Jones

Taiwan CB RadioIt is illegal to use equipment designed for the Taiwan market in the United States.
14 channels, 12.5 kHz spacing, FM:
467.5125 MHz 467.5250 MHz 467.5375 MHz 467.5500 MHz – US GMRS Repeater Input 467.5625 MHz – US FRS Channel 8 467.5750 MHz – US GMRS Repeater Input 467.5875 MHz – US FRS Channel 9 467.6000 MHz – US GMRS Repeater Input 467.6125 MHz – US FRS Channel 10 467.6250 MHz – US GMRS Repeater Input 467.6375 MHz – US FRS Channel 11 467.6500 MHz – US GMRS Repeater Input 467.6625 MHz – US FRS Channel 12 467.6750 MHz – US GMRS Repeater Input

Taiwan CB RadioIt is illegal to use equipment designed for the Taiwan market in the United States.
14 channels, 12.5 kHz spacing, FM:
467.5125 MHz 467.5250 MHz 467.5375 MHz 467.5500 MHz – US GMRS Repeater Input 467.5625 MHz – US FRS Channel 8 467.5750 MHz – US GMRS Repeater Input 467.5875 MHz – US FRS Channel 9 467.6000 MHz – US GMRS Repeater Input 467.6125 MHz – US FRS Channel 10 467.6250 MHz – US GMRS Repeater Input 467.6375 MHz – US FRS Channel 11 467.6500 MHz – US GMRS Repeater Input 467.6625 MHz – US FRS Channel 12 467.6750 MHz – US GMRS Repeater Input

151.625 is known as "The RED-Dot Channel" in the part 90 world.  Radios with this frequency are usually noted by a red-colored dot on the back somewhere, or in the battery case.  Every radio company, and their pet dogs, have sold radios on that frequency since the mid 1970s.  Midland, Motorola, Johnson, Ritron, Job-Comm, Uniden, Kenwood, Icom, Yaesu, Pace, GE, hundreds of off-brands.... even Radio Shack sold a set of hand-held radios on 151.625.
 
This is one of the only part 90 frequencies that is grandfather-claused in the law for wide-band operation.  There is just no way to replace the hundreds of thousands of radios already in use on this particular frequency.  A lot of businesses that move place to place use this as their default channel.  I often hear, radio and TV tower climbers, road construction crews, trucking companies, crop harvesting companies, carnivals and circuses and other show production companies...  basically, any business that moves around a lot from place to place that needs quick, legal, licensed, short-range 2-way communications no matter where they are in the USA.
 
It is a fun frequency to keep in your scanner, to see who is in town.

Amazon is indeed responsible for the misleading descriptions, they would not be allowed to market the uncertified devices to Americans. Should the FCC do anything about it, I'd bet that Amazon would (successfully) try to shift the blame to the sellers, who would then claim they are outside the FCC's jurisdiction; the cycle would continue. The whole situation is a mess, and licensed GMRS and Part 90 (both Public Safety and Industrial/Business pools) users are receiving significant interference from users fully unaware that their radios aren't actually FRS radios. The sellers are desperate for sales and most will say anything to secure a sale. Keep digging around Amazon's site and you will find many sellers saying their radios are legal out-of-the-box and a handful of reviewers upset that they aren't.
 
The FCC already fined one distributor a while back for selling UV-5Rs with an incomplete type certification. The internet was naïvely rejoicing, "The FCC made Baofengs illegal!" Yet this barely scratched the surface of the problems with illegal marketing.
 
Over here, there's more activity on the BF-888S channels than on FRS channels, and a handful of commercial users on amateur simplex channels complete with profanity. Reports go nowhere. Users claim the sellers said the radios were legal, and tone squelch on the default channels makes the users unable to determine they are causing or receiving interference. Where is the Commission when you need them?

I noticed this morning that if you search for "two-way radios" on Amazon, in addition to the product listing, Amazon is also displaying an article from "BestReviews.com" that is recommending several Part 90/97 radios from ArcShell, BaoFeng, and LSeng along with a couple of GMRS radios from Midland and Motorola. The worst recommendation they make is for the BaoFeng BF-F8HP (UV-5R 3rd Gen) 8-Watt Dual Band Two-Way Radio (136-174MHz VHF & 400-520MHz UHF), rather than the GMRS-V1.
 
