WRZY946

The pedantry behind the rules perpetuated by the community wanting a straight answer, and the bureaucracy not giving a straight answer, instead opting to encourage reporting if it's needed, tells me that the actual stance on the issue as of this moment is "if it isn't a problem, don't worry about it."

I announce mine phonetically just because it's easier to hear it and know what it means. For me, people mumbling in a call like "arshieog8euia4l3serjfa" is really hard to understand for me. Especially when the signal's down in the noise a bit, they're talking fast, and/or have an accent. Whisky Romeo Zulu Yankee 9-4-6 is easy to write down and said slow enough to actually grok it the first time without clogging up air for net control or any listeners trying to ID me.

I could swear somewhere else here on mygmrs forums there was a post with actual details, and a video link from an ARRL meeting regarding that ruling.

This is great info, thanks! I do think I'll get a Wouxun base station sometime this year. Overall I am really happy to see the discourse caused by my silly question. So, huge thanks to the community at large.

Thanks @Sshannon @WRYZ926 ! These are useful recommendations. It is appreciated. I'm glad I wasn't too far off the mark with Wouxun. They did seem to be more or less the standard. You do bring up a good point that the higher wattage will work with denser foliage or other obstacles between me and other simplex nodes or repeaters. I guess that's obvious, but in retrospect depending on where I take it that could really come in handy. I do intend to stick to the certified side of things. If I wanted to hot rod a transceiver of dubious capability and origin I'd do it on ham bands. Thanks again. I'll keep my eyes out.

Sure, I could just google it. But then you get fed through endless clickbait articles, often with misspellings or even obvious-to-noobs-in-the-hobby mistakes or misconceptions. I'd prefer actual registered humans here on this site to give their thoughts, at least then I'm more likely to get real experiences, good and bad. I know Yaesu is a well reputed brand. Wouxun seems to be a big deal in handheld territory for GMRS. Baofeng is bargain-bin no matter what kind of radio service, so they're great to learn on or try out first. That's what I've gotten ahold of. But for a desktop / car mounted radio, I have no clue where to begin. Obviously we can only go up to 50 watts, so I'll want one with an antenna cable port so I can run that out to either the back of the car's antenna mount, or stick something outside in the yard, etc etc. It also helps that our antenna size isn't nearly as hefty as something like this shortwave dipole strung across a house's wall. But beyond transmission power, is there really any reason to get a high-wattage mobile/desktop GMRS transceiver? My impression is you can't really do anything extra with it beyond reach further - there aren't additional bands like HF or transmission modes like packet radio / RTTY. I'm not sure I'd be missing out on something beyond learning how to work a fancier box. Thoughts?

my cheap repeater-capable baofeng giggles at both of these claims. a lot.

I've got a pair of them and they seem to handle fine. The repeater capability + programmable without a computer are the two biggest selling points. The USB-C is nice, the whip antenna being included is nice, but ultimately it's being able to set up stuff myself for repeaters and active local freqs that sold it for me. I intend to get some better handhelds and a decent 50W mobile sometime this year, but I'm not sure what yet.

This proposal can eat dirt. GMRS is GMRS, amateur is amateur. I don't want to see some powermonger trying to grub up a whole different radio service with the admonition of the FCC because they think being certified in a different one makes someone better. That's a Reddit Moderator level of self-importance.

NVIS looks fascinating but I'm unsure if I'll ever go that deep into ham radio. At this juncture I'm just barely getting started with GMRS. Though I do appreciate this thread! It's an example of how important it is to figure out your use cases and learn how to mitigate shortfalls with the service, and/or issues with your terrain.