Raybestos

I think GMRS can accomodate family/personal use as well as occasional socializing/chatting. As others have noted, long-winded keydowns and blather for the sake of blather can be annoying but occasional conversations are good and can develope friendships and a sense of community on a local repeater(s). I think GMRS was intended for mostly local comms and should stay that way. In my book, "local" means as far as one radio can reach to another or to a repeater. If your setup and the repeater allow you to reach the repeater regularly at 150-200, miles away, you are local. If rare conditions let you hit a repeater 700 miles away, that is cool, too. Most would be glad to hear from you and to say "hi". These pointless linked and networked systems are an abomination in that they pipe in jabber from other areas that have nothing to do with your local area. A husband trying to reach his wife (or vice versa) traveling through a cellular deadspot will play heck getting through to each-other on the local repeater when it is jammed with ratchet jaws who are all on one or two repeaters on the other side of the state or nation, being piped in because the local repeater owner thinks being linked in to these drones is somehow "kewel". If there is a break in the ratchet jawing from afar, and the husband and wife do connect for a brief talk, expect some emotionally needy dork on the other side of the country to break in because, "I just wanted to say hi". Honest, in most cases, we really don't care what is happening hundreds or thousands of miles away, or what someone in those distant places has to say on GMRS. If DX is your thing, get a ham license. If you are too lazy for that, use CB when the skip is running. Or call up some friend, relative, or random person a few states away or even in another country, and talk with them on the phone. You will be using the same technology that allows for these repeater and network links on GMRS, but without denying someone else use of the frequency who is hundreds or thousands of miles distant.

Well, for one thing, ham is not an acronym.

Midland FRS/GMRS radios, IMHO are junk. Their design engineers from what I have seen, apparently never used an FRS/GMRS radio, or talked to anyone who did. Let's start with their ht's. AFAIK, none of them are repeater capable. Last time I checked, their "go-to" ht battery was a whopping 700mAh. You would think that a company that pushes its stuff as being for people enjoying the great outdoors would offer something considerably greater (at least 4×) for portables than 700 mAh. This includes their "Base Camp" radio. I guess they figure you won't wear out your hand OR the hand crank charging it back to 700 mAh. Then there are the mobile radios. Again, far as I know, none of them have dual conversion receivers, which can make a big difference in keeping noise and interference from nearby transmitters on GMRS as well as other sources out of your speaker. They have some great designs as far as "controls on the microphone" go, but drop the ball with the rest of the package. With the exception of their current "top-of-the-line" mobile @ 50W, none of their mobiles allow for adding additional channels beyond the packed 22 for repeaters or simplex. Midland tries to excuse this incompetence by saying it makes the radio easier to use for people wanting to just communicate vehicle-to-vehicle such as off-roaders, which are one of their targeted bases. What they don't tell you, is giving you the option to add channels would in no way make their mobiles more difficult to use and would greatly enhance their usefulness down the road if/when a customer decided they want to have access to repeaters. For instance, what if your off-roading buddies and yourself explored an area where the two nearest repeaters were on 462.675, one 20 miles east of your area of operation with a 141.3 PL and one 20 miles west of it with a 173.8 PL. Depending on where in your area you are, you will pick one up much better than the other. Should you need help from outside of your group, one of those repeaters will be necessarily how you summon help (breakdown, tow, medical, etc). If you have one programmed into your radio, to access the other, you will need to program in its tone, first. If it is an emergency, it will be a pain to have to change the settings, especially if you have not done so before and are well-versed in the procedure. Having the means to add channels, you can have them both in your radio and changing from one to the other is as simple as turning a knob or pressing an up/down button. Midland design engineers decided you do not need that convenience. Ditto if you travel between the two repeaters regularly. You might live near the 141.3 repeater but drive to work which is in the 173.8 repeater's coverage area. To be able to use the 173.8 repeater, you will need to pull over and change the settings going to work and again going home to use the 141.3. Being able to just turn a knob or press an up/down button would be much easier but again, Midland design engineers decided that you don't need that convenience.

