berkinet

Since Amateur Radio is officially designated as a service (Part97)  by the FCC I cannot imagine your city is using the term with any generality. I see two options:
A) talk to the city anyway and see what they say.
or
get a Tech HAM license, build your tower and mount a GMRS antenna on it.  You wouldn't ever have to own a single piece of HAM equipment.
 
BTW, the downside of asking first is once they have officially said no, you are totally out of luck.  I suggest you go with plan "B."

How about video?  I found this on YouTube: https://youtu.be/DAQYfpETDdM

Well, actually you were questioning the rules. And, IMO, it was a legitimate and fair question and a question others here might also have. Unless we ask questions, how else can we learn how and why things are, and what we can, should and shouldn't change.

I think it would be best if members of this forum kept their political views to themselves and stuck to the topics this board was created to support.

Yes. I have seen some on Amazon that claim up to two watts on 22 channels. 
However, I was wondering what regulation you were citing in your comment that it would be illegal to speak Spanish on FRS? There is a requirement that GMRS station IDs be made in English or Morse code. But, the only other reference I can find to language in Part95 is in subpart-A - General Rules for the Personal Radio Services
 

Plain language voice communications. Voice communications without codes or coded messages intended to provide a hidden meaning. Foreign languages and commonly known radio operating words and phrases, such as “ten four” and “roger,” not intended to provide a hidden meaning, are not considered codes or coded messages.

I think you are reading things into the rules that are neither written nor implied. 95.1705(d)(2) & (3) do not, per-se, establish open and closed​ repeaters. They just say an operator may limit access to a repeater.  Similarly, 95.1751©(1) uses the phrase under authority of.... That is not the same as saying only those that have been specifically allowed.  If my repeater is open to all GMRS users, they transmissions through the repeater still operate under the authority of my license.  As I noted previously, the decision to have a repeater ID or not is really up to the repeater operator since they are the one(s) who will have to answer to the FCC for any violations.
 
As you stated above, That's my take on this... other opinions and translations may vary.    

I think there is an ongoing impression, especially amongst people new to GMRS,  that repeaters are somehow part of GMRS and generally available to licensed GMRS users and that this site, or any other, is somehow involved.
 
It has been posted here before, but perhaps it needs to be made sticky, that:
A GMRS license includes the right to use simplex communications on all 22 GMRS channels, subject to the published power and bandwidth limitations. While a licensee also has the right to operate a repeater, the license does not include the right to use other repeaters. Any such access, if permitted, must be done in accordance with the operating practices set by the repeater owner. 

Maybe I am the only one, but I am confused about the purpose of this ongoing rant. Complaints on an online forum are not going to change anything. If you want change, file a Petition for Rulemaking with the FCC. Then get people to support your petition.
 
But, to the points you raise. First, about GMRS radios themselves: Some of your facts are wrong or off target, there is no need for a -5 MHz (not KHz) offset on a GMRS radio. There are only 8 repeater input frequencies defined and those are all 5MHz higher than the 8 defined repeater input frequencies. And, the number of internal memory locations (aka "channels) that a given user needs is very difficult to determine. Probably more than 22, but 180? Zello? Zello works just fine without a GMRS radio at all. But, Zello is an Internet (IP) based app, which means anything that connects to Zello needs an Internet connection. But, you also suggest GMRS should work when away from any cellular infrastructure. So, how is your Zello equipped GMRS radio supposed to connect to Zello when you are in the middle of nowhere? And you complaint about morse code, I really don't know what that is about? We live in a free market economic system. Manufacturers are free to offer products they feel will meet customer and investor needs. You have a choice. And, if you don't like the certified GMRS products you can choose from, there are plenty of other options, from super-cheap CCRs to super-high end Part-90 commercial equipment.
 
Technical questions aside, your major complaint seems to be about licensing fees. Here again I think you are off base. Many services, especially commercial, marine, aviation, LMR, broadcast, common carrier, cellular, etc. have licensing fees and they are often quite expensive. At $7 a year, GMRS is cheap by comparison. Yes, it is more than Amateur. But, Amateur radio is also considered a public service, with a long history and International agreements. And, what difference does it make who you pay a licensing fee to the FCC, the ARRL, a local radio club or whatever? But, even here you are not current. There is now a proposal in the FCC to lower GMRS licensing fees to $50 and add a fee for Amateur radio. The reason? It appears federal law requires fees be set to recover costs. The GMRS fee was bringing in too much money, ham radio was bringing in nothing.
 
You also object to being taxed on your GMRS radio, but have no issue with the FCC requiring a cell phone company to offer a GMRS repeater service on every tower for free. When you consider the equipment and installation costs, plus administration and maintenance costs, are you willing to pay for that every month when Verizon and AT&T raise your bill to cover their costs? There is no free lunch.
 
