rdunajewski

I thought so too, until you read that it's only for units with non-removable antennas. Basically it's the Garmin waiver being codified and allowed on both FRS and GMRS. Also, can't use it on any of the repeater inputs which would be a good way to collect the GPS locations in a central location. Think about Search and Rescue, wouldn't you want a repeater (fixed or portable) to be receiving every unit's GPS location and keeping track rather than some other HT having to be the contact point? I'm going to post a formal comment about these draft rules to argue for digital voice and the removal of the non-removable antenna provision. Just about every other rule seems clear and useful in my opinion. They're still muddy on Part 90, but I think they still want the revenue from having to accept Part 95 radios. Doing away with the requirement hurts their revenue stream from the manufacturers. If they drop the antenna requirement then it looks like you can use any nearly digital modulation you want for texting and GPS, so long as it's under 1 second in TX length. That means P25 and NXDN, for example would be allowed. TDMA is another emission designator so that appears to be out, but I'm wondering about single-slot DMR. Does that fall under one of the permissible emission types as long as the second slot isn't being used (meaning the transmitter is keyed continuously, and not yielding for a second slot)? That would be useful to the majority of us who aren't using Garmin bubblepack radios with GPS on them. Otherwise this rule serves only a small group of users.

Just saw this today. I will formally pick through the rules later but wanted to share with the group and get your take on these. http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0427/DOC-344617A1.pdf If I'm reading this right, this is the high-level summary for GMRS: FRS/GMRS combo radios prohibited going forwardLinking permissible, even using the PSTN (although telephone calls not allowed)Digital emissions allowed for short text messaging and location purposes, but apparently not digital voice (some strict restrictions)Allowed to use the FRS interstitial channels at 2 WattsRepeaters still allowedPower limits unchangedCertification for hand-held radios to be dropped

Please feel free to pressure the FCC to revise the rules to allow digital voice transmissions on GMRS. Emphasis on voice, not data. The rules are just out of date with the state of technology, so it'd be nice to bring GMRS up to the Ham standard, so to speak.

If both users are licensed, they may use GMRS for business purposes as long as the remaining rules are followed. So yes, you and your coworker, if both have a license, may use GMRS for commercial use but are still subject to, for example, the rules that require identification, cooperative channel use, prohibits explicit language, etc. If a business holds a grandfathered license still (very few left), they may issue radios to their employees for business purposes. The other rules still apply, but the terms of their license may specify some special usage or restrictions (i.e. only authorized for certain frequencies). Since only individuals can get a license today, you're probably asking about the first case.

I and others on here are of the opinion that any Part 90 gear that meets the technical requirements in Part 95 (which virtually all do today) is okay to use on GMRS when operated within the appropriate limits. I know you mentioned Part 95 specifically, and there is still a legal gray area on what I just said above. The issue is that there isn't a lot of equipment available that is certified for GMRS to the extent that the Part 95 rules are a major hinderance to the service. Following the letter of the law, then you should only use Part 95 equipment. However the rules exist to set minimum technical requirements and modern Part 90 radios are compliant and worthy substitutes (in many cases also exceed the specifications of Part 95). From an enforcement standpoint, it's really a non-issue. I've seen no reports of the FCC taking issue with a Part 90 radio, being operated correctly (i.e. within proper power limits), on GMRS. There is no way to tell aside from a station inspection that the radio is not Part 95 compliant. I'll stress once again that this is opinion, but it is a prevailing opinion in the community it seems.

What is your callsign? I'll check and see what's going on.

Thanks for the heads-up guys. I made some changes that should fix that for you. There's still a chance emails could end up in your Spam folders, so please check in there, too.

Sorry about that, I responded to your email with some more info.

I have a small network set up using a modified version of app_rpt. I use my own registration server so there's no dependency on the AllStar network, and no way to accidentally connect to a Ham repeater. By keeping them separate, we're in compliance with the FCC regulations for GMRS in that we're preventing unauthorized access. You just need a PC you can wipe clean and put Linux on (or even a Raspberry Pi), and a piece of hardware to interface with the repeater. We've used the URIx board from DMK Engineering (about $70), and the RTCM board (no PC needed, but more expensive at about $270). The RTCM is tricky to set up but the big draw is that there's no need to alter the firewall settings at the repeater site (some people have no way to forward ports). If that's something you're interested in, let me know and I can PM you with more details.

