radiozip

How about retired Navy satellites acting as abandoned repeaters? Coverage is hard to beat! https://vapor95.com/blogs/darknet/satcom-pirates

Oh gotcha, thanks. I'm in that group but I must've missed all that.

I'm a more casual GMRS user in the area, but have noticed the drop in repeater activity. Sorry to hear about Roland, remember talking to him once. I like the occasional "rag chew" on open repeaters to know they're still working. Is talking on radio considered "ham" now? I'm not in the group where this discussion took place.

I'm the typical radio dork, my family is not. Wanted simple radio communication just in case. Though FRS probably accomplishes 90% of what we need it's nice to have the GMRS power/repeater bump should we need it.

Check to see if maybe your local weather station is off-air right now? https://www.weather.gov/nwr/outages

There was a Pasadena repeater testing there, pl-103.5. I haven’t heard that in a few weeks though.

myGMRS lists these 3, Middletown DE - 462.55 Open, ~5 mile coverage southern New Castle county Dover DE - 462.7 Open, ~10 mile coverage central Kent County Tyaskin MD - 462.675 Open, ~10 mile coverage western Wicomico and southeast Dorchester counties Any other repeaters usable in the region, hopefully open? Shout out to Towson, MD's repeater (462.6) which covers the Bay Bridge; and western Queen Anne's and Kent counties.

141.3 is a popular tone, worth a try to see if you can bring it up.

My 805G and 935G+ have no tone issues at all. Nor have any of my 2-way thinking about it.

Could be someone "quick keying" the repeater in DMR, thus the brief digital hash that's not a conversation. Typically a repeater ID is analog morse code, or sometimes analog voice.

VHF can do digital modes just like UHF, most clubs just opt to keep their VHF repeaters analog. UHF (ham) repeaters tend to get used less so the "experimental" digital modes get put there to boost activity.

That long product description must add $100 to the price.

Only existing example I can think of is PMR446 in the EU.

Has there been any real push from manufacturers? FM on CB happened since those radios exist in other countries, DMR on FRS and/or GMRS doesn’t seem too far fetched. That said I don’t see it happening anytime soon. I think keeping GMRS/FRS “simple” is part of the service’s charm, get a family license with 22 channels (8 repeater) to easily use.

What you don’t?