Raybestos

Interesting point, Mark! Another possibility I had not considered!

I confess to pondering weird stuff, probably quite a bit. I used to think about how cheap (Red) Chinese radios have all but replaced higher-end, traditionally Japanese, radios like Kenwood, Icom, and Yeasu, in the ham and other markets. I used to wonder if the Chinese may have produced, or at least pondered such, radios with a "kill switch" code which could disable hundreds of thousands of these devices if our country were to be at war with them. I pondered the likelihood of carcinogenic chemicals in the radios. I never pondered what the Israelis are said to have done, adding explosive charges to the radios. Now that cat is out of the bag, it is a viable concern to ponder, especially when receiving radios from a known adversary. With ham or GMRS, not on a known network, delivery of a signal to start harmful processes might be difficult, but "where there's a will...". Oh, and think about where all of our I-Phones and many Androids come from. With a huge connected network, delivery of harmful processes might not be so difficult.

A man worked in a factory and augmented his meager income by playing guitar at bars and special events on weekends. He was in a terrible industrial accident that claimed one of his arms. The factory fired him, saying they had no work for a one-armed man. Of course he could no longer play guitar, something he enjoyed doing, with one arm. The poor man decided to end it all and was standing in a chair, rigging a noose on the ceiling of his third floor apartment. Just as he was about to put the noose around his own neck, the man, facing the window on the front of his building, sees a man with no arms, walking down the sidewalk, whistling, and occasionally jumping in the air and clicking his heels. The man felt bad. Here he was, about to end it all and yet here goes a man with no arms, walking down the street, happy, and apparently content with the world. The man threw the noose to the side, jumped off of the chair he was standing on, and ran downstairs to try and catch up to the happy man with no arms. It took the man about a block to catch up to the man with no arms, who was still jumping in the air and clicking his heels at regular intervals. He asked the man with no arms to stop and he did, growling "What do you want?" "Sir, I was about to end it all a minute ago. Then I saw you walking down the street, apparently very happy, whistling and clicking your heels every few steps. How do you do it? I must know", said the one armed man. "How do I do what?", snapped the guy with no arms. "How do you remain happy with your disability, which is worse than my own?" "I'm not happy", snapped the man with no arms. "Then why are you jumping in the air and clicking your heels every few steps?, asked the one armed man. "My butt itches."

I recall when I first got into CB (Class D) in 1970, there were a few, actually a VERY few, guys with an echo feature on their radios. All of them were running some type of homebrew echo device and all of them sounded very cool. It was (at least, to me) a rare auditory treat when one of them activated their echo device. Those echo boxes were very clear and had a resonance and quality to the sound that the store-bought ones never had or never will have. One guy told me that his was built using the reverb from an old electronic organ. It was one of the best of all. Around the late 1970's or early 80's, store-bought echo boxes began to appear. Every truck driver, for whatever reason, had one. They didn't just run them on "special occasions", but on every single transmission. They sounded like absolute $#!^ on the radio. They made the voice of the user distorted. With wind and road noise feeding into them, they made hearing what the driver was saying, a real chore. They were incredibly obnoxious. I hope they NEVER catch on, on GMRS.

Two things I wish the radio companies would do. The first one is practical. Make the Roger Beep Off/On feature a "per-channel" feature. In other words, you could set the Roger Beep to be on or off on each channel and choose which Roger Beep option, just as you do CTCSS tones. That way, you could have it "off" on repeaters that prohibit its use and on for simplex and other repeater channels, rather than the global Roger Beep settings that they all have, currently. The second is a vanity thing, but make nature's original Roger Beep, the squelch tail (.5 to .75 seconds of white noise) as one of the ending Roger Beep options.

Thank You for the input!

Check out this one by Bridgecom. https://www.bridgecomsystems.com/products/bcr-40u

Hi Marc! Not trying to be contrary, although I do have a knack for it at times, but consider the following scenario. Your wife (or any GMRS licensee's wife) is about to take your (or their) kids to visit her parents, four hours away. Your job won't let you off to make this trip with them. She has a GMRS mobile in her car and operates under your license, as your kids occasionally do, also. She has packed enough GMRS ht's to allow one for herself and each of the kids. The kids love exploring the expansive farm their grandparents own and the radios provide a measure of convenience and safety while they are away from the house. You (or any licensee) see what she is doing. You go out to the car and disconnect the microphone from her mobile radio. You also collect all of the GMRS ht's she packed and replace them with non-licensed FRS radios you had laying around from the days before you took the plunge and got into GMRS. She is walking to the car to be sure everything is packed before getting the kids ready to get in the car. She encounters you, walking towards the house; a mobile mic and several GMRS ht's burdening your arms. The dialog that follows goes something like this: Wife: "Where are you going with my mobile mic and the GMRS ht's????" Licensee: "You will be four hours away and 95.1705(f)(2) says "The licensee must maintain access to and control over all stations authorized under its license." Being 4 hours away is definitely not maintaining "access to and control over" the licensee's station. Sorry, but I am not risking the sanctity of my license by trusting you guys with GMRS radios while you are four hours away." Being this is a family-oriented site, I will not go further with the dialog which followed. Yes, this is a reduction to absurdity, but there are some people out there in the world who practice absurdity and practice it often. Going back and reading the original poster's comment, his mom will be using ht's and simplex to communicate with family. I doubt anyone will notice or know if they are using GMRS or FRS since all frequencies are shared, except for repeater inputs. In fact, if they don't use call signs or have a license, I doubt anyone would care on simplex. The only way anyone would probably care is if his mom finds she enjoys chatting on repeaters in the area. In most areas I am aware of, if on a repeater, all the owner(s) cares about is that you are using a valid call sign not pirated from someone without their permission. I know the repeater that I am part owner of, that is all we care about. Of course, there are some really an-l owners out there, too. In my state, there is one guy who I understand, wants to know your name and call, and the names, Unit numbers, and their relation to you, of anyone operating under your call, before granting permission to use his repeaters. In another part of the state, the owner wants to know what make and models of radios you will be using. My group, we just want you to ID and generally follow the rules. Any discrepancies regarding relation to people using your call sign or type of equipment is between you and the FCC, as if they care.

