GuySagi

I'll issue a pre-emptive welcome to GMRS. It's a great community, especially here. Hopefully you'll get your license soon. I have a 27-foot Forest River Wildwood and always use my handheld GMRS units for several reasons when camping, but not for the reasons you stated (or at least I haven't done so yet). My wife lets me know I'm screwing up when backing into a site with the radio. A few feet makes a huge difference as you know and by the time I hear her shouting or she dials a phone a tree could be in the trailer living room. I also take a lot of photos in some remote regions after nightfall and before dawn. A two-way is the ideal solution if an emergency arises, assuming I haven't ventured too far. When we caravan with the son-in-law radio beats even bluetoothed phones in the trucks because it's faster if you need to alert the person behind or in front of you. There's something of an official GMRS channel for roadside emergencies, I think Ch. 20, but I'm confident someone here will clarify or confirm. I also contact owners of repeaters near where we are camping to secure permission to use their repeater in an emergency. As you know, cell phone service stinks at some campsites, but if someone has a repeater on a mountain nearby you can punch a signal out to summon help. That's critical in my case because my daughter is a quadriplegic and the first trip with our trailer the state park locked the gate at 8 p.m. and there was no cell service. We were instructed to drive to the check in station in an emergency and use an outside landline to call 911 in an emergency....when sometimes it's not prudent to abandon the victim, even temporarily. I think your idea is great, though and I'd sure be game to help start a trend (although I have my doubts with Smartphone addiction today). The traffic/weather report idea, though, is sort of like truckers with CBs. There's some propagation differences that shorten most transmissions, but there's also none of the trash talking on GMRS...well, exponentially less anyway. So have you posed your question on any RV/trailer groups? If not I'll post it on the Forest River groups I belong to. Not sure if the admins will delete it, but I'm sure interested.

That's interesting, and rightful if proven guilty.

Here's an interesting question (at least to me). Law enforcement cites the increasing number of criminals who use two ways and scans police bands during their crimes, mostly burglary, robber and drug related I surmise as part of the encryption rationale. Yet, I receive the DOJ news releases (dozens) from each office on Friday and have never, ever, seen a charge related to the use of a radio during the commission of a crime. It's illegal, but has anyone ever seen someone actually charged with the offense? You'd think it would be automatically piled onto all the other charges (in typical fashion) to make the defendant more agreeable to taking a plea. Maybe the FCC notice was a reminder to law enforcement, too.

I have a 50x1 and it will not transmit on firs frequencies. Yours might be different though. Part of the certification by fcc, I surmise due to what I understand is a rule that firs radios are not supposed to be able to connect to an external antenna. Obviously the radio in your truck can attach to an external. You should be able to hear the hts though. If not go to the menu on that channel and turn off Ctcss and dcs on that frequency (on the truck radio). If that fails you might be so close that the signal is overloading the receiver. Have someone try from a distance away. Also turn down the power in the handheld. The squelch in the 50x1 might also be dialed way up. That is adjusted in the menu too. I apologize for the typos. I’m stuck on my iPad and miss my real keyboard. Let me know if you figure it out. There’s a lot more expertise here and I suspect they’ll chime in soon.

I'll add a warm welcome to this growing fraternity. Thankfully there's no hazing involved. The channels around me seemed pretty silent when I first got my license, too. But with some patience and a lot of leaving the radio run in my home office, I've connected with a few folks. And don't be shy about asking permission to use a repeater you find listed here. In my limited experience most who run them are extremely helpful.

I posted this article before on this forum (apologies), but it does a nice job answering your question with a system up and running in California. Disaster: Radio to the rescue (mtdemocrat.com)

MacJack, I'd love to see photos or learn more about your setup when you get it into your RV. I'm still scratching my head on an elegant solution for my travel trailer that doesn't require a tone of fresh holes in the metalwork. And GuestPete_M,, welcome to GMRS. It's a great solution for my family and current needs as well, and it looks like you've done some serious homework. I don't have the experience others do on this forum, so I'll avoid unnecessarily clouding your decision by withholding my amateur comments. I will, however, try to tickle a few the experts here into replying by mentioning the Midlands are narrowband on frequencies where wide is allowed. I have a pair of Midland's narrowband handhelds and have not experienced the often-cited degradation in audio when the grandkids use them to reach me on the BTech 50X1 I purchased here. However (and it's a big one), we haven't really stretched my rudimentary system's limits. When you start adding hills, trout streams and deer stands in a thick forest to the equation that extra width may make things more intelligible, or not. Hopefully some folks with more experience will chime in, but I did want to welcome you to the community, regardless.