They fail to mention that the Part 90/97 radios require that the frequencies be programmed for each channel. They fail to mention that these radios are capable of using licensed frequencies that are assigned to business and emergency services organizations. They imply that you only need a license if you are using the GMRS radios, inferring that the other radios do not require a license!
 
While I realize that it's only "tilting at windmills" I did submit a contact from to BestReviews.com to tell them that they are (likely unintentionally) encouraging consumers to break the law by using commercial radios without a license. I also "reported the profile" through Amazon, although the report process doesn't ask for any details. Not sure if they will contact me for details or not.
 
I'm sure that others will agree that these kinds of uninformed recommendations are part of the problem with the marketing of "cheap Chinese radios" to the general public.
 
The question is what can be done about it? While there doesn't seem to be a good way to refute the recommendations in the article through Amazon, maybe if enough others would read the "review" and reply using their contact form we could get them to fix their article.
 
Amazon should have the responsibility for clearly identifying that these amateur and business radios require the appropriate FCC license to be operated legally. They are NOT general consumer products.

If you want maximum range and sensitivity, don't use tone squelch at all... but be prepared for interference.
 
CTCSS is the original tone squelch system designed by Motorola, and trademarked as "Private Line" or "PL" tone. Everyone else copied it.  DCS or "DPL" and Motorola calls it, is an improvement over the original, with more codes, and less false-triggering on receivers.
 
If you are just wanting to talk to your own group, and not get outside chatter, I would go with DCS, and pick a 3 digit code that means something to you so you can remember it.  It can't be just any 3 digits, it must be a valid code in the drop-down list of CHIRP, or in the programming functions of the radio.
 
Make sure all radios are set to the same channel, and that they all have the same DCS code programmed in for TX and RX, and you'll be good to go with minimal interruptions or interference.

Here in Nebraska, CB never went out of fashion with the local short-haul trucking community.  All of the local guys still use channel 19, and we now have an expanding population of immigrant truck drivers in the area using channel 22 in Spanish.  I live 5 blocks away from a grain elevator, and 4 miles from a feed distribution site, so I hear a lot of CB traffic every hour.  The elevator uses either channel 19, or sometimes channel 12 to instruct drivers how to back around to the loading/unloading areas etc.
 
I live in the middle of nowhere, so the only thing I ever hear on GMRS is my own family, and some occasional ducting from a grandfathered business-licensed system on .625 that is used by a concrete company east of me about 70 miles.  (They have a phone patch.  Not sure that's legal even on a grandfathered system.)
 
On FRS channel 1, I quite often hear the little girls across the street playing with their walkie talkies, but that's about it.

Here in Nebraska, CB never went out of fashion with the local short-haul trucking community.  All of the local guys still use channel 19, and we now have an expanding population of immigrant truck drivers in the area using channel 22 in Spanish.  I live 5 blocks away from a grain elevator, and 4 miles from a feed distribution site, so I hear a lot of CB traffic every hour.  The elevator uses either channel 19, or sometimes channel 12 to instruct drivers how to back around to the loading/unloading areas etc.
 
I live in the middle of nowhere, so the only thing I ever hear on GMRS is my own family, and some occasional ducting from a grandfathered business-licensed system on .625 that is used by a concrete company east of me about 70 miles.  (They have a phone patch.  Not sure that's legal even on a grandfathered system.)
 
On FRS channel 1, I quite often hear the little girls across the street playing with their walkie talkies, but that's about it.

Just want to make it clear real quick, I made this post to A ) cut down on users asking for repeater information and B ) to hopefully save them some time by telling them how they can look such information up. I am not an administrator or moderator nor do I work for the MyGMRS forums or site. I just felt it would be easier to explain everything in one easy to find post rather than constantly replying to new users who are asking for frequency or tone information. I am sorry if I caused any confusion as to my status on the site.

