WSAQ296

You were very likely listening to a linked repeater. There was a group in Michigan that linked a large number of GMRS repeaters. At one point, when it was thought to be quasi-legal, they even had it on their powerpoint they presented to the State Police on why they should get some grant money and how they offer a public service. (They are using their own backhaul, on their own towers.) They removed all information of the GMRS linking off the internet when the FCC redefined their thoughts on it, but did not stop linking the (their) repeaters. The info is still out there, just not on their website anymore. Here's a map of their linked GMRS receivers. Whoops, won't let me upload a screenshot. But search on Mi8 GMRS. Look at the document that shows up on a .gov domain.

Well, unlocked what bandwidth options does it give? 12.5 is always narrow, but 25khz is wide in commercial and ham, 20khz in GMRS. splitting hairs I know, but still. I guess the minute it's unlocked it's not legal on gmrs, so if it's out of bandwidth compliance who'll really know/care?

Clarify, because while you understand your original post, I do not. You have two identical radios programmed and one does something the other doesn't? or you have two channels and one doesn't work. Tsquelch means it will only allow you to hear signals with a matching PL tone. So if you're wrong, you'll hear nothing. TONE is transmit, and if it's wrong you won't activate the repeater, but you'll hear it just fine because you have nothing filtering the receive.

are we honestly worried about only having one 30 dollar radio for both ham and gmrs? nobody is going to hear you with it anyway, so buy the band you're most likely to be on and monitor the other with it. I am curious tho, to those of you 'unlocking' the ham style, how are you complying with the bandwidth of gmrs? Oh, ha ha, that's right, to heck with the rules! LOL Seriously, keep it simple. They are 30 dollar radios. You'll need spare parts quickly enough anyway.

Bah, it won't hit like you think. Prices have gone up over the years already. BUT, it is a good reason to buy that radio NOW and not later. Great excuse for the spouse, you'll be 'saving' money. I bought my Icom7300 many years ago on the cusp of potential tariffs back then, which never materialized.

I have the original and the Pro , both for DMR on the ham bands. They are great radios.

So you imagine a scenario like this? : Dirtbag "I got my gmrs radio on, let's do us some listenin!" You: Okay honey, lets stop at the next rest area, WABC123 Dirtbag "That's it, we have his address, let's drive 300 miles and hope his house is empty and unsecure" Yeah, I think you're worrying about the wrong stuff. Much more likely to have a neighbor kid break in when he sees you driving away all loaded up on what's normally a day off.

They are effectively the same radio. Depending on how you order depends on the antenna(s) shipped with the unit. Upon powering up, there's a sequence of buttons that can be pressed to change it from gmrs to ham or 'normal' (open to all). I leave mine gmrs, as the whole point is to be able to hand a channelized radio to someone for use, not to accidentally have them dial up some unknown freq.

Late to the party on this, but if you haven't tuned the GP9 for GMRS, it's not going to perform optimally. It's usually a 2m/440 antenna and at 20mhz above 440 it's not optimal.