WyoJoe

You may want to be more specific about your location. According to MyGMRS, there are a few GMRS repeaters in the area surrounding Palmdale, CA, which is very close to Little Rock, CA. I'm sure there are other towns called Little Rock in other states, and at least once city of the same name in Arkansas. From your post, it doesn't specify which "Little Rock" you are referring to. As for "eager talkers" on GMRS, it has been pointed out on several other threads, that GMRS is not ham/amateur radio, and is mostly used to talk with friends and family. GMRS seems to be widely used (occasionally) for 4 wheelers and others that are traveling together in a caravan. It doesn't seem to be used extensively for "rag chews" (conversations with other users) from what I've read on this site and elsewhere. While this is not exclusively true, it does not seem that there is a large base of users that are just hanging out waiting on others to chat with. Your best bet would be to find one or more local repeaters in your area and monitor them for activity. With appropriate permission from the repeater owner, you can ask to join in on the activity when you hear an interesting conversation. In my case, I am getting into GMRS so I can communicate with my family at short range, without the need for any of them to obtain ham licenses. With the ham license, you are the exclusive user, whereas the GMRS license covers your family as well, so my single GMRS license covers my wife and kids.

Hi Dave, and welcome! I'm new here, too, and have a similar story, so I guess I should introduce myself. I'm Joe. I've been a ham (General ticket) since 2014, but have family and friends that have no interest, at least not that they'll admit to. I would still like to communicate with some of them more effectively than with FRS, so I also got my GMRS license recently. I'm hoping a few of them may decide to get their GMRS licenses. I also decided not to wait for the price to go down and bit the bullet. I'm in Kern County, so a bit further south than you. We do have some good activity on a couple of local (mainly 70cm) repeaters in my area, so I know a few of the folks around me.

I became licensed as a ham (General) about 6 years ago, and wanted to convince some of my family members to also become hams. Long story short is that none of them have done so. Because of the multitude of ways to communicate over radio, I thought ham made sense for family communications, but alas, it only works if you have someone else (in my family) to talk with. The ham community is great, and offers a lot of valuable resources that can be called upon in an emergency/disaster situation. What was lacking, at least for me, was the ability to communicate with non-ham family members if and when the phone networks go down. This is where GMRS comes in. While far more limited than ham radio, it does off the opportunity to communicate with other family member at short range. I recently obtained my GMRS license, and have been working on communications with the family, to see how well our GMRS radios work, at what distance, and under what conditions. This was the reason for obtaining the GMRS license, and who knows, if it sparks an interest in radio communications with other family members, we might just get some of them to become licensed hams after all, so I believe the GMRS license will work well for its intended purpose: local, short range family communications.

Congratulations WRKS279 on passing your ham exams! For those interested in becoming a ham, there have already been a couple of good suggestions given to help with studying. I'll add to that by saying there is some good info on YouTube about how to prepare for and pass the exams. One channel that has become popular in the last few years is called the "Ham Radio Crash Course." Josh Nass is the host of that channel, and although his channel offers a lot of info about passing the ham exams, it also offers a lot of other good information about the hobby of radio, including not just amateur radio, but also some info on FRS and GMRS, as well as general interest information such as emergency communications and disaster preparedness.