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That hope and $5 can get you a cup of coffee...

President's agenda today: Zoom call with Putin Zoom call with Zalenski Status update on painting the fence black Hurricane hitting the eastern seaboard Tanning spray Touch up the quaffe Redistrict Texas and California voting. Say something to offend the vocal minority. (800 other things) (200 more things) Listen to an update on what letters to the president rose to the level of making it into the report (he's on the treadmill at the same time though) This letter didn't make honorable mention

While some of the advantages of linking repeaters is nice the whole concept of using many of the only 8 repeater channels makes it unappealing. And especially when a "club" owns said repeaters on a paid only subscription base. Add a dozen more channels and designate a few of them for linking and that might fix it.

I submitted an email to the white house. hopefully someone actually reads this.

We can't be wasting perfectly good coffee around here!!!!!! I know I can't afford to waste coffee as I suffer from having too much blood in my caffeine system for the first couple of hours each day.

Damit... I need to change my shirt.. I spilt coffee all over my fresh clean shirt.. Damit... To early for this

Do owners of these radios call themselves H8ers?

We do not need linked GMRS repeaters for all the reasons everyone stated. A local repeater with lots of traffic can make the corresponding simplex channel pretty useless even with tones set. Even if you have tones seen on your radio, others without tones can still hear you. I can give a good example of this. The local nursing home decided to start using hand held radios on Channel 17 - 462.600 MHz. Our GMRS repeater uses the repeater channel 17 - input 467.600 MHz and output 462.600 MHz. Now I was the only one hearing the nursing home since it is only about 400 yards away from me. But the nursing home was hearing ALL traffic on the repeater. So we pretty much made the simplex channel 17 useless for the nursing home. It did not take long for the nursing home to switch to a different channel. The only time I can possibly see a need to link GMRS repeaters is during an emergency. But that won't do any good if the internet is down. Your best bet is to get your amateur general license so that you can use all of the HF bands for long distance communication. Linked 2m and 70cm repeaters are no guarantee during an emergency since they still use the internet. On a side note but still related. There has been a lot of tropospheric ducting lately causing band openings on GMRS. Over the last week or so I have been hearing quite a few GMRS repeaters on the same channel with the same tones as our GMRS repeater. Just because I can hear the other repeaters doesn't mean that they will hear me but this does cause a lot of traffic on the repeater channel that I would normally not hear.

@Linuxnut79 - the FCC actually was looking for suggestions for how to simplify regulations. You might want to look into that. Also, having linked repeaters causes congestion locally whilst relying on the internet for greater distances. What happens when the ISPs go down? If you’re truly interested in SHTF long distance radio communications that is designed to survive loss of local services (and overuse of the internet backbone) you should investigate HF.

Shot yourself in the foot right there.... if its a short distance use class, linking repeaters makes it no longer short distance....

@OffRoaderX I doubt it's going to happen, too. But, I do still support it.

It makes a nicer stain.

well, assuming your magnet mount used as a reference is using a different cable. I would start looking at the cable or connectors. And try moving your ghost antenna to the mag mount and check that. If you see the same poor SWR than the antenna is suspect.. Process of elimination is the game. Try reading in one set of circumstsnces than anoter as i suggested. It's not always easy to chase poor swr problems..

Theoretically yes, but in practice the opposite has often proven to be the result. What happened was that FM dropped out at essentially the same distance that AM became unintelligible. AM broke squelch farther away, but was completely unreadable at max distance. If I recall FM was full readable where AM was 50/50.

One of the local linked repeaters near me has been in almost constant chaos the last few days from somebody playing music on the repeater/network. Don't know what is worse - the person causing the interference or the folks wining about it but it's a fun battle to listen to.

I'm afraid I have to jump on the "only 8 repeater pairs" bandwagon. In my area, there aren't a whole of repeaters and mostly they don't get a lot of traffic, but when they do, they tie up their associated simplex channel. Amateur radio has exponentially more bandwidth to play with, so that's not a significant issue.

And any traffic on those eight repeater pairs also causes congestion on the eight 462 MHz main channels which are the also the fifty-watt simplex channels because they share the same frequencies.

To quote Steely Dan “no static at all” Perhaps an exaggeration but clearer audio I’m guessing and some might see the lack of traffic as a plus. Just a thought.

The farz was not a big difference, but it was about a 1/4 mile to less than 1/2 mile better for FM.

I wrote "may" propagate further and if it doesn't so what. What I was conveying is that with FM modulation I was able to communicate further than I could with AM modulation.

Never gunna happen... Bookmark this comment and let's follow up in 5 years so I can say "told 'ya so!" ...

