Hi Paul, i can speak as a newbie to GMRS. When I set up my phone with repeaters and I use MyGMRS.com as my resource to do so, the repeaters list has a page that reads request access. Now as a newbie even though it says open, we are still asking for permission. I believe @socalsgmrs nailed it when he said GMRS has really taken off so more users are in my opinion doing the right thing and asking for access. probably annoying as heck to the owner of the repeater, one owner replied, if it's open you don't need to ask, enough said i got the hint.