Ok, you obviously feel strongly about something, otherwise you wouldn't have started this topic and posted 7 follow-up comments. But, it is really hard to understand just what it is you are complaining about and what you think should be done about it. Can you succinctly state the top 5 high level problems you see with GMRS today, the reasons you think those are problems, and 5 proposed solutions.

Personally, I like this idea. However, I suspect it will be controversial. May I suggest that rather than adding this to the official repeater listing, you could create a thread in the Private Discussion topic to report member discoveries.  In that case, other members with more information, like the owner does not want it used by others, or it is officially open, etc. could also contribute.

For anyone else who, like me, if not familiar with these radios. I was curious about the differences between the XPR7550 and the XPR7550e and found this video. https://youtu.be/5AgLIEgFG-w

Maybe I am the only one, but I am confused about the purpose of this ongoing rant. Complaints on an online forum are not going to change anything. If you want change, file a Petition for Rulemaking with the FCC. Then get people to support your petition.
 
But, to the points you raise. First, about GMRS radios themselves: Some of your facts are wrong or off target, there is no need for a -5 MHz (not KHz) offset on a GMRS radio. There are only 8 repeater input frequencies defined and those are all 5MHz higher than the 8 defined repeater input frequencies. And, the number of internal memory locations (aka "channels) that a given user needs is very difficult to determine. Probably more than 22, but 180? Zello? Zello works just fine without a GMRS radio at all. But, Zello is an Internet (IP) based app, which means anything that connects to Zello needs an Internet connection. But, you also suggest GMRS should work when away from any cellular infrastructure. So, how is your Zello equipped GMRS radio supposed to connect to Zello when you are in the middle of nowhere? And you complaint about morse code, I really don't know what that is about? We live in a free market economic system. Manufacturers are free to offer products they feel will meet customer and investor needs. You have a choice. And, if you don't like the certified GMRS products you can choose from, there are plenty of other options, from super-cheap CCRs to super-high end Part-90 commercial equipment.
 
Technical questions aside, your major complaint seems to be about licensing fees. Here again I think you are off base. Many services, especially commercial, marine, aviation, LMR, broadcast, common carrier, cellular, etc. have licensing fees and they are often quite expensive. At $7 a year, GMRS is cheap by comparison. Yes, it is more than Amateur. But, Amateur radio is also considered a public service, with a long history and International agreements. And, what difference does it make who you pay a licensing fee to the FCC, the ARRL, a local radio club or whatever? But, even here you are not current. There is now a proposal in the FCC to lower GMRS licensing fees to $50 and add a fee for Amateur radio. The reason? It appears federal law requires fees be set to recover costs. The GMRS fee was bringing in too much money, ham radio was bringing in nothing.
 
You also object to being taxed on your GMRS radio, but have no issue with the FCC requiring a cell phone company to offer a GMRS repeater service on every tower for free. When you consider the equipment and installation costs, plus administration and maintenance costs, are you willing to pay for that every month when Verizon and AT&T raise your bill to cover their costs? There is no free lunch.
 
Ok, you obviously feel strongly about something, otherwise you wouldn't have started this topic and posted 7 follow-up comments. But, it is really hard to understand just what it is you are complaining about and what you think should be done about it. Can you succinctly state the top 5 high level problems you see with GMRS today, the reasons you think those are problems, and 5 proposed solutions.

Is it legal? NO. Has anyone ever been prosecuted? Probably not. My own thought is use of a non certified radio on GMRS is probably not a primary offense. That is, the FCC is extremely unlikely to come after you for this reason alone. In fact, if the radio is operating properly there’s is no way anyone could tell it was not certified just by monitoring it. However, if the FCC had other reasons to go after you, like spurious transmissions, too much power, being a nuisance or other observable violations. Then, they would probably add a charge for use of a non-certified radio to whatever else they were pursuing.
 
That is 100% my personal view and does not reflect this site or, possibly, even my view tomorrow.

And... there is another solution that probably deserves its own topic. Remote access to a radio through the use of USB port sharing over Internet. The software I am most familiar with is VirtualHere (not related to VirtualBox). This software would let someone connect a radio to their local machine (Linux, Windows or MacOS) and then share it over the net so someone remote, with the proper software/skills, could program the radio.
 
I have personally used this scheme to program some Motorola radios using the Motorola programming software. We also use this same scheme to access our MTR2000 repeater should we need to make changes. In the case of the repeater, we run VirtualHere on a Raspberry-Pi. Works great.

Personally, I like this idea. However, I suspect it will be controversial. May I suggest that rather than adding this to the official repeater listing, you could create a thread in the Private Discussion topic to report member discoveries.  In that case, other members with more information, like the owner does not want it used by others, or it is officially open, etc. could also contribute.

