MaxHeadroom

All antennas have resonance - and that resonance is part of the entire transmitter design. In commercial LMR it’s why anyone says “stick with the stock antenna” as it’s been designed for that transmitter and for best performance. With these radios, there is no engineering going into the transceiver/antenna design and matching so I know some want to find something “better”. The Nagoya antennas are typically the “gold standard” but there’s A LOT of bad clones of them. The Abree “tape measure antenna” - skip it. Last few I got my hands on swept resonant in UHF around 420MHz - nowhere close to the 465ish range you need for GMRS/FRS.

Motorola, Harris, Kenwood/EFJ - almost all commercial/public safety radios will offer what you're looking for. GMRS doesn't have it in the radios you normally see because to be totally blunt, most of them are all rebranded from the same reference design and "radio on a chip", and most of those manufacturers won't bother putting anymore more than DTMF SelCall on the feature list. Motorola calls it MDC1200, Harris of yore called it GE-Star or similar, Kenwood called it FleetSync... its a small "data burst" you initiate and the receiving radio stays muted until it receives a burst with its ID contained within it. When the receiving radio does receive a call/page, it will either beep and then unmute, or beep incessantly until the user hits PTT to say something at which point you know they're "free". This was used primarily in situations like GMRS where there's one repeater, tons of users, and no one wants the radio going off 24/7 with irrelevant traffic - like cab companies. As for "legality" - GMRS allows it by rule. Repeater owners and other operators that barely grasp PLs will get mad about "that digital crap on the radio". We run it almost exclusively here to keep the channel muted.

That’s worked before - sometimes enough to get the annoying party off the air for good. Like I mentioned about hams and squatting on pairs - funnily enough in my area they were also hams that thought PL was “new tech” so everything ran CSQ. Put up a repeater with every ID/weather/widget voice ID controller option checked and even if no one uses the repeater the squatter will usually vacate pretty quick!

I don’t think it’s “microscopic” but it has something very unique - activity. The main page is also one of the only (and most comprehensive) databases of repeaters/sites/systems and contacts to them. That’s more than what I can say about GMRS several years back. Not much of a stretch to run with that and propose a “regulatory body” for GMRS repeater coordination like hams do or FCC already mandates as a prerequisite to coordinated licensing.

Thank you for posting that - I do not live in NC anymore but have family that has GMRS radios and licensing and we used to use that system a decent bit. Hopefully a few more standalone repeaters can be put up in key areas to make up for lack of linking. That was the issue when I left NC is a lot of small sites interconnected but not many "lighthouse stations" as I'd like to call them - ones that can cover a county or 3 on their own.

That is the intention with any repeater I install for my use or my family/friends. The 2 I have up locally are both on surplus telco batteries using RV solar panels/charge controllers with AC power to create essentially an "unlimited UPS" when shack power is lost. No internet linking, not even RF linking since power budget has to be taken into account for then your link radio and repeater. Wide area coverage, mobile-centric coverage. That is how most public safety systems are built as well since handheld coverage will always be the most "expensive" to design around no matter what. I think most of the SHTF conversations have a lot in common, but never come to a similar conclusion - power and survivability being key. I think a lot of people see CB as a good alternative because "low power and less to maintain" except HF propagation is not to be relied on - and even DHS/FEMA/etc are getting a reality awakening on that end after throwing very expensive Codan radios at all agencies/hospitals/etc and then realizing its not guaranteed you can hit the next station 200 miles away. That is part of your SHTF - have to decide what matters and when/where because you'll never be able to feasibly cover "all risks".

That is a lot of what I mean when I say one of the principles of GMRS and even amateur radio is "be a good neighbor". In these hobbies/services its very much like a conquest and first to "plant their flag" has squatter's rights to that location/frequency. FCC directly manages all Part 90 with third party coordinators working on their behalf, and amateur radio has volunteer coordinating bodies in regions to try and do the same. The only problem now is that amateur radio has issues with this stuff as well (frequency pairs being squatted on for decades with no equipment running on it and corruption within organizations) - and GMRS is lacking any sort of structure like that at all. This site/forum in my mind is meant to be that coordinating place - if people would stop attacking each other and their ideals in a way to actually benefit the service instead of their own egos.

Absolutely! Those rates aren't getting cheaper anywhere in the "skilled trades" and RF is one of those like tool making where the talent pool is shrinking but demand is rising which leads to knowledge being the real expensive part in the mix!

That’s what I was thinking about! I know some of the folks for the Tampa 575 repeater and the system layout to make up for that issue. it’s just another one of those things that goes to show how congested the spectrum is already, that it would be a hell of a fight to get “more”.

Isn't there a cargo ship or such that pulls into port regularly in the area using a grandfathered GMRS license that mucks with one of the systems to the point they need to use an "alternate input" during those times? Its stuff like that which always gives me a reason to scratch my head when talking about how GMRS can be better suited "for public benefit" when there's still so many issues to resolve service-wide.

