WRYZ926

The KG935G is my favorite GMRS HT.

I have to agree. I hold both and don't want to see GMRS turn into HAM LITE. The Elmers around me are more than willing to help anyone no matter if they hold an amateur license, GMRS license or both. I too am happy to help others. We have one member of our amateur radio club that is happy with just having his GMRS license for right now. We have been helping him get setup for mobile and a base station.

It does depend on what part of the country you are in. 2m and 70cm is pretty active here in Missouri. But no one uses 6m or 1.25m (220MHz) around here. There are weekly nets on different repeaters within a 100 mile radius of me on every night except Friday and Saturday nights. Plus there are the rag chewers on all the time too.

Thank you for that info. Maybe someone more local to you (or the repeater) can help you out.

@Sheldon what is your location, or the location of the repeater you are trying to use?

20 to 25 miles can be a stretch for handhelds on GMRS and 70cm bands. Our club's repeaters are on a tower 21.5 miles away. The 2m and 70cm repeater antennas are at 900 feet and the GMRS repeater antennas are at 400 feet. I can get into the GMRS repeater with a handheld when outside but not while inside my house. I can't get into the 70cm repeater at all on a handheld. And it is hit or miss getting into the 2m repeater inside my house but is no problem outside.

Hopefully I was helpful and you get your radio working.

You want to set the tones and talk on the repeater channel. Repeater channel 6 is setup with the correct offsets whereas Channel 20 is not since it is a simplex only channel.

The IC-5100 is another one that can be modded. I know guys that have done it and the mod works fine.

I am running my Comet CA-712 with a 32 foot run of LMR400 Ultra flex. The base of my antenna is about 18 feet above ground.

There are a few Icom radios that can have the MARS Mod done which will allow them to transmit on GMRS. The IC-7300 is NOT one of them though. I will let others discuss the actual legalities of doing such modifications.

I primarily use GMRS to talk to family and friends. I find that I use 2m/70cm the same way just to talk to family and friends. We have been testing our GMRS repeater for the last month or two. So it has been used to talk to friends in the local amateur radio club. Along with using the repeater, we have also been testing on simplex channels too. Our GMRS repeater will be opened up for public use soon. It will be for general public use and also as another means of communication during an actual emergency.

I have been pleased with the performance of the Comet CA-712 and also with the other Comet antennas I have. In addition to the GP9 and CA-712 above my roof, I have a 16" dual band SBB1NMO on my Ford Escape and a 2x4SRNMO on my Honda Pioneer 500 SxS.

I will admit that it has been a while since I messed with Linux. But you shouldn't have any problems if you follow the instructions on the web page that Sshannon linked to above.

@wrci350 ny post was not directed towards you. I was making a general statement for all new GMRS users.

Think of the signal as a beam. I'll use two of my antennas as examples. I have a Comet GP9 (9db) and a Comet CA-712EFC (6db). Yes the GP9 has higher dB but it also concentrates the signal in a narrower "beam" when compared to the CA-712. The GP9 works better for longer distances over flatter terrain while the CA-712 works better getting around different terrain.

Most people will use CHIRP to program, especially for Baofeng radios. CHIRP is open source and very popular. It also works with a lot of different radios. I personally find the Wouxun software easier to use and you can download it for free from Buy Two Way Radios. It is legitimate software when downloaded from there. For Midland radios that can be programmed with a computer, then download the software directly from Midland. All of the above is easy to find, download, and use for new GMRS and amateur radio operators.

This is true. It also depends on time of year and local activities. FRS is worse around here during deer season.

There is a version of CHIRP Next for Linux. I would go ahead and upgrade from CHIRP Legacy to CHIRP Next if it was me. https://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/Download

And here is my reply to the exact same question asked on the Radio Reference forum: The FRS side is definitely just like CB full of foul language and bad behavior. The good thing is that FRS radios can not access GMRS repeaters. Around me the active GMRS users are pretty good since most also have their amateur licenses. It's bad enough that FRS and GMRS share the same simplex frequencies. The FCC messed up on that one. And as mentioned, where are the extra frequencies/channels going to come from. Public safety and Amateur radio operators are not going to want to give up their frequencies for GMRS use. GMRS frequencies - 462.5625 MHz - 467.7250MHz 70cm band - 420.0MHz - 450.0MHz Public Safety UHF frequencies are generally between 450MHz and 520MHz

And there are more of us that have both amateur and GMRS licenses that don't want GMRS to turn into HAM Lite.

There are plenty of threads on the forum about changing GMRS and adding digital, etc, etc. A lot of us do not want GMRS to be made more like amateur radio with all of the digital modes. GMRS already is Wideband and we are allowed to have up to 50 watts on mobiles as it is now. More changes would be nice but at what expense. The available frequencies/channels have to come from somewhere. Do we take away from other bands to increase GMRS? I'll add that I prefer how GMRS is now. If I want to play with digital modes, I will use one of my amateur band radios.

I have to agree that using good cable (LMR400) as short as possible.

I have nothing against that guy wanting to keep his repeater private. What I do have an issue with is how he handled things when others tried to use said repeater. There is a right way and a wrong way to handle things and getting irate is definitely the wrong way. Others flooding his private repeater with traffic is the wrong way to handle things too. It is easy to scan for the PL tones on any repeater no matter what band they are on. So it is hard to keep everyone off a private repeater.

WOW!!!!! Well if he doesn't want anyone using his repeater then he should take it down. He owns the equipment but definitely does not own the frequencies. And we all know how easy it is to scan for the correct PL tones.