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I've been listening to the old dudes on the local GMRS repeater talk about french onion soup and basketball (separate conversations) for too long and decided I need different soup conversations*, so I took my technician exam today. Got 33/35. Thanks, hamstudy.org! The proctoring team told me I should study for the general while this test still fresh, so that's the next goal. I have a certification exam I need to study for at work, but... that's not as much fun. *the french onion soup conversation was the first thing I heard on the local repeater but the actual catalyst for getting an amateur radio license was I managed to catch some transmissions from the ISS a couple of nights ago. I was reading about how you could contact the ISS on 2m/70cm bands and then discovered the ISS was directly overhead. Ran outside with a HT and managed to catch what I assume were packet transmissions. Now I want to talk to a space station. 8 year old me would think it's the coolest thing ever. 42 year old me still thinks it's pretty rad. Maybe someone up there prefers broccoli cheddar soup.

You definitely got lied to. Every channel is free to use. No one owns a channel or has a channel allocated to them. Law enforcement almost never uses these channels for official business and when they do, you still have as much right to use the frequency as they do. Most of the time, when FRS/GMRS is used by the government, it's not police. Its typically a civilian liaison acting as a go-between for U/SAR volunteers or volunteers working in support of some type of remote response to things like mass casualty incidents. I'm pretty sure you would know if there was a mass casualty incident close enough that you can hear another user directly.

As if Randy needs an evil alternate account. As much as I love Randy and sometimes making him reply on YT videos by making absolutely ridiculous statements (it's a hobby), he certainly doesn't need an evil alt. Randy is just evil enough to get by.

What I don't get from SoCal is, he either says or has strongly implied that pretty much none of us know what we are talking about, always wrong, and a bunch of NotARubicon nut huggers (sorry, Randy. You know I love you).... and, he seems like he's always mad at us. So why the heck is he wasting his time and talent on this forum? I've asked him... but no response. Maybe it's like watching a car crash. Its so horrific that you can't look away. Anyway Guest PG3, just ignore the stupid stuff he says and try to pull something useful out of it. Honestly, recording the experience if it continues to happen and then filing a police report with local PD isn't a terrible idea. You just need some proof it's happening and you may get some traction.

What you did wrong was believing some clown on a GMRS radio that was claiming to be the local police.. TL;dr .. he lied to you..

Thanks for your reply. Turns out the jumper cable has an intermittent short. And I bought that cable custom made to length using Times low loss cable from a company called ShowMeCables.com. So that will be returned to them. I located another jumper cable in my "junk box" of radio stuff and all is working perfectly now.

Thanks to @OffRoaderX for the suggestion! Here are the steps necessary to add a user to your “ignored users” list. First, click your screen name in the upper right hand corner. A drop down dialogue appears. Right next to the bottom it says “Ignored Users”. Click on “Ignored Users”. You’ll see a dialogue asking you to enter a member’s name to your ignore list. Start typing the screen name they use. You’ll see a listing of usernames that match what you’ve typed. Select the name from the list for the user you wish to ignore. Select the check boxes that define what you wish to ignore. If you never want to see their posts, check “posts”. If you want to block messages from them check “messages”. If you don’t want to be notified when they mention you, check “mentions”. And finally, if you just don’t want to see their signature at the bottom of every one of their posts, check signature. For example it makes sense to check signature but not posts if their signature bugs you for some reason. It really doesn’t make sense to select signature when you’re going to be blocking their posts, but that’s the default. Then click the blue button that says “Add User”: You’ll get a quick confirmation message saying you added the user to your ignore list: It’s that easy.

Can you let us know what tone you use so we can all avoid you? Of course you may not use a tone, since your tone here is negative, and there are no negative tones for radios.

These are both wrong. REACT stopped monitoring 9 in the very early '90s. State troopers haven't had a tunable HF radio since Smoky and The Bandit was in theaters.

Guess what ?? 6 meters was open yesterday and Today !! I made 11 new contacts on usb , and 4 on fm @ 50 watts !

Generally speaking, if a repeater accepts a tone of 141.3 MHz, it's considered an open repeater. It was the "travel tone" Popular Wireless and the Personal Radio Association came up with when they came up with the idea of the Open Repeater Initiative (ORI). It was originally repeater channel 20 with 141.3 for the tone.

Not to mention that a H.A.M.s radios that has been unlocked to transmit on GMRS does not make it a "GMRS radio" .. You will have to do everything - ALL the programming, EVERYTHING manually, yourself.. For many people this is no big deal.. For many others, it is a dealbreaker.. With a real "GMRS Radio", you take it out of the box, turn it on, pick a channel and talk.. not so with a H.A.M.s radios that is made to transmit on GMRS frequencies..

