Greetings, all. New to radio. Really new, I've been toying with the idea of getting into it for a couple of years, and finally broke down and ordered a bunch of Baofeng 888S's (I'm on a tight budget). While my usage will partially be communication between my wife and I while camping, I also intend to use them on the road (with mag mount antennas as mobile devices), and what I'd really like to get away from is using cellphones for the usual "I'm on my way home, do I need to stop at the store and pick up whiskey?" (Like I don't know if we have whiskey at home or not). Researched the hell out of GMRS online, got licensed, have seen all the verbal battles about 90 or 95 compliance, blister packs, blah, blah, I get all that. I'm going fully legal and fully courteous. Also probably going to take the ham Technician test next month. So all that aside, to communicate the way I want to, I'm probably going to need to use a repeater, and there is one here locally that is open, and I WILL ask permission first. I don't know how. I simply don't get it, as far as how to set up the radios as far as programming, how you actually transmit and receive with a repeater, really bonehead stuff that should probably be easy. Most discussions that get close to discussing this on forums degenerate into the legalities or illegalities of equipment, whether GMRS is viable for the future, etc.. I'm just looking for some simple procedural and mechanical basics. Oh, and I'm aware the 888's are programmed illegally with a bunch of frequencies I'm not even interested in, so I'm re- programming them straight GMRS. Thanks for your help, Dave