I would suggest an addition to the repeater listings that would allow some degree of crowd sourcing of current status. In other words, let users add something like a QSL card or signal report. It could be simply binary as did or did not work. Or, it could be more detailed. Location at the time of the report, signal strength, etc.
 
Then, "last verified access" could be added to the repeater report page and, possibly, people could search on, reported active in the last: 30, 60, 90 days, etc.
 
In the signal report it might also be possible to report if anything differed from the listing, like Frequency, PL, or location. The specific information would not be given, except in the case of a fully-open repeater. But, at least other users would know there had been a change.
 
And, finally. The owner could receive an, optional, email each time a signal report was received.
 
In any case, the basic point is even if the owners do not update their listings, other users could help a bit.

Practice what you will use. Use what you practiced.
 
Even if people would be allowed to use the radio in an emergency, they will not have had any practice.
GMRS is fine for the technology (in spite of what some hams will tell you). You just have to manage the licensing. And, now that it is $3.50 a year....

I would agree ham radio can probably be safely classified as a hobby. But, I would not make the same statement about GMRS. Yes, for some GMRS is a hobby. But, as @wayoverthere notes, probably a greater percentage of MyGMRS members than of the general GMRS population fit that description. 
 
Look at the history and licensing to get a feel for what GMRS is. It's roots were as a business service, and those early licenses are still grand-fathered in, and business use is still perfectly legal on GMRS. Licensing is by family unit, not individuals. This encourages use of GMRS as a practical communications tool, rather than as a hobby.  Another point of comparison is repeaters. GMRS repeaters are limited to 8 frequency pairs, have no coordinating body, and commonly share frequencies using PL, etc. to control access. GMRS repeaters tend to be used for short, task oriented communications and less for rag chewing. So, sharing channels works well. Ham radio, with frequency coordinators, etc. seeks to limit the number of repeaters in an area to avoid interference.
 
There are many other differences, but I think I have covered the main points.  But, I would add one more thing. Where is it written that either as a hobby, or a personal communications tool, that getting people interested in two-way radio is, or even should be, a commonly agreed upon or shared objective?  I think that is an admirable goal. But, I would also not fault someone who did not share that goal.

I would suggest an addition to the repeater listings that would allow some degree of crowd sourcing of current status. In other words, let users add something like a QSL card or signal report. It could be simply binary as did or did not work. Or, it could be more detailed. Location at the time of the report, signal strength, etc.
 
Then, "last verified access" could be added to the repeater report page and, possibly, people could search on, reported active in the last: 30, 60, 90 days, etc.
 
In the signal report it might also be possible to report if anything differed from the listing, like Frequency, PL, or location. The specific information would not be given, except in the case of a fully-open repeater. But, at least other users would know there had been a change.
 
And, finally. The owner could receive an, optional, email each time a signal report was received.
 
In any case, the basic point is even if the owners do not update their listings, other users could help a bit.

By, "sent a message" do you mean you transmitted from your radio and spoke your call sign? Or, did you do something else?

Amen!

Maybe I am the only one, but I am confused about the purpose of this ongoing rant. Complaints on an online forum are not going to change anything. If you want change, file a Petition for Rulemaking with the FCC. Then get people to support your petition.
 
But, to the points you raise. First, about GMRS radios themselves: Some of your facts are wrong or off target, there is no need for a -5 MHz (not KHz) offset on a GMRS radio. There are only 8 repeater input frequencies defined and those are all 5MHz higher than the 8 defined repeater input frequencies. And, the number of internal memory locations (aka "channels) that a given user needs is very difficult to determine. Probably more than 22, but 180? Zello? Zello works just fine without a GMRS radio at all. But, Zello is an Internet (IP) based app, which means anything that connects to Zello needs an Internet connection. But, you also suggest GMRS should work when away from any cellular infrastructure. So, how is your Zello equipped GMRS radio supposed to connect to Zello when you are in the middle of nowhere? And you complaint about morse code, I really don't know what that is about? We live in a free market economic system. Manufacturers are free to offer products they feel will meet customer and investor needs. You have a choice. And, if you don't like the certified GMRS products you can choose from, there are plenty of other options, from super-cheap CCRs to super-high end Part-90 commercial equipment.
 
Technical questions aside, your major complaint seems to be about licensing fees. Here again I think you are off base. Many services, especially commercial, marine, aviation, LMR, broadcast, common carrier, cellular, etc. have licensing fees and they are often quite expensive. At $7 a year, GMRS is cheap by comparison. Yes, it is more than Amateur. But, Amateur radio is also considered a public service, with a long history and International agreements. And, what difference does it make who you pay a licensing fee to the FCC, the ARRL, a local radio club or whatever? But, even here you are not current. There is now a proposal in the FCC to lower GMRS licensing fees to $50 and add a fee for Amateur radio. The reason? It appears federal law requires fees be set to recover costs. The GMRS fee was bringing in too much money, ham radio was bringing in nothing.
 
