit logs for unsuccessful activations to ensure their hunters get credit for the QSOs. Multiple activities at the same park in the same state/province/entity and the same UTC day count as a single activation, provided that the ten or more QSOs combined were made.

The 1.25m/220 MHz band might be dead in some areas but it is alive and well in other areas. No one uses the band around me and there is only one 220 repeater in the entire state (that's listed) and it is linked full time to a 2m repeater. And yes UPS did get a small portion of the band that they have never used. There is a company trying to get a portion of the 900 MHz band for GPS right now which will be on the same frequencies that the LORA/Meshtastic devices use. I don't want to see any loss of frequencies on any of the amateur and GMRS bands. And I don't see GMRS being expanded since there are a lot of business and government use frequencies near the GMRS frequencies. And I sure don't want to have family businesses using open GMRS repeaters based on prior experiences with commercial farms in my area.

We were running under our call sign of W0CSR. We mostly worked 20m, 40m, and 80m. 10m and 15m was pretty dead. Most of our contacts were on 20m and 40m. And KOR is definitely a valid call sign. KOR has a New Florence address but is actually located south of there closer to Big Springs. He has an old 100 foot cell phone tower setup and runs a 1500 watt amp all of the time. He actually lives in another state and remotely operates his station most of the time. He does come to Missouri for special events and such. His station is in a remote part of the county in the river hills and the road to get there is more of a goat path. We could have used a 1x1 call sign but we have always just used the club's call sign.

1x1 call signs are typically used for special events and issued for less than 1 year at a time. Sometimes they are only issued for a few days. However, if no one else asks to use the call sign and the person currently holding it asks for an extension or re-issue, its typically not a problem for the current holder. Because there are so few of them, those of us who do use them, will coordinate among ourselves prior to going to the actual/formal coordinators.

Sure. Let's go with that.

I have a couple Repeaters programmed in my Baofeng AR-5RM radio now. Reached out to a local contact who took me to GMRS school yesterday.

While it's a good question and one that can be fun to ponder upon, I let the people that get paid to worry about these things earn their salary. Of course you'll always have your traditional forum creatures with way too much time on their hands worry about splitting hairs that nobody cares about.

Interesting. I actually heard somebody on the Gallatin repeater this afternoon expressing that they were having the same issue. Was that you? I can't recall the call sign of the person that was expressing that issue. I'll say this, I have a couple of h3's and a couple of h8's (and ive programmed several of both for other people), can I have had 1 lemon. It would receive wouldn't transmit, the programming wouldn't stick, and a few other weird issues. So my first bit of advice to you would be order a new one and see if everything works as it should. If it does, then you simply just had a lemon. My second bit of advice would be to unlock it. That's the way I use all of my h3 and H8 radios. See if things work right once the restrictions of GMRS mode are gone.

Fair question. It must be okay because the FCC specifically mentions it. “GMRS and the Family Radio Service (FRS), which share many of the GMRS channels, are intended for individuals such as family members and friends, scouting troops, emergency response groups, and hobbyists to communicate with each other over short distances, directly or through a repeater station. Linking repeaters, via the internet or other networks, undermines the purpose and usefulness of the GMRS and FRS.”

There are not 54 GMRS channels, there are only 22 with an additional 7 repeater channels, that's how the FCC made it and the H3 can do simplex and duplex for accessing repeaters in GMRS mode.. if you can't change the settings you need with the the radio then use the odmaster app or the computer software is real nice. Well laid out.. and if you still have issues just unlock the radio and program the GMRS channels manually! Hold ptt, *, and turn the radio on then tap 3 for unlock.. then you have GMRS, and 2 ham bands.. just don't transmit on ham channels till you get a ham license but you can listen to anything and you can transmit on any GMRS frequency... Really easy to program them it took me litterly 5-10 min and I'm using 2 local repeaters and all 22 channels and even have access to all 5 MURS channels.. so no limitations! Now the TD-H8 has 1 limitation! It's a 10 watt radio but even when unlocked it still backs down to 5 watts on the GMRS channels, and 10-12 watts on the ham channels... Oh, and with the newest firmware for the H3, you can unlock transmit for 200mhz, 300mhz, and 500mhz along with being able to listen down to 18mhz! Including cb

Demonstrating a firm grasp on the obvious, but for the benefit of newcomers who may not know, those same channels scanned without a "privacy tone" on an FRS radio will also hear GMRS as well. They use the same channels. It will also hear repeaters if any are in range and active, on channels 15 thru 22.

So yes. Get a few friends or family together get some radios and go out and do an activity we’re gmrs radios would help communicate. Hike, bike, walk, boat, fish, hunt, go to a park, go to Disney land, take a road trip…… The list goes on. As soon as you do these things, anything, where communication is needed, and you use gmrs for that communication then yes you can hear gmrs radios In use.

Do you have a GMRS radio? If so, set it to scan channels 1-22 with no privacy tones. If people are using GMRS and they’re within range, you’ll hear them.

The Wouxun KG-935G and 905G both have group scan capability. Or the 935H if you want the HAM version.

Pick up a used Xpr 6550 for $125-200 bucks and assign what you need to zones, and just turn on/off your zones from the front panel.

As I said and I'll say it again not everyone is into Ham and I'm getting tired in people keep pushing ham to GMRS users that have no interest in doing so. Just leave us alone about Amateur Radios PLEASE!!!

Unfortunately, I hear more unlicensed business chatter than GMRS license holders making random contacts - would be nice to see that change considering the money I put into setting up a base station. I have been monitoring most of the day and heard a man tell a couple children NOT to use HIS business frequency. Jerrod (J-Rod) Grand Junction, Colorado WSBY849

Can you hear anyone else? Can you communicate with the FRS radio? Put them both on channel 15 (462.550) and start pushing buttons. Hang in there Frank. You'll get it working. Feel free to check here for more info.

WSHJ950, nice job. Most of us knew what you meant. Learning how to use repeaters with their radios is a stumbling block a lot of new users encounter. So I am glad things seem to be working out for you.

Nobody is going to drive over and do it for you - you will have to invest at least a little effort. We assume you've read the user-manual and tried but you're stuck/its not working, so give us more info about what part you are getting stuck with and i'm sure we can help. AND, you should probably create a new forum post instead of dragging this one even further into the weeds.

Is anyone else here running an H8 and randomly have the radio make a beeping tone and then display "P call" on the display? I see nothing in the manual that calls it out.