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I suspect even when it supports a farming operation, it will be quiescent more than it's transmitting. There probably are business operations which could overwhelm it, but even the GMRS repeaters I consider pretty active near me spend a lot more time listening than transmitting.

It might seem pedantic, but if you’re on channel 19 on a 95E certified radios, you can’t transmit to the repeater. If you can’t transmit to the repeater it’s not a repeater channel.

Copy as of yesterday, if you could highlight the part about line A or C, or 462.7 for me please, I am unable to find it. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-D/part-95/subpart-E?toc=1

With the ranch we are on it all day long Checking on live stock & other ranch business. The firearms range is rented out 7 days a week from 0900-2200 for day and night shooting and the range officers must call every time the range is hot and cold. I have been very happy with it since I put the better cable on it.

There’s nothing in the regulations that prohibits simplex use on the 467 MHz main channels. They are limited to use for either repeater input, short term testing, OR Fixed Stations, with no mention of simplex or duplex. Others have already posted the regulation, but here it is anyway:

Tthe Line A restriction no longer exists. I agree with everything else you said.

Okay, I can see why using channel 19 and the repeater channel (however the manufacturer has labeled it) interchangeably could be confusing to some people.

Same here. I haven't heard anyone on FM.

I have an AM/FM CB. Had one for years. I've never heard a single random station on FM. I have two friends who also have one. They are the only reason I know the FM part of the radio works. Most of the time, we end up on SSB so we can use the 12w output, but AM is pretty much king. And that is only when we are in metro areas during the work day. The rest of the time, CB is dead.

Better check again; it's there for me, and it's one of the most important sections.

Well she's talking through the repeater. I'm just not hearing it because of the reversed frequencies. It's not like we're having deep discussions that last a long time. Usually it's me telling her I'm going by the house over to this place or that. Maybe if I say "testing" during the conversation it'll clear all that up.

I don’t think it was an omission. Fixed Stations may only communicate with other Fixed Stations so they cannot communicate through a repeater anyway. Also Fixed Stations are limited to 15 watts. It’s easy for me to imagine a set of Fixed Stations being used as for dedicated family communications between buildings, such as farmhouses and outbuildings on a farm or for irrigation control using DTMF controlled relays.

Nothing on FM. The only traffic on AM was during traffic jams. Seems like many truckers still have CB's but are only using them to communicate the location of a jam and which lanes are open. 4 times during my trip.

I saw the new listing in RepeaterBook the other day, and on here today. I'm looking forward to this one.

I hear what you are saying. There was no other traffic on the repeater... which is why I asked for a radio check... I didn't hijack the room. Just trying to learn what repeaters are enjoyable to use and which are not. Just took me by surprise...

Never heard FM there. Mostly AM Mudduckers...

If it's going to catch on, it will probably gradually grow from something like this -- using it to talk to other people who are part of your group. Eventually, if people hear activity on FM, they may start to use it.

Search for threads with Fixed Station in the title. There are a couple and they are multiple pages trying to address this.

You're right. I skipped right over the part where you were only talking about fixed stations.

Nope! This is what my copy says: (c) 467 MHz main channels. Only mobile, hand-held portable, control and fixed stations may transmit on these 8 channels. Mobile, hand-held portable and control stations may transmit on these channels only when communicating through a repeater station or making brief test transmissions in accordance with § 95.319(c). The channel center frequencies are: 467.5500, 467.5750, 467.6000, 467.6250, 467.6500, 467.6750, 467.7000, and 467.7250 MHz. Notice that fixed is not included in the restriction to repeater use. (Fixed stations aren't allowed to use repeaters so that makes sense.)

As is the case up north where we go. Cell Service is spotty to no-existent. We have a Landline at the Cabin. We use GMRS there for Mobile (auto and pontoon) for general chatting and contacts.("lunch is ready", "how's the fishing?", "Grab some bread and a dozen more minnows.") Were we to need help, 911 is right there to call on the LL. And if perchance the LL is down, there's a couple of pretty good 2m repeaters I can hit with better than average chance someone is listening. In the 8 years we've used GMRS up north, I can count on one hand the number of others using it that we've heard on the air, and definitely have never heard any traffic on 19 or 20 when travelling up there and back, or while in the area.

