WRXN668

True. Precision costs money. The trifecta of Surecom/TinySA/NanoVNA costs less than 10% of even cheap used professional instruments, but for someone with only a technician license like me that level of verification is adequate for what I'm going to do with radio at this point. This should hold even more true for GMRS licensees given the power and frequency limitations. The cheap tools are enough to keep me from burning up my radio and to confirm that I'm likely radiating enough to talk regionally, which frankly was all I could really ask for anyway. And to be frank about it on the flipside and back to the stated reason for the thread, if you're a GMRS user and you feel that you need this level of precision, you're probably better off getting your amateur license and leveling-up. That's when the hobby has shifted from using it as a way to assist a larger hobby into itself being a larger hobby. If you're not into radio for the sake of being into radio then you probably don't need to go beyond the cheap commodity tools. You can set up your four wheel drive for decent SWR and signal propagation with those cheap tools. When you're ready to do more only then spend more.

Thing is it's gotten SOOO much cheaper than it used to be. I have a Bird 43 wattmeter with a 400-1000MHz 250W slug and a Bird 200W dummy load that I got when a paging company that I worked at went under. I didn't know what that stuff cost, they basically couldn't pay me for the vacation days I'd accrued and said to raid what was left of the testing lab I was helping take down for whatever I wanted. A slug alone for the wattmeter is something like $200 new, frequently go for $50-$150 used, and you have to select for fairly narrow frequency ranges and power levels. And for that dummy load, Bird wants $2000 for them new. On the used market they go for more like 10% of the new price, but that's still a lot of money. These modern TinySAs and NanoVNCs and Surecoms in their $50-$200 price ranges didn't exist when I initially got licensed, it was a much bigger crapshoot if your install had a good SWR, or you had to know another ham or a radio engineer willing to test with their equipment. Sure, you still might end up with two or three test tools, a motley assortment of cabling and adapters because of course radio manufacturers can't pick a standard and stick to it, and if things weren't working to your satisfaction, more and more stuff to try to sort out why it wasn't working through simple trial and error. Now you can buy the tools to ensure that your mobile or base station is working optimally for the cost of a night out on the town. GAS in inevitable in any hobby, but it's a little easier for a radio hobby now when one can verify instead of having to buy more basic transmission equipment.

I can't answer definitively or through my own experience, but many that have fairly recently taken exams described taking a lower-level exam first, and after passing being offered to take a higher level exam. Like, they took Technician, and then sat for General even though they hadn't signed up specifically to do so because the proctors offered it. Someone sitting for General described then sitting for Extra because it was offered. My own Technician license was tested-for and received more than twenty years ago, I don't recall that sort of thing being the case back then, but then again this was only just after the morse code 'Tech Plus' was dropped, and there might still have been a morse code requirement for General, and if I told the test proctors that then they probably wouldn't have even offered me a General exam. Given that this was back before most people even had Internet access and those few who did had dialup, there might have been more interest generally in the hobby to where there wasn't yet a desire to lower the barriers more than the morse code situation for the entry-level license. Passing Technician back then was almost trivially easy. I expect that it's no worse today, and frankly that many GMRS users would actually be happier as hams with more bands, spectrum within bands, and power available to them.

Sometimes that's a good thing. If your intention is to communicate with only a predefined small group then a quiet band means not having to change frequencies.

I'm not seeing who's ... smarter ... based on this. Back to the an above-board answer to your original question that spawned this thread. The questions for Technician, General, and Amateur Extra are all defined and openly published, along with the answer list and correct answer. If you truly want to pass, you can literally self-teach to the test. If you're the kind of person that has good memory retention based on physically writing things down then you could, for example, print out the full list of questions and just the correct answers, then transpose those questions and correct answers in your own handwriting in order to memorize those answers. If you want to make a general study of the curriculum available that is of course up to you, and it isn't a bad idea to do that if you want to get into operating on multiple bands in multiple modes with multiple types of antennas either, but if you just want to get started to operate on a particular band with a particular off-the-shelf kit within the rules for that band, it should be easy enough even if you haven't gone through the theory.

Can we not argue over the validity of equipment to use on GMRS in the ham radio subforum please?

