Northcutt114

I think it largely depends upon the repeater. Most are maintained by an individual or group. Ascertain from the owners what the their terms of usage are. If it is a repeater listed here, contact information can be found by clicking on the repeater. The more, I suppose, unpopular answer is that you really don't need permission. Certainly civil behavior might imply that you should obtain it, but there's an equally salient argument that "mUh fReE aiRwAvEs" or something.

Direction set to "+" correct? I had a few issues with the offset not saving and I realized that I had the direction set to "-." Not sure if it will help, but that was my (limited) experience. Best of luck to you!

My initial set up involved the top of my Big Green Egg, a cookie sheet, and the mag mount antenna. I was able to hit the repeater but my traffic was unintelligible I was told. That's when I went to the Jeep hood. It terms of elevation, the repeater is roughly 800' higher than I am at about 40 miles away. Looking at a topographic map, I was surprised this morning to see that I do have a relatively unobstructed line of sight to it. I mean, Obviously I can't see it 40 miles away, but from my elevation at about 800' and it's elevation at about 1600', there's not much between us and with the 3db gain on the Motorola stubby, I guess it gets "up" there well enough. I'm still in shock, honestly. I had zero idea that GMRS could go that far....especially not a 5W HT and slapdash mag mount on my Jeep in the driveway.

Well, in case anyone is waiting with baited breath, I did it. Turns out I had my tones wrong. With a 5w HT and a Midlands MTX-25 stubby attached to the hood of my Jeep with a mag mount, I was able to hit the repeater and get a contact. Repeater is roughly 40 miles from me, as the crow flies. I am absolutely gobsmacked I got it to work.

I thought that, too. I'm currently using a Midland MXT-25 Ghost antenna on a magnetic mount attached to the cap of my Big Green Egg. It's on a deck about 15' off the ground so I'd say it's 20' in the air, which I know isn't much at all. I'm surrounded by Army Corps property and pine trees but have nothing but clear sky over head. Using this set up, I can simplex roughly 3 miles, but that's with an HT and a rubber ducky so I'm not really sure how many fars I'm getting as I lose TX from the other person after 3 miles and so they come back. I guess I could get them on a cell phone and just keep driving until they couldn't hear many anymore...but haven't tried that.

OK, here comes the part where the new guy learns something, I guess. I'm on the simplex channel that I hear the repeater on. Or at least I was. But then I learned about offsets, so I programmed in a channel with the RX frequency of the repeater and set an offset for 5mhz higher, still no joy. Repeater is listed with DCS tones. I have tried both with them programmed and without and still nothing.

Sounds perfectly legitimate to me. I suppose once I've been at it for awhile, I'll be in the same boat. Currently have two HT Baofengs, a President CB, a Midlands HT CB, and a BTech 50V2 that's going in the Jeep. It's not much, but it's a start.

I assumed that was going to be the answer. I was just curious. As a new guy starting off, I'm struggling to be able to scrape together enough for A radio, much less several.

Permission to ask a potentially stupid question? Why would one have a "couple" of G90's? I understand redundancy. "One is none, two is one" kind of thing, but outside of that, what don't I know? Go easy, I'm new.

That's where my head is right now, too. I'm very much looking forward to it. I've been watching Mike over on Ham Radio Tube and am currently obsessed with his G90 "Go-Box." As we plan to RV full time in the not too distant future, a Pelican case with a HAM radio in it and a portable antenna solution seems ideal. Glad you figured out the whole idea of "offsets." I'm embarrassed to admit how long it took me to figure them out.

They aren't cheap Amazon LED light bulbs but the LED fixture in my hallway bathroom from Home Depot? Great Googley Moogely! Traffic comes in to my HT clear as a bell, all day and night. But let somebody go in that bathroom and turn the light on? White noise on HT. Big time! The first time it happened, I thought the radio had failed or the antenna broke.

