WRUL474

When all is quiet will you switch it up to Sound of Silence?

I came to the realization tonight that radio controls such as touchscreens and buttons, and the processes for programming are not that intuitive when compared to smart phones. Nextel, which Sprint acquired many years ago (and more recently T-Mobile acquired Sprint) may have been in to something. If Nextel were around today how would the smartphone look with a PTT button on the side? Android or iPhone ease of use on a HT might be enticing to younger people.

Edit: somehow I ended up with a double post

I was thinking about this a little bit today and realized something that may be interesting to the younger people. Drones might be more appealing to them. I don't know much about the FAA deal with them, but iirc that's for the bigger drones. Smaller drones don't need an FAA license. Could a drone receive signals via GMRS? Would those signals reach further than the standard remote control they are acquired with? Seems like every kid out there wants to be a TikTok or YouTube "influencer". Perhaps they could do videos on making these types of upgrades, and using them for whatever video they are working on.

Exactly! It's all pre-arranged comms. I still have my GMRS radio in my truck, but it's not on much anymore. I'll probably turn it on the next hurricane that comes around here.

I think I was pretty clear on that. The line you quoted is the first sentence to a paragraph. Now if I'm literally moving across the country, what makes you think I have friends and family to keep in touch with via GMRS. Furthermore, I rarely heard traffic in my area of San Diego. Since moving to Pensacola I've had people tell me they got a GMRS radio, but gave up on it because nobody is on it. There are repeaters both east and west of Pensacola in Milton, FL and just over the state line in Alabama. Unless you've pre-arranged a time and channel to rag chew via previous comms like email, cell phone, or p2p, your not talking to anybody on GMRS. I wish there was more activity, but there isn't.

Gateway drugs to get them ready and introduced for something harder

FNG here. Sorry to make this my first post, but I think I have a rather interesting perspective on this topic. I started off in CB, then decided to jump into GMRS. I've had a GMRS license for over a year now. Yes, Randy was an influence in it, and I am one of the 162,000 subscribers to his channel, but there's things about GMRS I wish I knew more about and would've appreciated more info on via popular internet like Randy's YouTube channel. I'm still learning, and discovered things in this forum I didn't know I didn't know about. That's a different convo. How to get younger people involved in radio communications might have the answer in HAM that I'm not seeing much in GMRS -- contesting. Kids love to play games, and they love digital electronics. If there's a way to demonstrate a form of contesting while utilizing remote control like a tablet, they'd be in it. Start off by demonstrating in schools. A fox hunt, or something like POTA where they communicate with other kids at schools in their town (high school level?), etc might be exciting enough. Utilizing simplex, GMRS is dead. Many of you may not like hearing it, but that's been my experience. I recently moved from San Diego, CA to Pensacola, FL. I have both GMRS and CB in my truck. Utilizing scan on both, I didn't hear a single convo on my GMRS radio. There was the occasional noise on CB, and I engaged in 1 convo in East Texas. That was only because the people rag chewing for several miles specifically mentioned my vehicle as I was passing them, so I broke in and conversed. My younger son was impressed. My older son, a teenager, didn't care, which surprised me because he's into computers and electronics. Moving to Pensacola, FL has been beneficial to me. The Five Flags Ham Radio Club teaches a course at Pensacola State College to train people to be Hams, even though they don't get paid. The course fee is under $30 for a whole semester, which goes completely to the college, and the explain and demonstrate the how and why of Ham radio. These are older guys who have been in Ham Radio for decades, and a couple of the instructors are electrical engineers. Through them I've found out the little Q+A Ham Radio book has several wrong answers, which is causing people to fail the Technician test because they studied/memorized the wrong answers. I can list specific questions if people want. The larger spiral bound handbook has the correct answers in the back of the book. These instructors do not like "sad hams", and question their claim of superiority when they're typing 50wpm CW instead of doing it by hand (citing "an accent" that can be heard when CW is done by hand on a paddle). Their excitement for Ham Radio is infectious, with over a dozen students in the class. It's a shame they don't share they same passion for GMRS. These instructors are the life blood of Escambia County, Florida's ARES program, and done are even involved in Search & Rescue. One of the things they constantly preech is they do the course do they can get people ready to replace them. Btw, one of the things that irritates me about the Ham Technician test is the amount of questions I'm studying in titration to the number of questions they'll be on the test. There's over 420 questions, but only 35 of them will randomly be on the test. Kids don't want that. That's too much studying for something people think should be fun. It's not fun if you're working. At that point it's work, so they won't enjoy it. GMRS had an advantage over Ham on that. Another issue is the process of getting the license. Government websites are not quick to navigate through. And, the license costs money. They don't want to pay their student loan debt. What makes anybody think the kids will want to pay for it? If you've read this far, thank you, and I'm sorry. Cliff note version: the process for getting a GMRS license is contrary to what kids want to do.