I've heard and talked to 3 people on FM CB. 2 were arranged with friends, the other was trying it out when the 3 of us were talking and joined in the round-robin we had going. I'm thinking it may slowly catch on but so far not much out there. OTOH, I've worked a lot of (mostly) Stateside FM on 10m so it is a given that DX is possible, so mayhap there'll be some UK/EU users to be heard. But the lower power limits might make that that a bit less likely?

GMRS came into being in 1987. The FCC officially recommended GMRS channel 20 (462.675 MHz) with a 141.3 Hz tone as a travel channel in 1988. This recommendation was removed in 1999. That means that there has not been an official "the" travel channel in 26 years. Given that's the case -- that the FCC *removed* the recommendation for a travel channel 26 years ago -- "nailed down yet" seems to be wishful thinking. There isn't an official travel channel. There isn't any de facto travel channel. There is the suggestion, from some, that 19 be the travel channel. Its adoption has not reached a critical mass sufficient to make it matter what people suggest and recommend. And north of "Line A", would be irrelevant anyway. In every area I've used GMRS in, there is not much rhyme nor reason to how the channels are used. People turn on their radios, pick a channel, and go. And on almost every paved road in the US where there's any hope that one of the 300k GMRS licensees in the country will happen to be listening within range and willing/able to respond, there is much more likelihood that cell phone service could summon AAA, a tow truck, police, an ambulance, or some other quick-responder in shorter time, with less confusion, and using established and tested infrastructure (cell towers, dispatch systems). The technological climate that existed when a designated travel channel was recommended does not exist today. The only areas lacking cell coverage today are areas with populations so sparse that it's also highly unlikely you'll find someone monitoring 19 within propagation range. If you are in a group, agree to a channel to use.

They ALL are, when you pick one and you're going somewhere !

Not sure but ours runs 24/7 for our ranch & firearms range since February with 4 to 20 radios on it with no problems.

Good question.

I get what you’re saying but it is fairly common (really common) for people who are new to GMRS to not realize they are in fact different and try and change all their settings to make the simplex channels talk to a repeaters when they’re not grasping the concept. I think @SteveShannon is just trying to avoid putting out info that is confusing and point out what may be obvious to some to those that don’t know.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for attending the get-together today! Also, thanks to all of our admins and repeater owners for coming out, and our friend Tim for helping coordinate! I had a great time seeing old friends and making new ones!

Gotcha. So the same with CB. You know, all you radio dorks are about to have another member in the fold. I've been talking on CBs for almost 30 years and I never gave it a single thought. They were just channel numbers, not frequencies. Then awhile back I got the President CB in my Jeep and started noticing mHz numbers below the channel numbers. That got me thinking and then I started digging into HAM and GMRS and slowly began realizing why 4 watts was the limit on CB band because HAM techs were in that band on HF and talking across the country. So essentially the Kilowatt Klub on CB is bypassing the FCC in the same way the Pistol Brace Bois are bypassing the ATF and NFA. And then I realized that I really don't have enough contempt for federal regulation. But I digress...

I would have liked this post but apparently "I can not give any more reactions today." As to your advice. I plan to. Reference my avatar.