There is a smaller linked system with at least one machine in range of me. If they dropped the linking, I would much more want to join them so I could use their repeaters as stand-alones, rather than listen to the blather from another part of the state.

FWIW, this thing has made my life so much better. https://www.buytwowayradios.com/xlt-rpc-k1-uf.html I am not a computer geek of any sort. I despise them and yes, I know they make us being here, possible. These cables make programming any radio that I don't have RT Systems software for, so much more do-able.

You are right! As a Tech Plus (no longer issued but used to be Technician with 5 WPM code), I finally got my 13 WPM code test behind me. Unfortunately, I had not studied the then current General question pool and failed the written test. I studied the then current General manual and found a VE group about an hour away that was doing testing. Passed the General written test and the VE asked if I wanted to try for Advanced. I hadn't really studied for Advanced but what the hey? Why not? Had I missed one more question, I would have failed, but as it was, I left the session with an Advanced CSCE (Certificate Successful Completion of Element). My plan was to get the 20 WPM code under my belt, then get the Extra written. The FCC had other plans. They dropped Morse for all license classes requiring Morse to 5 WPM. At the same time, they streamlined it to three license classes, Technician, General, and Extra. Some months later they dropped the Morse requirement entirely. I recall the hostility toward Extras who passed only the 5 WPM test, and later, the "No Code Extras". That was one reason I held on to my Advanced for so long. There was no way to have Advanced without having passed 13 WPM and the hostile old pharts knew that. The hostility towards 5 WPM and No Code Extras is wrong. Even if a person studied, practiced, and used, Morse at 30 WPM, there is and has been no vehicle for Morse testing since around the year 2000.

I agree! The three stand-alones, left up and running as such, would probably be an even greater service to their local areas; allowing for three separate conversations to take place at once time, rather than just one.

I know people get tired of hearing it, but Technician is a breeze and General is not really that bad, either. I understand, many are not radio geeks like most of us hams, but all it takes is a little study for a week or few to pass it. I will share a Deep dark secret with you and anyone else that is interested. You don't have to know all of the stuff in the manual, just enough to pass the test. Yeah, Extra is a bit of a b-word, but it can be done, too! I recommend the Gordon West license manuals. He takes what is essentially boring, dry, material and makes it so you can remember it, using humour and other devices. Remember studying boring stuff like history, English, and all, in high school? Studying for a ham license is very close to that, except it is something you already have a little bit of interest in. No more Morse code test. No more drawing schematic diagrams of specific oscillator circuits. It is all multiple choice, and as you did in high school, you will hit questions where common sense and process of elimination will get you through it. For instance: "Profanity is allowed on ham radio: A) At any time. B ) After 10 PM. C) Before 12:00 Noon. D) At no time. Obviously, the answer would be "D". I have always been mathematically bewildered. When I decided it was time to upgrade from Advanced to Extra a dozen or so years ago, I bought a Gordon West "Extra" license manual. I promptly lost it and didn't see it for about a year. About a year later, I happened upon that manual. I looked at it and a little voice inside told me to find out when the next VE testing session would be in my area. It was one week from that day. I studied like crazy. Got to taking lots of online mock tests and trying to learn from my mistakes. The best I made on any of those tests was like a 70-something, failing all of them. Then I decided to actually study the math formulas using Gordon West's book. I was actually learning to make them work, the day before the test. The day of the test, I stopped by Starbucks and got a large iced mocha with extra espresso to keep the brain synapses firing. Brought an extra $14 for a second VE test in case I failed the first one. I took the test and for the life of me, there were a lot of questions I wasn't sure if I got right or wrong. That was one of those tests that do happen, where nothing much seems like what you studied. That is the reason for the extra money, in case you fail the first. Odds are, a second test will be more familiar. After I handed in my test, the examiner asked which I wanted first, the good news or the bad news. I told him I was braced for the bad news and to go with it. He said that if I hadn't missed two questions, I would have had a perfect score. There is stuff on the Technician test that I am not interested in, never really grasped, and never will. But like I said, all you need is enough to pass the test.

For the most part. As SteveShannon correctly noted, there is a small portion of 10m open to Technician. For the 75m and 40m stuff that I mentioned, yes, you need at least a General.

That is the stuff nightmares are made of. I fully expect to wake up screaming, then whimpering, tonight; after reading that. Gee, thanks.