Thank you for the alert. Doesn't impact me that I know of, but certainly a nice reminder for us all to be careful.

Good point.

The situation is common to a lot of big business for reasons invisible to the average consumer. That's not to say it's good, and my media/editing history has provided me a rather sordid history of dealing with similar, and even dangerous (not just condoning illegal) nonsense. Once upon a time I came pretty close to being dismissed from an editor-in-chief position because I refused to let an ad built by a major advertiser's hired marketing firm run. On the Internet you don't have that extra due diligence. In print at least, where I came from, the entire editorial staff is not only held accountable (even though they didn't create it) for those that appear, but are required to review where it is placed in the magazine. The process sounds painful long, but it's fast and darned fulfilling with experience. The Reader's Digest version of the way campaigns like this one come about is simple. A company gets big and farms out 100 percent of its marketing efforts rather than hiring folks, expanding offices and increasing payroll/benefits. The advertising/marketing firm's knowledge isn't endemic to the industry or it performs incomplete research. It comes up with a "cutting edge" approach and the manufacturing company's staff either didn't see it, or missed it in the 100 ad dump submitted all at once for the first quarter of next year. I know for a fact Midland has farmed out it's stateside marketing to a another company, one that deals with a lot of different industries. It's a solid company with a sterling reputation that would likely be aghast at the error. I'll keep an eye out for the ad in my Facebook feed and discuss it with a couple folks I know there. If you happen to see it before me (I not a big Facebook fan), pm me a screencap or link if you can. You're not a stickler, just a ton more observant than the average person. The world would be a safer and better place if more people were.

Thanks for the information and now it makes sense. I apologize for a asking, but sure to appreciate you taking the time to explain.

I'm really confused on your comment gman1971. Sorry. The higher gain antenna you use with the radio the worse your receive? I apologize if I'm missing something in my pre-caffeinated state. Maybe it's specific to that radio or handhelds in general.

That's awesome as heck on the antenna reaching outside and I'll bet that setup will get you a lot further than you think—even without a repeater's help. As a plus, when the winds start to get bad as a tropical storm blows in the antenna is safe inside, then when the worst subsides, deploy it outside and you're on the air. If you're high in the mountains it's even better (radio wise, not necessarily wind wise when a cat 4 or 5 hits). Bear in mind, though, if higher peaks block your line of sight to the other side of the island odds are good you can't punch a signal through to those "blocked" spots behind. Of course if you're on the highest peak or one that competes for the elevation crown....you're golden. The fact you won't give up on GMRS gave me a smile youngster. Thank you for that gift.

Well, I'm pretty new at this too, so take this comment with a large grain of salt. If you have a repeater nearby, maybe an interior directional antenna pointed directly at it will punch/squeeze adequate signal through. I'm also in hurricane territory in NC and in my case omnidirectional is important (I wish the family would line their homes and apartments in a straight line for me, but they never seem to listen). And I'd like to extend a hearty "welcome back" to radio. If all heck breaks loose, as you and I know it does regularly with hurricanes, those cell phones go down with alarming regularity.

I have good luck with my Ed Fong antenna and he's really polite when answering questions from new folks--I know, i've asked some of the dumbest ones he's probably heard. I use his pvc encased version. Part of the money he collects goes to the graduate students tuning the antenna for you and they use the cash to help pursue their educational goals....beats the heck out of it disappearing offshore to a big corporation. And berkinet's right, the frequency GMRS is at doesn't lend itself to skipping great distances like the lower ham frequencies and CB when conditions are right. Take a look at the repeater section here, though, and the odds are good you can bounce your signal through a repeater, even through others if they are mutually connected for enviable clarity at awesome distance. I sure hope that doesn't negatively affect your decision to go and stay on the air, though, and wish you best of luck. Please let us (or at least me) know how it's working.

I don't have the technical expertise of the fine folks above, but I do want to extend a warm welcome to GMRS. I'm also an old CBer, but the willingness to help others and share information on GMRS is refreshing—as evidenced by the quick responses above. Once you get over this hurdle I suspect you will, too.

WRAK968 I don't think anyone was indicting your comment. I sure apologize if mine came across that way....I just thought if he had a raggedly set of FRS handhelds he might as well get a snapshot of how a GMRS repeater might work out on a bad day. Lscott and you are right, there's enough wrong info on the web and we don't need to pile on. Honesty, up front, saves a ton of headache down the line, especially with a straightforward and sincere request for experienced opinion, Like I said, I claim to expertise at this point. Hope everyone has a glorious day, dang it.