Over the past few days, I have seen posts popping up with the title card "looking for a repeater near ____"

I have answered a couple of them thinking it was just a new user who wasn't sure how the site worked yet, but being there has been an increase in these posts I figured I would make a quick post about it.

The Admins and Mods that run the forum have made it clear that they DO NOT WANT REPEATER INFORMATION TO BE RELEASED ON THE FORUMS! This is to cut down on non-licensed transmissions on active repeaters. This means no member will post a repeaters frequencies or tone codes in a post.

However, there are tools that MyGMRS provides to you once you prove you have your license so that you can find repeaters near you. First there is the repeater directory which can be found here; https://mygmrs.com/browse This allows you to search by state, frequency, if the repeater is open to the public or not, and will give you most of the information you need to get into a repeater. Likewise it is handy to determine what frequencies are available if you wish to open your own system. Second is the map; https://mygmrs.com/map Which allows you to look at a map of the US and find repeaters that way. Note, you may still need to look up the repeater in the directory to get tone info and request access.

If you can hear a repeater on your radio but cant find it on MyGMRS.com, your next bet would be to scan the tones to see if you can find the one they are using, send your callsign over, and inquire about the repeater to find out if its open access or private use. If you remain respectful, the members usually wont give you a hard time and often will explain how to get permission to use a private repeater.


 

I do have one of those smaller Midland Micro-mobiles, (5-watt version) and they are not really a bad little radio. The weak link in the chain is the crappy little antenna that is provided by Midland. Even Midland's "Upgrade" antennas are junk.  I am using a cheap Tram-Browning UHF antenna on my Midland, and it works vastly superior to the Midland stock mag mount.
 
I think the biggest problem with the Midland antennas is the fact they use that small-sized RG-176-type coaxial cable. I have not measured it, but I'll bet the loss is somewhere around 60-70% of your signal.
 
You can get a solid signal out with a cheap radio and a good antenna, but if you put a crappy antenna on a 100 Watt Motorola, you still can't talk anywhere.  Antenna and coaxial cable quality is VERY important in radio communications.  One size does NOT fit all applications. Make sure you are using the correct type of antenna for your vehicle or application.... such as a half-wave no-ground-plane type antenna for that ragtop mentioned earlier.

I do have one of those smaller Midland Micro-mobiles, (5-watt version) and they are not really a bad little radio. The weak link in the chain is the crappy little antenna that is provided by Midland. Even Midland's "Upgrade" antennas are junk.  I am using a cheap Tram-Browning UHF antenna on my Midland, and it works vastly superior to the Midland stock mag mount.
 
I think the biggest problem with the Midland antennas is the fact they use that small-sized RG-176-type coaxial cable. I have not measured it, but I'll bet the loss is somewhere around 60-70% of your signal.
 
You can get a solid signal out with a cheap radio and a good antenna, but if you put a crappy antenna on a 100 Watt Motorola, you still can't talk anywhere.  Antenna and coaxial cable quality is VERY important in radio communications.  One size does NOT fit all applications. Make sure you are using the correct type of antenna for your vehicle or application.... such as a half-wave no-ground-plane type antenna for that ragtop mentioned earlier.

As some of you are aware, the Midland MXT400 radio is not a "great" performer on simplex and has some compatibility issues with legacy radios, as it is not wide-band capable on the frequencies approved for wide-band.  With this modest downfall, in my opinion, the second generation radio is still a really nice performer.  I have had conversations with people on repeaters 50 miles away from me while mobile (Bunker Hill Rd & Rt 51, Gerradstown, WV to Warrenton VA).
 
I own three MXT400 radios and one of them developed an overheating problem.  After using the radio for 15-20 minutes on high power, at a 30% duty-cycle, the radio would overheat and cause the modulation circuit to fail.
 
I called Midland customer service at the number listed in the manual.  I spoke to one person, explained the issue, and had an apology and a new radio in route to my house in just 5 minutes.  The replacement radio arrived in just 3 days.  The new radio is rock solid.
 