*Shakes fist in the air

You should make a step-by-step How-To for blocking/ignoring someone.. with screenshots and arrows and everything.. That way we can all link to it whenever necessary. In the screenshots be sure to use an appropriate user as the example.

sounds like somthing that SOCAL guy would do

The question was never “what do you want us to do?” The question is “How can we simplify the regulations or get rid of unnecessary regulations.” Almost all of the suggestions in this thread actually increase the complexity of the regulations.

My wife and I are making an interstate move and it was great to have a radio in a Penske truck and one of our cars. In addition, we have two handheld radios. That made backing up the truck with a car carrier so much easier! She could direct me when I backed out of our original home. Along the way, she could pull behind me and let me know if there were any trailer stability issues at higher speeds. After a few hours, I had my wife drive the speed limit while I drove at a slower rate (trailer limit). We had some awesome range in Eastern Oregon. We had great range as she pulled away. Our radios have repeater capabilities but we kept them on a simplex channel. We said our goodbyes as she pulled away from the line of site. A few hours later, I caught up at the hotel. We have been long users of GMRS, and the service was awesome for the move. we hope that others get great use out of GMRS.

Wrong on both counts. GMRS is for whatever you want it to be used for. HAM is for whatever you want it to be used for. There are plenty of HAM's who use HAM while off-roading or hiking.There are plenty of GMRS users "making contacts" especially through repeaters. Who cares what they use it for. It's there to be used, for whatever someone wants to use it for. If someone wants to use a log book regardless of service, why would you even care?!

Get a good temperature controlled soldering station. I like Weller, but lots of people use Hako also. Second, get someone who knows what they’re doing to show you the basics (or watch YouTube videos). Third, don’t be stingy on using flux.

One of the best purchases I have made in the last few months was getting a digital microscope. Here is what I ordered: TOMLOV DM9 Max Digital Microscope: 20MP 10.1" 1500X HD IPS HDMI. And here is a photo of a digital command control board for n scale steam locomotives. Those are either 28 or 30 gauge wires that have to be soldered to the electric motor and lights. Here is a photo of the Arcom RC-210 board. \ I had to solder everything onto the board. At least there weren't any tiny toroids that I had to wrap like on my QRP EFHW antenna. As you can see, skills learned from other hobbies transfer over to amateur radio. There are many different facets to amateur radio that one can explore. Having your general license opens up so many doors compared to a technician license.

I confirmed, Steve's step-by-step instruction's work. I no longer see SoCal ... Thanks Steve..

Every super hero needs a nemesis

Crazy fan fiction theory.....Socal is an evil alternate acount of notarubicon....dr jekkyl/mr hyde kind of stuff..... only joking, as i know "i" and Randy's "best fan"....he told me so in a video.....

Everyone should just block him. He’s getting his jollies by being mentioned by many. Just completely ignore him. Don’t look at those hidden posts he makes. Make him as irrelevant to the forum as he is in life.

But, but, but there's a guy who gets 250 miles.

Part 95.1751 (c) Any GMRS repeater station is not required to transmit station identification IF: (1) It retransmits only communications from GMRS stations operating under authority of the individual license under which it operates; and, (2) The GMRS stations whose communications are retransmitted are properly identified in accordance with this section.

Keep this rule in mind: Users who continue to post inflammatory, abusive comments will be banned from the forum after two warnings are issued by moderators. It might make the forum safer if some of us UNblock anyone that might break this rule, and then report them every time they do.

Look for these on Amazon. They really help when you make a boo-boo.