The point is to expand beyond short-range local comms, particularly for emergencies. 300w repeater systems would definitely help a lot in areas like what we are in here in the DC Metro area, the northern Mid-Atlantic and northeastern US. There was one 10m repeater that was at 100w that covered a huge amount of the area, but it's been off the air for years and GMRS isn't getting the job done for many families and EMCOMM volunteers. I support it and comfortably put it in the category of you don't have to use it if you don't want to. It certainly doesn't hurt anyone or the service to provide extra frequencies. Shoot... the biggest complaint I see/hear is that there are so few channels and the space is crowded in metro areas. Why not support it if it will reallocate unused frequencies and give users more options? (That was rhetorical, of course)

Not needed for a personal radio service intended for local ccommunications

That would be a tragic waste

just don't spill it on ya

I'm really wrestling with what, in this thread, is the most odd and simultaneously impressive. The fact that the OP has been a member of this site for 4 years and has only just now chosen to post or the fact that his first post is literally a letter to POTUS. I applaud the energy you expended on what is almost certainly a wasted effort.

Donny - " Wait, didn't I appoint someone to the FCC ?

Opportunity for the manufactures to sell more radios with "New Features" for more money.

Only a minority as far as I can tell. Rule breaking is widespread and the attitudes are entrenched.

Wikipedia is getting screwed up by A.I.

Bert, You forget TWO Important Facts that didn't occur to you before you wrote that. 1. GMRS is intended to be a Short range communication service, Not meant for nationwide comms. 2. you Only have 8 Repeater pairs in which to operate repeaters on, which is approx. 180 mhz. bandwidth. WHY would someone 200 miles away have to be Forced to listen to traffic by a couple of operators on a linked system, not even in their area ? After you get 4 or 5 Linked networks across the U.S. saturating the 8 Repeater pairs we're allowed to use for the entire country, the signal to noise ratio goes UP, sometimes even creating interference for low power or Local repeaters. My suggestion to you, is IF you want to enjoy Long Distance Comms state to state, maybe take the test for your Technician Amateur Radio License, then you could operate on Many of the LEGAL Linked repeater systems we're Allowed to operate ? Both the Two meter and 70 Centimeter { Vhf and Uhf } bands have More than enough Bandwidth to support many Linked systems. Gmrs does Not have the Bandwidth needed to allow linking. I hope this sheds some light for you.

I wasn't referring to Line A. You said "95.1763 is gone altogether." It's there. If you meant Line A wasn't mentioned in 1763, then your wording was bad.

“Road” means any existing vehicle route. A “roadway” is that portion of a highway improved, designed, or ordinarily used for vehicular travel. “Freeway” is a highway in respect to which the owners of abutting lands have no right or easement of access to or from their abutting lands or in respect to which such owners have only limited or restricted right or easement of access. Highway” is a way or place of whatever nature, publicly maintained and open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel. Highway includes street.

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.

My poor H8 has been a dust magnet, since I bought my Wouxun 935H

Those are the "Sad Hams". They have been pissed off and angry for a long time since Thrifty Drug stores closed up so they can test their radio tubes with the tube tester and get a 5 cent ice cream cone at the same time.

I’ve been flying high power rockets for 25 years. I got GMRS radios to enhance my enjoyment of my high power rocketry hobby. Most of us in my rocket club got Garmin Rino radios so we could see where each other were while out recovering our rockets. After several years of being a scofflaw I decided that I wanted to do the right thing and get licensed as well. Somewhere along the line I started watching Notarubicon videos where Randy (@OffRoaderX) spoke about Baofeng UV5R radios. Also a friend showed me his UV5R radio and I ended buying one. I discovered that I really enjoyed programming it which gave me confidence. Playing with the Baofeng radios reawakened a barely dormant interest in ham radio that I’ve had since eighth grade. So three years ago I finally got around to applying myself to ham radio. For me (not for everyone) ham radio has been a fascinating experience. It keeps my brain working and is something I will be able to do even as I eventually get old. (I’ll be 70 next month but I feel 40 most of the time.) GMRS is something that can be done in conjunction with other activities, including very dynamic and energetic ones, and without becoming an expert on radio operations. Ham radio is a government sanctioned hobby intended to develop radio operators. It’s structured in such a way that older hams can (and sometimes do) mentor younger hams with differing levels of licensing and activities that are relatively sedentary. So, I think it’s natural to perceive GMRS as a younger person’s hobby. Now why did I come into this room?

Thanks to @TheMeatTrapper (WRMN250), @SteveGibbs (WSBM443), WRXS569, @WSGE773, @WSCY890, WSDK964 and @WSDV406 (me) and for joining the check-in net tonight (8/13/25). Besides the check-in, tonight's question was "If you could master one skill, what would it be?" A sample of the answers (you'll have to jump in the nets to hear the full answers) were: "understanding why women are always mad at us", morse code, bladesmithing, and much more. Join us every Wednesday at 8pm on Brentwood 600, tone 123.0 for a quick one fun question check-in net. Always feel free to weigh in with your answer to the nets' questions here on this thread. If the nets get large enough, we'll start making each net it's own post. But for now, we'll keep it all here.