I wanted to take a minute to share my experience.  While myself and others have expressed being less than thrilled with the radio's performance compared to other legacy models, I think it is important to let people know that the radio is actually really good for what it is and that I had a very positive experience with Midland customer service.  When it is time to make a decision about what you want to buy, I think it is important to be aware of the bad and the good.
 
Hope this info is helpful to someone.
 
Thanks,
Spaz

One thing I might suggest...
 
Since (I assume) you will have a GMRS license holder at the central command office of the camp, why not set up a 5-watt, narrow band UHF base station on 462.6125 MHz, with no CTCSS tone.  Put a small UHF antenna on your 40 foot pole, (use low-loss coax like LMR-400) and you will be able to cover your whole forest on the frequency known as FRS Channel 3. 
 
Tell everyone with FRS radios to stay off from channel 3 unless they have any emergency or need to get in touch with the camp headquarters, then just call on channel 3 with no privacy code.  Even if those cheap bubble-pack radios can't talk to each other through the trees, they likely can be heard at the base station with the 40' high antenna, and with licensed 5 Watts at 40', they will hear you.  Forget about a UHF repeater. 
 
NOTE: I'm just using channel 3 as an example, but any channel 7 or below could be used at 5 Watts. You could use higher power (50 Watts) on channels 15-22, but remember, a lot of older FRS-only radios don't go past 14, and channel 8-14 are low-power only.  If there is any GMRS repeater within 50 miles, pick a channel 2 or 3 away from its output frequency, so its wide-band transmitter doesn't splatter on your narrow-band base receiver.

Good question.
 
If they buy the boards from over-seas, and buy the cases from over-seas, and buy the microphones from over-seas, but assemble it all here, then they have the right to say "Designed and Assembled in the USA", but there is a certain percentage of the product itself that must originate from the USA before it can legally say "Made in the USA". (I do not know what that percentage is.)
 
Source:
 
My ex-wife's family is in the industrial electrical manufacturing industry, but they use some Chinese sub-assemblies, which means that on certain models offered by their company, they cannot say "Made in..." or use the little Red White and Blue stickers from the US Chamber of Commerce.  Other models, they can and do make the USA claim.

Well, I can help answer some of your questions....
 
The 452 MHz band is fully used by broadcasting, public safety, and general business radio service. (as is the entire 450-470 MHz band, except for our very generous slice)
The 472 MHz band is right in the middle of over-the-air television channel 14, which uses up everything between 470-476 MHz. 476-482 is channel 15, and it goes up every 6 MHz from there until you hit cellular telephone, which is currently 614-890 MHz, and expanding.
 
There is no such thing as an "underutilized slice of spectrum" in the UHF band, or anywhere else for that matter.
 
There is no problem with our current 5 MHz split.  It has been working just fine for decades.  There is already a filtering solution for this.  It is known as cavity filtering.  A set of UHF cavities made to handle 50 watts is about the same size as that little toy shoe-box repeater you linked to in your post, and the tuning on most are loose enough to be used on any 2 adjacent channels.  You seem to want an 8 channel repeater - I still don't know why you need this.  This thing you linked to is only 10 Watts anyway.  Just use Simplex.
 
Interesting note: That Retivis repeater seems to be built into a re-purposed cable TV line amp box.
 
Lastly, please refrain from using non-appropriate language on this site.

Thank you for the clarification.  They really should do this like the commercial Midlands where MON defeats the RX tone, but keeps carrier squelch on.  That would solve everyone's problem.

Free is ALWAYS the right price.  ...and if your 213 is free, then you can afford to buy a slightly better antenna to make up for the loss.

Sorry, but that is not correct. Amateur repeaters (just like operators) are required to ID at the beginning of a transmission sequence, every 10 minutes during, and at the end of the transmission sequence.  If no further traffic is repeated, the machine may then sit silent until the next sequence begins.
 
Normally, when a ham repeater is first keyed up, or "cerchuncked", it will send an ID immediately. If no one then uses the machine, it will ID again in 10 minutes, then stay quiet.  If someone does use the machine, it will ID every 10 minutes during the conversation.  If the conversation ends after 27 minutes, then after an additional 3 minutes, the machine will send the final ID at the 30 minute time slot, then be silent until keyed up again.
 