What sort of power do you have available to you with your radios, and what sort of range does that give you? Years ago my job had me driving a cargo van as a tech services van. On 2m I was able to talk from Mesa to someone up in Cave Creek or Carefree (can't remember which) on a 5W HT with only a cheap mag-mount antenna on the roof of the van. Longer wavelengths mean longer range typically, and longer wavelengths often translate into sky wave propagation, a phenomenon that doesn't seem to be as common as wavelengths shorten. If I had gotten into GMRS back in the early noughties then I too might not have gotten licensed, but the options for real range on simplex with comparatively low power levels make amateur radio very attractive for anyone who doesn't want to have to research repeaters as one travels. And the sheer amount of spectrum available to amateur radio operators means they can find clear frequencies and avoid congestion. If what I've read elsewhere is true, GMRS is even starting to suffer repeater congestion in some places, where there aren't any upper-number channels left and where private-club repeater networks don't allow for non-members to operate them. Amateur doesn't suffer this congestion. For me as a ham, GMRS offers me a good way to talk to my family without everyone having to qualify for their own licenses and potentially to GMRS-licensed friends at comparatively short range. I'm not especially interested in GMRS repeaters. I'm certainly not looking to turn GMRS into ham-lite even though I'm probably in the minority on this forum. I just want to use GMRS for communications among my specific group when cellular is impossible or inconvenient. I can leverage the knowledge I gained as a ham to set up GMRS radios effectively as well. A friend and I are talking about 6m. He has some old Part-90 radios that his dad, also a ham, had set up for 6m years and years ago. The dad isn't operating much anymore and plans to give these to his son, and he in-turn wants to give one to me. We'll see what we can do with them. I'm living in Tempe now and he lives way down into Gilbert, so we can see what kind of range and clarity we'll get out of using 'em depending on antenna selection.

http://www.eagle-antenna.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=70&products_id=282 So there's at least one quad-band antenna that will work with it. The 6m band is more interesting to me than the 1.25m band. It's not that I'm opposed to operating on 222MHz, but I don't see 1.25m offering anything that I couldn't get with a dual-bander 2m o4r 70cm. 6m offers range and possibly nearly HF range if solar conditions are right. EDIT: yes, it's an HT, but I have used an HT with a roof-mount antenna for more results than just handheld.

Perhaps, but given the sheer number of things people can choose to do with their time, it's no surprise if people opt to use their time elsewhere and to opt for an easy method of communication. If one wishes to bring more hobbyists into the fold that wouldn't have otherwise been interested is to show how the hobby could be valuable to them for their other interests. If amateur radio or really any other hobby does nothing but navel-gaze (ie, using ham radio just to talk about ham radio) then it's not going to appeal to a broader audience. However if a whole lot of people get into a hobby because it benefits them in other ways, then some will start enjoying that hobby for its own sake, or may even be able to tailor their other hobbies into supporting this one. Field Day is a perfect example. Someone who's interested in camping might well choose to go camping that weekend, in a nice high remote spot away from most other people, and to occupy some of their time they might well set up a station and try to make contacts. They enjoyed camping before, but now they've added a new reason to go camping. This may well be similar to those who go camping to go stargazing in a dark-sky region, or to camp in order to look at wildlife, or to hunt, or to make an amateur study of geology.

The nature of the thread was a foregone conclusion.