Ed, the issue should now be fixed. We had an issue with the forums and they went offline for a couple of days. Your myGMRS account should let you log in here now like it did before. If you still have trouble just send me a private message.

Hey Drake, Could you send me a private message and let me know which repeaters shouldn't be assigned to you? I'm not sure why that happened yet.

Hi Seven, Welcome! Let's see if I can answer those questions for you. Others may chime in and lend their expertise as well. 1. This is a Ham radio, and is not certified for use on GMRS frequencies. According to the FCC Rules (Part 95), any radio used on GMRS frequencies must carry Part 95A certification. However, as you may find if you do your own research, it's very hard to find a currently-produced Part 95A radio which is repeater capable. It's kind of a niche and most manufacturers don't bother with it anymore. For us, that presents us with a dilemma. Either we are stuck using very old and obsolete equipment, or we could use Part 90 radios (virtually all commercial-grade radios for business or public safety use) which adheres to stricter technical requirements. I don't recommend or advocate it, but many people have decided that a Part 90 radio, when operated properly, is just as good or even better. Many of the Baofeng radios and their clones now carry Part 90 certification when the user is unable to change the frequency on the fly. So the short answer is, yes it's a Ham radio. The longer answer is, it may have Part 90 certification and would then perform similarly to a Part 95A radio, so you would be using it at your own risk. The argument has been made with the FCC but to date no answer has been given. 2. For simplex, you can use any GMRS frequency that is not a repeater input (467.xxx MHz). You can speak in another language, but you are required to state your callsign in English every 15 minutes during a conversation, and at the end of the conversation according to the FCC rules. Yes, you can set a PL tone on simplex for you and your friend. It will not provide true privacy, but would prevent you two from hearing other people on the same channel unless they happen to be using the same tone. 3. Yes, your GMRS license allows you to use a GMRS repeater. However, repeaters are privately owned and you need the permission of the owner. Some repeaters are posted on this site as "open" which means any licensed user can use it without permission (just follow the rules), while some are private or require explicit permission. The listing for the repeater on this website should indicate which, and you can contact the owner through this site. The repeater will retransmit your audio over a wider area so others can hear you who would not normally be able to hear your radio directly. It's not private, and anyone else who has the repeater programmed in their radio could talk back to you. 4. English isn't required, but you may want to talk to the repeater owner and give them a heads-up that you intend to speak in another language but will be complying with the FCC rules. Some people are alarmed by not knowing what someone is saying on their repeater, so it doesn't hurt to state that up front to avoid confusion. Nothing in GMRS is private, so others would be able to hear you if they're within range of the repeater (typically 15-30 miles, perhaps more) 5. Only one person may transmit at a time, so if there's a conversation going on already, you'll have to wait your turn. If you have something to add to the conversation, you can jump in and introduce yourself. Most people are happy to talk with you, so don't be shy about it. Just don't interrupt another conversation with your own. Good luck, and let me know if you need any further clarification!

Yeah, 50-60 mile radius is hard to achieve with one repeater, and very hard to achieve a good enough signal to make it practical over all 50-60 miles. I agree with the others, you need to get your antenna VERY high up to have a chance. The alternative is to set up multiple repeaters to give you the coverage you need. There are methods to link them via VoIP that are within the Part 95 rules as long as you protect the linking from unlicensed users (don't use something open to the public or you're asking for trouble). More repeaters means more money, but the cost of getting access to a tall enough tower (if you can even find one who will let a GMRS repeater up there) may be more than setting up several smaller sites. Send me a PM if you're interested in linking them privately, I have quite a bit of experience there.

Hi Frank, Can you see if you can edit now? I believe the issue is fixed.

What is your callsign? I will look into it if you still can't connect. As of late it appears the delay can be as long as 48 hours. Basically we get a dump of the FCC database every day at noon, but whether a new license is in that dump yet is up to the FCC's system. Sometimes they come up, sometimes they don't. It's a bit frustrating, but for now that's their limitation.

The email notifications sent to you should include a "Reply-To" address, which is the email address of the person requesting access. Most email clients will automatically send the email to the right party. Could you forward the email to me? I'd like to take a look at the email headers and see if they're being set properly in your case. Forward to rich@mygmrs.com.