To the OP, I am somewhat in the same boat. My best guess, as it is something that I am only as of late learning myself, is that you are not hitting the repeater. I hear traffic from my local repeater all day and night. I've tried to work it with my HT and have had zero success. I've had simplex contacts out to about 3 miles, but the repeater is much, much further than that. And even though it is atop a mountain, I have no luck. I've decided to move up to a 50w radio and bigger antenna to try my luck.

Well, if reddit is to be believed, there's a bit of a grass roots uprising against them. Time will tell but I shan't be holding my breath, one way or the other.

"This long" has only been about three weeks. I've been a CB guy for the past three decades and didn't even really know what GMRS was until about 4 months ago. All I ever really used it for was communicating with OTR drivers when I was also on the road. Occasionally used it when offroad with others, but largely on the Interstates. I was largely ignorant of "skip" and the "Kilowatt Klub." I started looking into GMRS and HAM with interest about two months ago. Largely informed based on your videos, by the way. As I am, by nature, a rule follower, I made sure to cross the "t's" and dot the "i's." But once I really started to get my mind around the hyper-focused, local nature of what GMRS was and put that up against the absolutel impossibility for any federal agency to monitor it, I realized what a piper tiger it all was.

And yet, there is a group near me that has almost 20 repeaters linked to the 'net...and even have a zello channel. I'm beginning to think that the FCC's doesn't really enforce anything.

Count it a blessing that you find it "rare" to have people "jabber jawing." In my AO on the local repeater, you'll have guys jaw jacking all night long about smoking meat or how many guitars they have. Last night it was about a local get together for BBQ. It reminds me of an old ICQ chatroom. And there are so many repeaters, they talk about leaving one to go to another because the traffic is too heavy on the one they are currently on.

I'm only just now dipping my toe in anything past FRS radios. I've watched a few HRCC videos and HAM seems super intimidating....although the allure of being able to talk to the ISS from my backyard is incredibly tempting!

Just for the heck of it, and not knowing much at all, I just took the Technician's level test on the freeham website. Failed it. 45%, but that's with ZERO studying or prep. I'm sure that with some effort and prep, OP could do it. Go for it!

It's like Linux, I guess. I mean, you certainly can do it...but why? In a true, grid down situation I just don't understand it. I have to keep two devices powered and essentially I'm hooked into a group text? I understand the implications of it being far reaching based on propagating through other people's devices but one those devices go down - and the most assuredly will - my reach is diminished, if not destroyed. It's like those internet radios and zello. They aren't 100% self reliant and because of that, I wouldn't count on them. But hey, at least you can still but HRCC, ammirite?

I've been listening to a repeater channel that is local to me in ECONUS. It is a private repeater that is run by a club here. They hand out callsigns in addition to your FCC ID. I have been listening to it for the better part of a month or so now. There's a mixture of people using both the NATO and just the phonetic pronunciations. It seems that the NATO people are also Ham people, which makes sense. I will agree with the OP in so much as there seems to be a proliferation of redundant and unnecessary identifications. Like just a few minutes ago, a member keyed up for a radio check. A guy gave his ID and proceeded to tell him that he had a good copy. The original guy thanked him and signed off. Then the guy who answered gave his ID and called clear. The entire transaction was less than 2 minutes but yet we have to suffer through four identifications. Seems a bit much, I think. It's like those guys that have CCW badges and sashes.

I just watched both of your videos and I absolutely can not believe that my first post here on mygmrs forums is going to be regarding meshtastic. Bleh... I've enjoyed your approach. As a "normal person," I've never really even understood what meshtastic was. Even their one line description didn't mean much to me. I have to say, though, as someone who is only wading into the GMRS pool (CB radio user for many decades) and by extension, long range-ish communication, it seems like the meshtastic thing is definitely a niche market. In a catastrophic, grid down situation, it's going to require power for two devices and with that many links in the chain necessary for it to propagate, I just don't see the value in it. But then again, I confess to knowing very little about a lot of things.