Hey, Peter! Great questions. BTW... if you hear us chatting, you are always welcome to join in! I appreciate the interest. We talked about it a little at our last get-together, but just touched on it. So, I'm happy to give more details. I am a volunteer radio operator with the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES). I serve on a few teams supporting DHS/FEMA, US Marine Corps Quantico (MCCS/MCM), Loudoun County, Prince William County and the Virginia state EOC in Richmond. ARES is a nation-wide group attached to the American Radio Radio League. Our organization has formal MOUs with local, state and federal agencies across the nation. Our team provides a full spectrum of auxiliary (and on occasion, primary) communications support for the aforementioned agencies. That would include, but not limited to, voice traffic, independent email services, wireless LAN/WAN both in an affected area and relayed outside the impact zone, video, GPS and signal tracking, and much, much more. We have had great success in drills and real-world service for more decades than I have been alive, and I am happy to be apart of the organization. These relationships have afforded our teams some special privileges in the radio world. Hospitals, government agencies, and private business all appreciate the services we provide to the community, and to help us provide the best possible services, these agencies/businesses have allowed our groups to install VHF and UHF repeaters on there buildings, commercial radio towers, and on high-elevation properties. We even have repeaters and towers installed in national parks for areas known to frequently need our support. I mention all of this because it is relevant to what is happening with the proposed GMRS repeater. The Prince William County government is allowing us to install a new amateur radio VHF and UHF repeater on a county radio tower. The intent is to have the amateur radio equipment available to all licensed amateurs, while ensuring priority use for ARES supporting the county, state and federal government. Since we are going to have both a VHF and a UHF antenna, we figured we would gang a GMRS repeater on the UHF antenna, having it support both systems. I proposed the use of the GMRS repeater to the county under the same assumptions as the amateur radio repeaters... they will be open to all licensed users, with the county and other served agencies traffic taking priority during drills and emergencies, and the county EC agreed. Keep in mind, we are in the early stages of planning. We need to design the system, acquire hardware, and coordinate frequency use. What we are planning is subject to change... but the proposed details are as fallows. The availability date is currently TBD. As mentioned, we are still gathering parts and the facility is currently in the end stages of renovations. We cannot build until construction is complete. The tower is in the south-eastern part of Prince William County. The base of the tower is about 155 feet above average terrain. The arm the antennas will be on is about 300 feet above ground. We are going to use high-gain folded dipole antennas for all repeaters. We are planning on legal limit for the power output on GMRS (and 100w for the amateur repeaters). The channel is TBD, pending coordination. This will be a publicly accessible repeater, open to all licensed operators. Again, if the repeater is needed for emergency use, we will terminate public access until the emergency need is over. We hope that amateur gear will be sufficient so local families/residents can use the GMRS repeater in a local communications outage. We have not settled on a tone yet, but it will be CTCSS. We will ask local users to use whatever the primary tone we select for day-to-day use, but we will also have 141.3 for emergency/traveler use. The coverage area is theoretical at this point, but below is a projected coverage map showing 99.9% reliability. As we drop down to 70% reliability, the coverage increases dramatically.

I don't know about the F8HP Pro, but with some Baofeng radios, the channels in CHIRP will be grouped according to where you assign them in the channel number sequence. For example, the UV-17 Pro GPS has 10 banks of 100 channels each. Everything in slots 1-100 will be assigned to Bank 1, everything in 101-200 will be assigned to Bank 2, etc. It may be the same with your radio.

You watched the wrong Youtube videos if you are only seeing stuff that is 2 or 3 years old. The high-end, QUALITY YouTubers review all new GMRS radios as soon as they are available .. ...just sayin...

Man Road Runner would be neat to have. I could really aggravate my friends with that

Is it generally agreed that IF CHIRP is compatible with a radio, especially an HT, that CHIRP is preferable to using the manufacturer's specific software? For one thing, if you have radios from various manufacturers, using one familiar software would illuminate the learning curve over using 3 or 4 different ones.

Since you do not understand the difference between overall market share and market share for "programmable radio users"; you should definitely stick with Windoze! Good luck!

I dropped Windows OS when XP went dark and switched to Linux Mint, which I’ve used since 2015. A pretty easy way to do it is using this GitHub page, simply download the Chirp-Install.sh file to your computer, open a terminal in the directory where the downloaded .sh file is and run these two commands. chmod +x chirp-install.sh then run ./chirp-install.sh It will download and install all the necessary dependencies and install the newest version of CHIRP. To update to newest version I simply type into the terminal pip install (space) then right click on the newest any.whl version and select copy link address and paste it into the terminal on the same line as pip install and hit enter. Should look like this.

I have no idea how it could be destructive. I understand that some people find them annoying — that’s obvious from @gortex2‘s reply — but destructive? I don’t see how. I agree with you that the repeater owner definitely has the last say, but I also think there’s little to gain by joining a repeater and right away doing something that irritates many or most of the other users. I would listen to hear if others use roger beeps and then follow the community norm, just to keep the peace, especially if you hope to talk with any of them on the air.