Hi Everyone, It's come to my attention that a few members may be posting advertisements for their business in an aggressive manner. For example, they may not be interacting with the other members in a productive way, only pushing their products or services. I think it's a good time to enact a new policy for the forums whereby member advertising is prohibited without written consent from me, the owner. I don't mind a simple signature line that includes your company name, but I do not want to allow posts that are advertising your business. We cannot be held responsible for these posts and we certainly do not endorse any companies other than our approved advertisers. If you'd like to advertise with us, please get in touch with me to discuss. I'm very flexible on rates; doesn't matter if you're a small company or large. Our moderators Gary, William and Scott, as well as myself, reserve the right to edit or remove any posts which serve as an advertising platform that isn't approved by me. This serves to protect the other members as well as myGMRS and its parent company, RepeaterFinder, LLC. Thanks for your understanding, Rich WQEJ577 N2DLX

Yeah, there's a Twitter account but no activity. I post occasionally to the Facebook page, since that has more followers. We may use Twitter in the future, but right now it's not terribly useful for this site.

We don't have a public API anymore, since no one took interest in it. I do have a private API I can give you access to, so I'll PM you with the details. If there's renewed interest in this, I can certainly provide an API for others to use as well.

You beat me to it! Glad you were able to get in. Let us know if you need anything else. Welcome!

Hi Ken, Thanks for posting about this! There was indeed an issue with linking the forum accounts to the accounts on the main site. For users who were already signed in like Gary and I, this was working fine still. For everyone else, you would have received the error message. Try to log into the forums again, it should work for you now. Just be sure to enter your real email address during the login process; it will generate a fake one based on your username that won't allow you to get messages from the forum.

Based on feedback I've received over the last few weeks, I thought it would be a great idea to open up a dedicated forum that allows guests to post. Some visitors don't have a GMRS license yet and have some questions to ask, and some people may be trying to register but need help for one reason or another. Since the forums use your regular myGMRS login, these visitors were unable to seek help from our community, and I either had to respond directly to them or they'd be without recourse. Hopefully this will help out some prospective members who need advice or the right nudge they need to get signed up. For now, posts do not require moderators to approve them. This policy may change at any time, however, if we get a lot of spam posts or notice any other prohibited behavior. Only guests can create topics in this forum, but all members can reply. If you're already a member, please use another forum for creating a post.

The FCC has taken down the ULS for system upgrades and maintenance, starting today, Wednesday, September 2nd through Tuesday, September 8th. During this time, myGMRS.com will be unable to fetch new license and callsign data from the FCC. The biggest impact will be for licenses issues within the last 24-48 hours, as we may not have a copy of the licenses before the FCC has shut down the ULS. Presumably the FCC is not granting any new licenses during this time, so we will sync up again after they are back online. We maintain our own database of license data separate from the FCC. We only use the FCC's system for pulling in updates and new licenses. New users who had a license issued more than 48 hours before the shutdown should have no trouble logging in, as we should already have your info on file. Curiously, the License Search page has been replaced already with a redirect to the below link, so we were caught a little off-guard. Please report any issues to our Contact Us page, which will create a new support ticket. Please don't contact us about new licenses not showing up unless they were issued before August 31, 2015. Please note that it will take myGMRS.com a further 24 hours to synchronize with the ULS once it's back online, since we are forced to be 1 day behind the FCC's database. More Info: https://www.fcc.gov/blog/modernizing-fcc-s-it Thanks for your patience!

By querying the data in myGMRS for all active licenses, here is a sampling of some states: Total: 149,797 Active: 39,837 Expired: 109,197 Canceled: 716 Terminated: 47 6067 California 2870 Texas 1980 New York 1911 Florida 1526 Pennsylvania 1097 New Jersey 1019 Massachusetts 482 Connecticut 96 Delaware (!)

Scary. Apparently no repeater offsets, which is probably for the best. The innovation award still goes to Radio Shack for their "mobile" FRS unit from many years ago that I'm sure a lot of you will remember well. I don't see this being much better aside from the respectable (for this grade of radio) 5W output. For the uninitiated, in order to get around the fixed antenna requirement of FRS on the Radio Shack FRS radio, they put the RF components in the base of the antenna, and the remote control is nothing more than a speaker mic with a display. No RF is carried over the cable. Pretty genius! http://support.radioshack.com/support_electronics/doc64/64766.pdf