WRYB563

This sounds like a good reason for folks to get their ham ticket, and possibly a DMR radio. Linked repeaters and phone patches were great in the pre-cell phone days, and now DMR lets you connect to anywhere in the world from a repeater or hotspot.

Actually, just the opposite. The +5 is relative to your receive frequency. You listen on the 462 frequency and transmit 5 up.

I think that some GMRS users might be happier with a cell phone service instead of a radio service. With a cell phone you can talk to exactly who you want, when you want, and you don’t have to listen to anyone else. With a radio service it is a shared space where others may talk about things that you aren’t interested in.

Wow is short for, “Thank you for explaining the issue with hams on GMRS.” The issue is not the hams.

I think there may be a misunderstanding of what GMRS is for - it's for any kind of conversation, not just intra-family communication. The two operators having a discussion had just as much right to be talking on that frequency as your family. Now, if your wife had emergency traffic, that's a completely different situation, but otherwise it's first come-first served. It would have been considerate to allow your wife to break in, but not obligatory. There is no requirement to limit the duration of a conversation on GMRS, only that a station must identify every 15 minutes. Wow.

The broader point. From my limited experience on GMRS, talking about radios is not uncommon - either from hams who are interested in radios, or new non-ham GMRS operators who want to learn more about their new hobby, and non-hams GMRS operators who enjoy using their radios and want to learn more about ham radio. I agree with Steve, that behavior is independent of radio service, so how are hams negatively impacting GMRS?

Call me confused, but how is discussing antennas uncomfortable for families?

I've read comments like this in several posts, and seen it in different videos - what does this mean? What is the difference in etiquette on a ham repeater vs. a GMRS repeater?

Because that's not how people talk when they're in person. The best way to get them to learn how to do it is to demonstrate it.

I bought a 6-pack of Retevis RB-19Ps for the family and am very happy with them. They're small and simple to operate but have decent range. With the USB C charging capability, I leave one on in my car all the time.

Thanks, that's a great review. I think I'll pass on this one. Mike

I'm thinking of getting this radio. How do you like it now that you've had it for a while?

I have a couple of Retevis RB17Ps that have trouble receiving. Basically, they act as though I'm using tone squelch or the squelch is set too high. I've compared them to an RB19P listening to the same repeater. The RB19P will hear the repeater while the RB17P just sits there. I've checked the programming and confirmed that I haven't set a tone squelch. I usually program the RB18Ps with chirp. When I program with the Retevis software, some of the data gets corrupted - like the custom channel name for channel 17. Has anyone else had this issue, and were you able to fix it? Thanks. Mike, WRYB563

That's what I was afraid of! Thanks. Mike

I just received my GMRS license and bout a set of Midland GTX1000's. I'd like to use these radios with local repeaters which use CTCSS tones. Is there any way to change the channels in the radio to allow us to access those repeaters, or do I need to return them? Thanks. Mike