Several years ago, I sent Radio Shack a proposal for something that I think, if approved by the FCC, would have returned some of the yesteryear excitement to visiting their stores. Their response was something about legal "rights" to the idea and me generating tons of legalese paperwork for them, something I had neither time, money, or resources for. In that day, before the current flood of CCJ (Cheap Chinese Junk) GMRS radios, the average Joe or Jane had two options; CB or ham, for off-grid or grid-down comms. GMRS was an option if you were wealthy enough to afford Moto, GE, or other Land Mobile gear. As we all know, most wives, children, and other family or friends refuse to be bothered with studying for and taking a Technician test, no matter how simple it is. CB is on a long wavelength which makes portable comms unwieldy at best and nearly impossible from inside some buildings and automobiles without an external outside antenna. Mobile and base range is crippled by a 4 Watt power limit and short channel spacing, as well as frequent skip. At that time, Homeland Security had PSA's on radio and TV urging citizens to contemplate preparing for unexpected disasters with food, water, and communications gear beyond landlines and cell phones. My proposal involved petitioning the FCC to carve out a portion of the VHF Low Band somewhere above 42 MHz for a "Homeland Security" band. My proposal would allow for 50W mobile and base radios. Portables would be a maximum of 6W. A minimum of 45 channels should be provided at 15 to 20 KHz spacing with narrowband analog FM being the only accepted mode. 5 channels would be set aside as ht transmit, base and mobile receive-only. These would be the highest frequency channels of the band/service. Bases and mobiles would be receive only and transmit only on a corresponding fixed lower frequency in the band. A Dual Receive Capability capable radio would allow simultaneous receive on the ht channel corresponding with a fixed lower transmit frequency for that ht channel. One such DRC channel (the highest) would be for emergencies, like old CB 9. The next would be for taking the emergency to for detailed or prolonged comms if necessary. The other three DRC capable channels would allow any user to monitor the higher (6W ht only) frequency and their fixed corresponding lower frequency and use them for any purpose the service allowed. The purpose of this would be to allow persons with only a ht to have a clearer shot at making contact with an emergency monitoring station, or their own home base without having to compete with 50W bases and mobiles. All radios would be required to have CTCSS/DCS encode/decode capability and a fixed tone (say 100.0) would be used on the two emergency channels for all comms. Since Radio Shack was the creator of FRS, by petitioning the FCC for such, I figured such a project would re-vitalize the waning interest in their once-vibrant stores. While skip would still occur at the higher end of VHF Low Band, it would be less frequent than on CB. Unlike CB, ht signals at those frequencies CAN get into and out of a closed automobile and many buildings that CB could never touch. Alas, it was not to be.

Good rule for Poison Oak & Ivy, but not sumac. Poison Sumac is not three-leaved and is entirely different looking. Sumac leaves are "pinnate" (resembles walnut leaves), with 7-13 paired leaves on a stalk. Sumac is also usually found as a small tree with a woody trunk. [url]https://www.healthline.com/health/outdoor-health/poison-sumac#identify[/url]

It took a while, but after looking at a variety of other options, I finally decided to get that 3rd brake light antenna mount purchased and installed. It was a little expensive, but it is working very well and I'm pretty happy with it so far! The pics below show it with a dual band 2m/70cm antenna. I've also used it simplex on GMRS with a very small Tram antenna with good results. Thanks again to all who provided constructive feedback on the topic!

I sell punctuation cheap. Contact me for pricing.

Be warned, where to get the best pizza seems to bring out hams on 2m repeaters. Congrats. Got for General ASAP, it is no harder to do than Tech and there is overlap in the question pool, you could already accidentally pass it on a lucky day.

@Socalgmrs to Randy is like Kiteman was to Batman.

I greatly appreciate the cyber hugs!! Everything is relative. Compared to some I am a noob and I love the fact that I am learning everyday.

I did a server upgrade for a Dentist years ago. After installing the server, software and transferring data everything worked fine EXCEPT the way the teeth are counted/labeled was all wrong. I called customer support and found out that Dentists in England label teeth differently than those in the USA. The fix was to change the default installed language option from "English" to "American".

If you are using a Verizon Orbic RC400L cellular hotspot then you are definitely using RF and also using the cellular service to connect the nodes. I see that you are having issues connecting the nodes through your cellular hot spots and since you are talking about DMZ, ports and IP addresses then you are connecting the nodes through the internet. All of which is prohibited by the FCC on GMRS. So you won't get much help here on this GMRS forum. Plus the attitude won't get you very far either. I can tell you that @SteveShannon is definitely not a noob to GMRS or amateur radio. Best of luck figuring out your networking issues.

He did that already, a while back - he had his account deleted and asked the forum owner to delete all of his posts - my guess is because his callsign was showing and he realized that he was embarrassed to have people find out about who/what he really is.. where he works (if he even has a job).. where he lives (or where his parents house is, with him in the basement).. I think Sir Steven Shannon, H.E.R.D., et al, got it right.. the only attention he gets in life is here when he acts like an idiot, so the best thing to do is ignore him and stop talking about him (startinggggg... NOW)..

I guess you are the resident insulter and jackass when someone asks a question? I see your snide comments all over this forum. Your type should normally just sit and watch but it never happens 'cuz you just have to get your jollies. You just LOVE talking down at someone new to gmrs when a question is asked. I bought the RT Systems software [far superior to the free download CPS from Radiodity] and found out that the DB40-G manual is full of crap. Darn near everything is programmable. And YES, I got into ham radio from back when CB was 23 channels, there was a 5 and 5 rule, and the radios were crystal controlled (early 1960's). My first cb was a Heathkit GW-22 five channel crystal rig. I went in the navy and when I got out, an old cb buddy had gone ham so he gave me the novice test in 1972. That got my foot in the door of ham radio. I have held NOVICE, TECH, GENERAL, ADVANCED, and now EXTRA. I am still licensed and know morse code (Extra Class) 53 years later. I still have my old 23 channel Citifone SS mobile and base rigs (gathering dust in the closet). I just got interested in GMRS because our local Skywarn group started using GMRS as an alternate method to check in to the weather watch nets along with 2m/70cm. PS: I doubt any of this will put a civil tongue in you but one can hope. PPS: Radiodity does supply a "driver" for their CPS but it made no difference. I now have my radio programmed for several local repeaters. PPPS: I bought a nanoVNA so I could build my gmrs j-pole antenna and get it tuned without a lot of rigamarole. I didn't have to put up with your type while building it either.