For GMRS, there is nothing in the rules that require a repeater to ID, but the operators must.  Just for good measure, most repeater operators ID their machines as well.  I have mine set up just like a ham repeater, except the ID timer is set to 15 minutes rather than 10 minutes.  It stays silent until I key it up, then it will ID after the first transmission.  If I talk for 3 minutes, then sign off, it will stay quiet for 12 minutes, then send the final ID before going back quiet.
 
By the way, I use Bridgecom repeaters as you mentioned, and they already have this Morse ID function built-in.  At set-up, you type in your call sign, and set the ID timer for 10 or 15 minute intervals.

Sorry, but that is not correct. Amateur repeaters (just like operators) are required to ID at the beginning of a transmission sequence, every 10 minutes during, and at the end of the transmission sequence.  If no further traffic is repeated, the machine may then sit silent until the next sequence begins.
 
Normally, when a ham repeater is first keyed up, or "cerchuncked", it will send an ID immediately. If no one then uses the machine, it will ID again in 10 minutes, then stay quiet.  If someone does use the machine, it will ID every 10 minutes during the conversation.  If the conversation ends after 27 minutes, then after an additional 3 minutes, the machine will send the final ID at the 30 minute time slot, then be silent until keyed up again.
 
For GMRS, there is nothing in the rules that require a repeater to ID, but the operators must.  Just for good measure, most repeater operators ID their machines as well.  I have mine set up just like a ham repeater, except the ID timer is set to 15 minutes rather than 10 minutes.  It stays silent until I key it up, then it will ID after the first transmission.  If I talk for 3 minutes, then sign off, it will stay quiet for 12 minutes, then send the final ID before going back quiet.
 
By the way, I use Bridgecom repeaters as you mentioned, and they already have this Morse ID function built-in.  At set-up, you type in your call sign, and set the ID timer for 10 or 15 minute intervals.

Bird 43 with number 5E, 25E, and 50E slugs will cover GMRS nicely.   -pricey though.

I agree with RCM.
 
As I explained elsewhere on this site, too much gain is not a good thing on UHF.  You will wind up with such a narrow beam-width that you wont be able to hit the repeater when you are in close to it.
 
Antenna height is king.  You will get better results from a 3dB antenna at 100 feet than you would with a 12dB antenna at 50 feet... especially in hilly or mountainous terrain.

I wish there was a 100 likes button for that comment, RCM. I think it was spot on; especially the last sentence.

Good points.
I doubt the FCC will be revisiting GMRS rules anytime soon. They actually did a lot of good with their 2017 updates, and it has given the service a much needed infusion of new blood by easing some of the previous restrictions as well as making the license itself more affordable.
And yes, they did make a couple of rule changes that make little sense and pretty much (theoretically at least) kill the market for good quality new radios. But, then they compensated by making that statement about being aware of (and apparently not too concerned about) GMRS ops using Part 90 radios.
Which supports the points you made above.  I figure if they give a hoot about FPP-capable Part 95 radios (which they obviously don't on radios made before 2017, or they would not have granted type acceptance), they have thousands of users with non-type-accepted Baofengs to wade through before turning their attention to it.
 
I also figure anyone who contacts them to ask about it will get whatever answer they figure is most likely to make the questioner go away and leave them alone.

Hey Elk Hunter, Here's a little more information for you, for when you get your ham license...
 
The standard offset for UHF repeaters is +5 MHz from the receive frequency.  That goes for ham, GMRS, and commercial. NOTE: The standard is not always followed, but for the most part, it is.
 
On VHF, there is no standard for offsets on commercial repeaters, and they seem to be all over the road. The standard offset for VHF (2-Meter) ham repeaters is 600KHz, or 0.6MHz.
Another tidbit: The standard (again not always followed, but mostly) is that ham repeaters above 147 MHz use a positive offset, and those below 147MHz use a negative offset. Thus, you will see repeaters like 146.820- (in which your transmit frequency would be 146.220) or 147.060+ (which you would transmit into at 147.660).
 
I hope this is useful information for you. -73