Well, I'm pretty new to GMRS, but perhaps my limited experience can help. Before you invest, I'd suggest you conduct something of a test. Bear in mind I just talked through my first GMRS repeater Friday night (awesome as heck to punch a solid signal a good distance across state lines, by the way), so everyone else's advice here should carry more weight than mine. Is your house (where you mentioned putting the repeater) on a hill or high enough in elevation to see most of your property? GMRS is almost exclusively line of sight. If you can see all of your property from where you're putting the repeater antenna it's a great, low-cost solution (in theory). So it becomes a question of whether you can get the repeater antenna high enough to "see." Even then will likely experience blind spots on the house-side of deep valleys or behind ridges. If there's a big hill behind your home/repeater location, odds are very good you won't hear anyone directly behind it, regardless of power. Trees compromise the signal, but not as much as I expected in my flatland full of crazy-high pine forests. I doubt very much they'll be a huge problem in the distances you described, but I'll defer to the more experienced folks here on that topic. Try an experiment with the FRS radios you mentioned, but bear in mind those blister-pack radios are terrible. Have one person stay at your house with one of the units on, roughly where you think a repeater antenna would be best, and take a second radio to different areas on your ranch. Try to make solid contact as you drive/hike around. FRS and GMRS frequencies are close, so it'll provide a baseline from which to decide. A high repeater antenna will improve things exponentially on GMRS. The person holding your "base" radio on the front porch, at mouth level.....well, it doesn't reflect what they'd receive if they were perched on the roof, obviously. Plus, you can use more power on GMRS. Just a thought, and I think CB's problematic for a working ranch. The noise is fatiguing for most people—generated by the atmosphere periodically pushing distant signals in, jerks joyriding their microphones as they drive by and other interference. You can squelch most of it away, but doing so can clip important calls. MURS is nice and I use it, but good luck finding certified radios to survive the rigors of your line of work. And without repeater capability (which I think are banned on MURS), it probably isn't the solution. After a decade of search & rescue work I'm accustomed to standing on boulders and truck tailgates to punch a signal thru on frequencies close to MURS, but my family can't stand the gymnastics sometimes required for relatively low-powered VHF (very high frequency) handheld work at distance.

And, BTW, welcome to GMRS.

Wow. Sounds like a great solution. I knew I needed to replace cable and connectors, just not looking forward to drilling holes. Thank you so much for the input and sure hope you have a glorious day.

Has anyone had any luck routing coax into a travel trailer (aka, today's large and mobile Faraday cages) without crazy surgery on their rig? I thought I had an elegant solution to prevent punching new holes in the skin by replacing a mystery third satellite/tv hookup on the exterior. My best laid plan would then run proper coax to the corresponding interior slot in the main living area, replacing the Hello Kitty hardware with SO-239s and using the same polymer covers for a tidy and unmodified-looking install. It turns out the mass produced thing's satellite/tv coax makes a hard and mysterious turn left at the bulkhead inside a equally weird metal box, dives under the trailer's vapor barrier, and connects nowhere inside. So the routing isn't straight into the trailer, where I'd like the radio, and following the dead end means compromising the underseal. The storage compartment, which would be easy to invade, is on the wrong side of the rig. I surmise the only options I have left are adding holes or snaking coax through a window after I set up. I am keeping my fingers crossed someone here found a clever solution. By the way, thanks for reading/considering this post and I sure hope everyone has a glorious day.

Almost half your power Admiral? Wow, that might explain a frustration I've been having with the Btech-50X1 I'm running for a base. SWR is 1.3 with two feet of RG-8 to a Daiwa meter, followed by LMR400 for 50 feet to the roof. I've never seen the power get into the 40-watt range on the meter even when the radio is set to high on the proper channels and its meter says its pushing out more.

Did you fill your elk tag?

With apologies to Hemingway on the title of this post, but I just wanted to say how awesome this forum and folks who frequent it are. I visit every day (when business doesn't drag me out) because people share solid info, are always pleasant and even when I'm off the mark I'm corrected in a friendly, fatherly/motherly manner that doesn't make me feel like I'm lucky I snuck out of grade school. It's a breath of fresh air in today's toxic environment. And hat tip to the moderators/host/owners/people surrendering their time and cash to keep things running right. It's a rare site when you're confident you can sit down and read something with your grandkids without stumbling across inappropriate language.

Thank you for the link.....looks like an awesome project for me and my grandson.