You also object to being taxed on your GMRS radio, but have no issue with the FCC requiring a cell phone company to offer a GMRS repeater service on every tower for free. When you consider the equipment and installation costs, plus administration and maintenance costs, are you willing to pay for that every month when Verizon and AT&T raise your bill to cover their costs? There is no free lunch.
 
Ok, you obviously feel strongly about something, otherwise you wouldn't have started this topic and posted 7 follow-up comments. But, it is really hard to understand just what it is you are complaining about and what you think should be done about it. Can you succinctly state the top 5 high level problems you see with GMRS today, the reasons you think those are problems, and 5 proposed solutions.

I found a YouTube video on configuring the VX-231. According to Vertex
From January 1st in 2013, if the USA version is used for the radio programming in the following frequency range, the CE programmer automatically/forcedly programs the radio with 12.5 kHz width. In addition, once the USA version is used for programming (even the programmer was used before that date), the radio is marked electrically in the radio memory that the radio is sold/used for the USA (NA) market, and this marking cannot be erased.
 
However, that same announcement also says there is a way to reset the radio:
The software tool is “Wide_Band_Recovery_Tool_1_00”. Located via VSOL > Resource Center > Technical Information > General Information.
 
So far I have been able to locate the international version of the programming software for the VX-264. But not the Wide_Band recovery software.  I have also read that even with the recovery software, it must be used with a genuine Vertex FIF-12 cable ($150).
 
I have already bought a VX-264 and BlueMax49ers cable on eBay, due to arrive Saturday. So, I will report back on what happens when I try to re-program the radio.
 
In the meantime, any tips/pointers most welcomed.

Update:  Thanks to @Radioguy7268 my first VX-264 is on the air in wide-band mode.
 
Some notes for those who may follow...
My Vertex Standard branded VX-264 with firmware 2.07 just arrived today and I used the Motorola CS150 v5.01 international version software to program it.
 
To switch the radio to accept wide-band channel settings I used the Wide_Band_Recovery_Tool software v1.03. (This is not available from Motorola but, thanks to Radioguy7268, I can share a copy with anyone who needs it.)  NOTE: with the VX-261/264 radios you must use v1.03,  v1.02 does not support them.
 
I did not use, though I have ordered one, the FIF-12 programming adapter. Instead, I used the <$20 CT-106p cable from BlueMax49ers. 
 
Extras: I do not own any windows machines so I used a Win-7 VM in VirtualBox for the wide-band recovery and programming. Also, as my MacBook only has USB-C ports, I used a USB-A to USB-C adapter.
 
So far I am very pleased with the radio and find it almost ideal suited for CERT type applications.

Thanks... Bit the bullet and ordered:
FIF-12A - Motorola Vertex Standard USB PROGRAM CABLE PC I/F AAJ23X501 1 @ $105.03
CT-106 - Motorola Vertex Standard Programming Cable AAD68X501 1 @ $29.25
 
According to Wisscom the CT-106 is required to connect the FIF-12A to the VX-264.
 
BTW, v1.03 of the recovery tool is online at communications.support in this thread. However, attachments cannot be accessed until after some probationary period and some minimal number of posts, so I can't download it, yet.

I would agree ham radio can probably be safely classified as a hobby. But, I would not make the same statement about GMRS. Yes, for some GMRS is a hobby. But, as @wayoverthere notes, probably a greater percentage of MyGMRS members than of the general GMRS population fit that description. 
 
Look at the history and licensing to get a feel for what GMRS is. It's roots were as a business service, and those early licenses are still grand-fathered in, and business use is still perfectly legal on GMRS. Licensing is by family unit, not individuals. This encourages use of GMRS as a practical communications tool, rather than as a hobby.  Another point of comparison is repeaters. GMRS repeaters are limited to 8 frequency pairs, have no coordinating body, and commonly share frequencies using PL, etc. to control access. GMRS repeaters tend to be used for short, task oriented communications and less for rag chewing. So, sharing channels works well. Ham radio, with frequency coordinators, etc. seeks to limit the number of repeaters in an area to avoid interference.
 
There are many other differences, but I think I have covered the main points.  But, I would add one more thing. Where is it written that either as a hobby, or a personal communications tool, that getting people interested in two-way radio is, or even should be, a commonly agreed upon or shared objective?  I think that is an admirable goal. But, I would also not fault someone who did not share that goal.