It doesn't help that the amateur community both doesn't understand what a potential younger operator wants, or that some of their terminology irrespective of actual operations isn't helping either. I'm in my forties, I grew up with BBSes before the Internet was generally available to consumers, and even back then we had Fidonet through some BBSes to exchange e-mail and forums across the globe. Granted, it took days for post to propagate across the entire net as BBSes only synchronized their messages overnight in waves, but even back then we could communicate with other people at distance without having to install massive antennas, buy expensive radios, and pass exams. Commercial services like Prodigy, Compuserve, and AOL started making it easier for the average person to get online, and then home Internet access made that easier still, with access to Usenet and then to web-based forums. And then cell phones became cheap and Internet connected. My point here is that well-equipped radio shacks and rotating boom antennas for General and Amateur Extra licenses are not going to appeal to someone that isn't already interested in radio communications. They already have other ways of achieving communications at the sorts of distances that MF and HF radios provide. There's not a lot of appeal to an outsider to sit at a desk or bench or console to operate radios. It probably doesn't help that amateur radio has been around for so long that it has established its own vernacular that is weird and foreign to outsiders, up to and including the language for those who would assist new operators. Elmers? Really? Who even wants to be referred to as an Elmer, let alone seek-out the assistance of a person whose informal title sounds more like glue or an inept cartoon character? Despite already being on the cusp of cell phones I got into amateur radio in the early noughties because I had friends into ham radio, the cost to get into it was low, the test was comparatively easy, the utility was good for person-to-person and vehicle-to-vehicle communications outside of cell coverage or when cell would result in excessive roaming charges, and radios that would serve these purposes were fairly inexpensive. If GMRS had been popular back then, it might well have been a better solution since the lack of test would have been an even lower barrier to entry and it would probably have been easier to convince friends to get in on it. If the existing amateur community wants to bring new operators into the fold, they need to look at how amateur radio will benefit those new operators. And the thing is, the way the amateur licenses are structured this is actually directly in-line with that tiering system. Technician class only just touches on HF and for only a very limited use, the class is largely structured towards local to regional communications. This automatically precludes worldwide communications since Technician-class operators can't use bands good for worldwide communications anyway. So what sorts of things are local and regional communications good for? Pretty much stuff where the communications are outside of cell service or for those who still aren't yet able to use cell phones. Caravans/convoys where the group needs to communicate. Four wheeling groups that want to communicate. Four-wheeling spotters on difficult obstacles. Hikers in groups that either get strung-out along a trail or split-up. Families that go recreating in the wilderness and may split up. Groups that drive-up separately to four-wheeling or camping and want to meet-up. Even recreational boating on large lakes where there could be cove/shore/beach camping that needs to be coordinated. And of course there could be advantages for emergencies away from cell coverage, depending on how popular a given service is within a region. GMRS is a nice entry-point, more power than FRS for a little more range, but ultimately range-limited due to the choice of band. GMRS now is what CB was intended to be early on, but while CB suffers because of the choice of an HF band that makes it ripe for abuse, GMRS has an upper bound on range almost no matter how much power someone would try to pump into their signal. CB was supposed to be regional but it was too easy to make go further, GMRS doesn't have that problem. Amateur Radio Technician Class would be an excellent next step for those who've been big into GMRS but have found its technical and regulatory limits to be too constrictive. Multiple bands for less congestion, much further simplex range with similar equipment costs and power output, greater possible power output within the rules. Those going outside of cell coverage can talk further. And the advent of digital means they can use technologies that can transmit GPS information and other packet radio data for things like beaconing/locating, both for casual meeting-up and for emergency locating. Sure, it requires everyone to have passed the test and to have equipment operating on the same bands and modes, but that equipment has become far cheaper than it used to be and the range can be phenomenal. On Field Day last weekend down in Phoenix I was talking to someone up near Flagstaff on a 25 year old mobile 2m 50W radio that I had just bought and was powering off of a cigarette lighter adapter with a mag-mount antenna with cable pinched through a car door. I have no doubt that the other operator's station had a really fancy antenna and the benefit of altitude and skip-wave for us to reach each other, but it was pretty amazing considering I had done nothing special at my end at all. It was eye-opening to my wife, she's now looking at getting licensed too. Get people initially licensed into the hobby by giving them a reason to do it. After it's demonstrated useful, some subset will look at upgrading licenses. Some will look at longer distance communications for the novelty of it. But that only works once potential operators have gotten over the hump of it being useful to them to begin with and embraced it as something that already suits their own purposes. If the existing older amateur community can understand that and try to cater towards those groups, that will help to make new hams much more than demonstrating communications across oceans or elaborate ham shacks at home.

I have no intention of going GROL, even though there are positions at my employer that could benefit, they would be a step down from my current role. My wife may be willing to get her ham tech license, if only because it means that two adults could operate all of the equipment.

I haven't looked into GROL myself, but it sounded like from what he said that a port-based business that uses radio communication with ships would similarly need equipment installed and maintained by someone with such a license, and depending on the size of the operation it might behoove them to have such a person on staff. This was in the PNW and there are commercial ports, so 20-30 years ago before ubiquitous cellphones this may particularly have made sense even for ships in port.

I was talking about amateur radio with a coworker and another coworker mentioned these classes of license, turns out he has one. Basically his is for maritime operations predominantly as he was living in a port city at the time he was in trade school. It's a perpetual license so never expires even if he hasn't used it. Ostensibly it's for things like ship-to-ship, ship-to-shore, that sort.

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