I'd challenge that someone would need to actually make a node that passes Part 95 or Part 90 technical standards. All MMDVM-based designs are barely Part 97 acceptable which adds a burden of not only proving use case to the FCC but that there's appropriate equipment to meet that need. Granted I understand that becomes a chicken-and-egg argument in some ways but point is most "hotspots" are not compliant by any means right now.

I'll put it into my perspective from both working at an entity that controlled tower space statewide (on gov owned land), and as a "customer" of that entity as well on the other side: Up until VERY recently with some "clubs" using non-profit status to actually profit off their repeaters, only "commercial" entities were charged for a lease - not even power/HVAC consideration was charged. Your tower site was F R E E as long as you were putting it up for hobbyist/community use Most of those towers had abandon-in-place feed line and antennas on VHF and/or UHF. National Weather Service was famous for that so ham clubs were quick to snatch up those spots since they had to do zero work except drop a repeater and jumper at the site Some repeater owners got lucky enough to even find an abandon-in-place repeater to re-tune for their use Those that had to have any of the above installed on the site were able to get tower work done for free by state employee climbers of said entity - just had to wait until they had a reason to climb the tower for something else because they would not "do requests". Most repeater owners either know someone that has the equipment to tune/program infrastructure, if not have it themselves. I have an in-cal Freedom R8100 and will happily use it for anyone that truly wants a community open repeater... and I won't charge either. I only start to talk about money when they do as well... I am not saying your experience is invalid - in fact it is how a lot of the sites get treated here. I have a Crown Castle 400' site literally in my back yard that they want an eye-watering lease for an LMR antenna on it, and the state entity I mentioned above is not allowing anyone other than hams on the tower thanks to some abuse of the policies from other "non profit" entities. Then add that I would have to pay one of my friends/acquaintances to climb the site for me and I have zero intention of putting up GMRS... I will save the money for such an effort and pay a coordinator for a VHF pair to be added to my Part 90 licenses. My point is this becomes much more of a "who you know" endeavor as much as "what you know". It is also why I mentioned the "barrier to entry" aspect that in previous generations of GMRS you needed to coordinate your repeater with the FCC, or needed a GROL to maintain such equipment, or other things on top of capital expense of the equipment itself or even the operating expense of paying someone else for their site. It shouldn't be a "race to the bottom" in the sense that wide area repeaters should not be trivial to install and affect other users in the area without an appropriate effort, because someone with their "roof top repeater" might want to have a smaller footprint and not fight the "big dogs" in the area for their chance to use the service the same as them without the massive wallet to back it.

You’re absolutely correct - and it’s something that was talked about directly with the FCC back in 2017. The issue comes down to while it’s not explicitly permitted, the FCC cannot enforce it on its own which means type acceptance fines will only happen when you’re already caught for some other misdeed - but having it formally worded in Part 95 would be a step to protecting any further “interpretation”. (I was one of the guys in 2017 that was talking directly with a now gone member of the forum and others with the FCC on this issue and others).

When the FCC has a congressionally approved method to petition for change for YOUR benefit directly - use it. This "free men don't ask" trope is worn out and many have warned since the 2017 update how apathy like this will lead to further issues down the line especially with the rapid increase in GMRS use that was to be predicted (and happened). This Fudd Talk needs to stop. If companies/carriers can petition the FCC for beneficial use of a service/band, so can private citizens who are licensed for a family band. Speak up and do your part or quit gnashing your teeth to internet strangers when something changes that isn't to your benefit.

This is a good moment to discuss a sad reality about GMRS: This is why linking has been an issue. Too many people think about their repeater footprint and that's it - but forget that RF still travels outside the circle on their map just not in a way that would be considered reliable or even usable. Because of that, Part 90 services not only look at the height/power of the transmitter but plots it for a known service area and then adds a "protection zone" further around the coverage footprint to avoid interference when a frequency is reused too close to another transmitter location. VHF is terrible for this because of atmospheric phenomena, but UHF is not exempt from it either. This is why sites like this are critical for the GMRS community, because frequencies/locations should be listed somewhere unified BUT there is no current rule/procedure to prevent adjacent reuse of channels outside of "don't be a bad neighbor". Add linking and super-wide-area systems that are motivated to build out to recoup capital expense, and this turns into a cesspool quickly. GMRS never had these issues until the last several years because there was a higher barrier to entry that gets removed with each generation of rule change to the point that we are trying to talk about coordinating a community/family service in a way that won't devolve into CB radio. Hopefully this provides some insight because there's "some influencers" in this forum that do nothing to discuss these issues civilly, offer input, or do anything except widen the divide between people that just want to talk and the ones that want to protect their investment in the service for their use. Time for everyone to swallow some ego and talk like adults.