Thanks to @SteveGibbs (WSBM443), WRXS569, WSGW884, @WSCY890, and @WSDV406 (me) and for joining the check-in net tonight (8/06/25). Besides the check-in, tonight's question was "what was the favorite car you ever owned?" A sample of the answers (you'll have to jump in the nets to hear the full answers ) were: '64 Mustang, '69 Road Runner GTX, and even answers like a Can Am Defender (tricked out with a bunch of radio equipment) and a Red EZ-GO Golf cart by a station that shared he enjoyed driving this as a kid before losing his sight. Lots of great conversation about our first cars, how much we paid for them, etc happened after the net "officially" closed. Join us every Wednesday at 8pm on Brentwood 600, tone 123.0 for a quick one fun question check-in net. Always feel free to weigh in with your answer to the nets' questions here on this thread. If the nets get large enough, we'll start making each net it's own post. But for now, we'll keep it all here.

I'm from Poplar Bluff, we have been hit with everything including the kitchen sink. My family and I are fine. All my friends on Facebook come to me for weather reports. So I've been quite busy here lately. Welcome all new members to Missouri GMRS. Feel free to make new topics. Once I get everything setup over here at the home 20 (10-20 home location), I will be back on here. This weather has been unreal and unpredictable lately. If anyone is close to Poplar Bluff, I hang out on 462.600mhz. I've been working on putting up a new cb radio base antenna and working on a base radio lately. But I'm not far away from the group. I've noticed everyone who joined. Sorry for my tardiness. If you all have any questions about GMRS, don't hesitate to ask. I've been on it for 4 years. Once I started watching notarubicon on YouTube, I got interested in gmrs. All thanks to Randy (notarubicon). Still working on buying a new repeater. The poor man repeater I had, quit working on me. But that doesn't stop me from communicating on gmrs. There a few gmrs repeaters in other towns close to PB. Yet me and my pal WRKR654 are on channel 17, 462.600. Ya all have a good one, I shall return.

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

I occasionally turn the Roger Beep on just to aggravate my friends and fellow club members that get bothered by hearing it. Otherwise I couldn't care less. Some will give you trouble for using a Roger Beep on any of our repeaters but we also do not ban the use of a Roger Beep.

The roger beep originated with the U S Space Program in the 1960's. There were no radio services that I'm aware of. Sometime in the early 1980's, someone came up with device be installed in CB radios. The rest is history,

Rich, as I FYI, I have started an IPT here in the DC area to work on a Petition for Substantive Rulemaking, rather than simply trying to sway Policy Statements. Right now we have a team of 5 communications professionals, some also with experience in writing bills and several have direct POCs in the FCC. If you have any interest in hearing about our plans or potentially joining the IPT, please send me a PM. Anyone who has looked at previous FCC proposed changes relating to PRS/GMRS, has seen how much consideration is given to MyGMRS and its members. I believe you would be a great addition to the IPT.

And of course no one will have to buy new radios to use this because the old ones will still be compatible with these new proposed specs and the FRS bubble packs out there shouldn’t be an issue either… It sounds like something that the people who sell radios would be behind though. ?

Why not just take the test for amateur radio if you want to do as there are plenty of dmr repeaters. I'll stick to my p25 radios. Sent from my SM-S918U using Tapatalk

I’m gonna put up a repeater and make it a requirement that everyone must use a roger beep and the more annoying the better. We’ll hold contests! And it’ll be on channel 19. ?

Thank you for all of the input. The main reason for my original question was to verify that Roger Beeps are not the new EMP in the radio world. I understand and respect that some like it and others hate it, but thankfully it’s still a free Country that we can still make our own choices. I personally don’t care if I use the Roger Beep or not on this persons repeater. It just so happened that the particular radio that I was using for my very first interaction on GMRS had the Roger Beep enabled. I don’t mind turning it off. I just don’t like someone, who by the way is just another user not the owner of the repeater, feeding me a line of B.S. for the sake of getting me to disable it. If I wanted to be manipulated by people spoon feeding me crap I’d get into politics. I will say that after listening to repeater traffic for the past few weeks that I somewhat like the Roger Beep for the sake of knowing when the transmission is complete. There are a few people that keep their radio keyed while they’re thinking and many times when that happens several other people try to key up. I am in the process of getting my own repeater up and running due to the fact that there are none in my immediate area. (The repeater that I currently access is just barely in range.) And when I do set it up I’m going to use my Roger Beep. I’m looking forward to the first person telling me that I need to shut it off so as not to ruin the repeater. And as far as gay truck drivers looking to meet up because of my Roger Beep……. Well, thats why we have German Shepherds. I will provide public access to my repeater because I’m generally a nice guy. If people boycott my repeater because I use a Roger Beep; I really don’t care. The main reason for my repeater is for family communication.

I call BULLSHIT - just another Sad-HAM disguised as a GMRS user. YOUR radio YOUR choice - if the sad-HAM control freaks dont like it, they can change the channel.. HOWEVER - as you mentioned, if the repeater owner requests that you not use a roger-beep on his repeater, then following the wishes of the equipment owner who's equipment you are using would be the polite thing to do, IMO..