WRWB464

I have had my GMRS license for a while but up to the past month or so I have not really made use of it. Rather I have been sticking with ham, mostly the digital stuff. A few weeks back I put together a few GMRS hts for a family vacation and I decided to monitor the channels to see what activity is like in my local area. Wow, it is busy! A couple of local repeaters have traffic all day! Some of my ham contacts are possibly more active on GMRS. So now I tend to monitor the local GMRS as much or more than I do the amateur bands. Lots of fun!

If I only had one, I would probably get a good analyzer. Does basis SWR plus so much more especially if you get into building antennas or just tuning them. I recently bought the Comet and absolutely love it. I own(ed) multiple SWR meters and I bought and returned a nanoVNA. Nothing against the nanoVNA it seems a good bit of kit but it seemed a bit fragile especially for messing around in the dirt rigging up outside antennas. I would always have an SWR meter and on any kind of base rig I would keep in in line so I always know if something has got messed up.

That I don't think you can do. You have to choose from one of the 6 channel groups that you have programmed then you can dual watch within that group. So yes, you will need to include your preferred repeater in each group. I am becoming less and less impressed with this radio. After 5 or 6 days with it I am seriously considering sending it back. The phone app is cool but I think I would prefer something with search groups like this does, but with better front panel programming. The heavy lifting programming like what the app does can be done in chirp.

A couple of thoughts regarding why, as a ham, that I have no intention of becoming a "ratchet jaw" on GMRS. With the increase in digital ham such as DMR, I would expect most hams will go to/stay with that vs GMRS. From what I know there are about 200,000 registered DMR contacts currently but everyone is expecting that to explode. New radios are coming with slots for up to a million contacts. While you can still be limited to a repeater only having 1 maybe 2 incoming time slots (a lot of time the 2nd one is reserved for say, a local net) you have almost limitless outgoing conversations. I just bought a new DMR radio as well as the GMRS (I had been away from all things radio for about 10 years) and it is mind blowing what you can do. Again for myself, this is a much more likely "recreational" format with GMRS reserved for travel and family/non-radiohead situations.

I got the replacement a couple of hours ago and it is like a completely different radio. Actually, it acts just like a real radio. Sits here and chirps, whistles and I heard a distant conversation that did not seem to be on the repeater but simplex. I have not had anybody answer a radio check but at least locally there isn't a lot of GMRS traffic going on. So yes, I am pretty convinced the first radio was a bad one. PS I realized after that all the radios will come with the antenna attached due to the data capability. But the new one had the bits and pieces tied up with the wire tie which the first one did not, everything was just rattling around in the box. PPS. I just A/Bd the 2 radios and the old one is just dead quiet while the new one squawks and chirps.

I can offer a couple of reasons why at least myself, an amateur general license for a number of years decided to get into GMRS. I was considering getting a CB for my little RV that I am trying to spend a lot more time in. However, CB is not my cup of tea any longer and GMRS seemed like a much better alternative for travel comms. It's a lot more likely to go on Randys "universal highway channel 19" (or scan for someone) and find a travel companion or road information etc. Trying that with my ham would not likely get me a lot of come backs. And for get togethers with the sons and their families, I can equip a number of people including the kids with cheap FR/GMRS HTs which I can not do with ham. Regarding local repeaters, for me it is just a matter of knowing what is going on. Local information is always better than what you may hear on the news or internets. In this case ham may actually be better at least early on.

Thanks all, I am pretty sure it was the radio. The replacement got here and it is much more sensitive than the original. As soon as I programmed it, which was easy peasy since the program was still on my phone, and I set it for my closest repeater, it immediately started to show signs of life. Just like a normal radio it breaks squelch often and I have heard a few times people keying up on the repeater. I have not had anyone answer back to my radio check yet but I feel a lot more confident with this radio than the last one. Everything seems proper compared to the first one. Thanks for all your comments.

I have the tone on the frequency that I am transmitting to the repeater aka the 467.xxx, and no tone on the 462.xxx. Hope that is correct and not reversed lol.

Ok so noob here but this sure seemed strange. I have been looking for local repeaters to add into my new radio. Still new using myGMRS so it was only a bit surprised when a repeater showed up only a couple miles from my home location, when I had not seen it there before. So I added it to my radio and sent a request to the owner. That was yesterday. This morning I get an email saying my request was denied, and the details were a somewhat cryptic and a bit rude response back from the owner. Now, a few hours later, both that repeater and any record of my request, other than the email I received, are all gone from myGMRS. So what's up? Is there GMRS black ops going on? LOL. Just wondering how/what this may have been about. Thanks.

I am not hearing anything from any of the local repeaters. I have been suspect of this radio since it was delivered on Saturday as it appeared to have been previously opened. I have a replacement being delivered possibly today hopefully that may solve some of the questions. PS I have been listening on a 2nd radio to the repeater TX frequency and nothing there either so it could be anything at this point.

Do all repeaters kchunk? I am brand new to GMRS with my brand new GMRS-Pro. I have set up the local repeaters one of which is only a mile or so from my home station but I can't seem to talk to or hear any of them. I have rx tones turned off for all of them and the correct tx tones turned on. If i briefly key up on any of them I don't hear anything back. All of them are listed as active here on myGMRS. Thanks for comments.

I just got a new GMRS Pro as well and it really seems off. Deaf and dumb. I bought it from Amazon and as soon as I opened it up I thought it looked like an open box. The antenna was already attached and the charging cable was loose in the box with the twist tie removed and in the bottom as well. I have asked for a replacement radio hope it works better.