@WSHW974 please ignore the snide comments from this forum’s resident ass hat. You can certainly program tones in these first 30 channels. What they are referring to is that GMRS is a channel based service and so the frequencies are assigned to the channels and baked in. The first 22 are simplex and the next eight are for repeaters with the same receive frequencies as 15-22 and the transmit having a pre programmed + 5. (462.xxx Rx and 467.xxx Tx) No need to set the offset as it is also baked in. You can set tones for repeaters as well. Hope this helps.

A lot of the GMRS repeaters here in Missouri that are along major US highways/interstates use the Travel Tone of 141.3. It's a different story once you get into the St Louis and Kansas City areas. As Mark and WRUE951 stated, there is not an official travel channel per se. No channels were ever fully adopted for that use on GMRS. You can monitor channel 20 if you want or you can scan the simplex channels while traveling. You can also just program extra repeater channels with the tones set to 141.3. And just ignore Negative Nancy and all of his negative vibes. He is either off his meds or needs to go seek professional help.

But yet in parts of the country you will be lucky to get 50 miles even when the repeater antenna is at 450 feet above ground. Some areas are lucky to see a 20 mile range with antennas on mountain tops. Foliage has a big effect on UHF. When one talks about the Appalachians, Smokey Mountains, Ozark mountains, etc, there are no tree lines to get above. There are also no large flat and open areas like out west. And most lakes, outside of the Great Lakes, are smaller and surrounded by forested hills. Our GMRS repeater antennas are on the same tower as our 2m and 70cm repeaters antennas. The radio tower is on one of the highest points in the immediate area. The GMRS antennas are at 400 ft above ground and the 2m/70cm antennas are at 900 ft above ground. We only get about a 35 mile radius of coverage from our GMRS and 70cm repeaters with plenty of dead spots due to local terrain and forested areas. The 2m repeater has a 80-95 mile radius of coverage. And just because radio A can hear radio B doesn't mean that radio B can hear radio A. There are plenty of variables involved.

My understanding of "official language" is that it will be required on all government documents, web sites, etc. and official documents can't be required to be provided in other languages. As far as I can tell, it won't prohibit government sites from providing translations in other languages as long as an English version is provided. Which, TBH, seems pretty reasonable to me. Since TV stations, radio stations, etc. aren't usually government-run, they'll be unaffected. Since GMRS and amateur radio are mostly private endeavors, I can't see the EO affecting our radio usage. Nobody owns the GMRS channels, and short of a change to FCC regulations, nobody can dictate to me that I can't use whatever language I like. A repeater is a bit different. Since it's privately owned, I support the owner's right to decide what language users must speak. I'm not sure how you'd enforce that, but in theory I support it.

My background is petroleum industry and water treatment. Always use anti seize. That one fastener you think you will never have to remove and decide to skip coating is the very one you will have to take apart. Anti Seize (the brand doesn't matter, they all work) is about the cheapest sanity insurance you can buy. And take it from experience, it will save lots of skin. Also, always repeat always make every electrical connection (even those in "water resistant" housings) as water tight as humanly possible. Long story short I grabbed an electrical conduit that had been out of service for a couple of years. Lit me up like nobodies business. Two lessons learned, never believe lockout/tagout tags, and never trust an electrician unless you verify it yourself. Water had gotten into the conduit.

I used GMRS radios when I moved from Alaska to Oklahoma 3 years ago. There were 4 of us with an RV and a pickup truck pulling a trailer. There are long stretches of the Alaska Highway where cell service is nonexistent. It was orders of magnitude better than pulling over and talking in person when we needed to pass on information.

@Socalgmrs why are you still here?

I don't care for any repeater doing that. We are going to use an Arcom RC-210 controller for our GMRS and 70cm repeaters. We are going to set the controller to ID every 15 minutes but ONLY when there is actually people using the repeater. I just finished assembling the RC-210 board and am waiting on the case and real time clock. Then it will be time to program it. And we will definitely have the repeater ID since it is open to the public.

Nothing wrong with talking to Other operators either ... Your so-called "Strangers"!