It happens in a lot of places. Recently, on another site, I was reading about a guy in Georgia who was paying $150/month for a primo GMRS repeater site so he could communicate with his family. He had the misfortune to be located where all eight pairs were clogged with repeaters that were part of a linked, mega wompus, system. He noted that for large chunks of the day, all eight pairs carried the same people, having the same conversations, about the same thing. IMHO, this goes against the original intent of Class A/GMRS and is just wrong. In my area, two repeaters are linked to a four repeater system. For the most part, it isn't too bad except for Sunday evenings when they are tied up with an inane regional or national net, or the occasional needy sounding guy mumbling on and on in broken English in the next state. Then you add another guy piping in drivel from all over the country with the possibility of adding "nodes" to clog up other 50W simplex/repeater channels and soon you have a big, unnecessary, cacaphony, tying up those few pairs for people wanting to utilize them for local comms. It just isn't necessary. If you are the only networked repeater in your area then Kudos for putting up a stand-alone for local comms. I don't believe I mentioned simulcasted repeaters but it did cross my mind. I am fully aware of how expensive they are and how tight tolerances have to be, therefore I did not mention it. It just gets aggravating that most people I hear talking about putting up a repeater seem heck bent on either linking to other repeaters in their area or linking to a network, apparently just to keep noise going across the frequency, and not caring that they hinder people trying to use GMRS for its original intended use of local area communication.

Never mind that other users in a local area of a linked repeater might want to try and communicate using 50W simplex or via a repater but multiple or all (of the eight available) 50W/repeater channels are clogged up with the same people, having the same conversation about raising chickens, fishing, cooking beans, or whatever. This is a waste of scarce available spectrum and terrible stewardship of the available channels for GMRS.

Hi Lscott! I was unable to read that file with my current device. I have a fair amount of experience on-air with DMR, Fusion, D-Star, and P-25. There are advantages to be realized with most of these, but in the scope of a service with literally dozens of repeater pairs and simplex channels per band, or in land mobile where frequencies are assigned or coordinated, NOT on an analog-centric band with only eight shared 50 Watt simplex and repeater channels. A simplex or repeater transmission on a channel with a digital-only repeater will be crushed by the digital signal and most likely, those in digital mode will not even be aware of its presence. At least with analog, you have the opportunity that one of the parties talking will hear you and disable their PL decode to communicate with you. As others have noted, as simplicity of equipment decreases and complexity increases, you lose reliability, especially in the event of an emergency. Digital equipment and programming is usually more complex by quite a bit. I maintain that polluting the existing eight channels, plus 15 sub-channels, with bloops, and jackhammer noise is a bad idea.

One source of overcrowding on GMRS in many places, though admittedly not all, is the cancer of ubiquitous linking to other repeaters and networks. I regularly read or hear that somebody, frequently a new licensee, is going to put up a repeater in his area. Hey, great idea, especially if you clear the hurdles of expense, finding a worthwhile site, obtaining low loss hardline and a decent antenna, as well as a repeater and duplexer. Unfortunately, the next thing out of their mouth is how they intend to link to this or that network, repeater(s), or whatever. WHY???? Again, WHY???? If you plan on putting up an open access, viable repeater with decent coverage footprint, you are on the way to doing a great community service and excellent philanthropic gesture. If you plan to clog it with duplicate conversations from another repeater or across the country, well not so much. We only have eight repeater channels in GMRS. Those same (output) channels are also our only 50 watt simplex channels. In some areas, a persons or group of persons have destroyed any hope of using most or all of those eight channels by piping in unnecessary garbage from around the country or even just another repeater. People in the next state, or the other end of the country jawjacking being piped into the local repeater(s) do nothing to enhance local communications between family, friends, or others. These continuous conversations negate people from using the local repeater or 50 watt simplex channel they are on. Even if just two repeaters are linked, you might have five or more operators jawjacking on one, but their lengthy conversation makes the other unuseable for the family or friends trying to keep in touch if they have bad cellular reception or perhaps their cell network is down. For as far back as I can recall, the FCC has forbidden autopatch use on Class A CB/GMRS. My guess is, they feared such would tie up the limited frequencies with phone calls. In my experience with autopatched ham repeaters, the calls were always brief, a very few minutes or less, and were not an issue. These networked or linked GMRS repeater conversations can go on for hours, tying up multiple repeaters and multiple frequencies in a given area with convos that are taking place on one repeater. This is not a good thing and is not in keeping with the original intent of Class A/GMRS. The FCC would do well to outlaw internet linking across the board and restore GMRS somewhat to its original intent, rather than being ham radio lite. In a lot of areas, this would greatly reduce congestion. Are you listening, FCC?

Thank You, 944!

The two modes are incompatible and will cause much confusion. As someone already correctly noted, setting up a code plug for DMR is very complex, tedious, and time consuming. MURS is already a cacaphony of beeps, bloops, burps, etc. I think the FCC seriously erred in allowing digital radiolocation on GMRS. Thankfully, they did confine it to simplex and not repeat, as well as limiting duration of digital transmissions. Unfortunately, the FCC has shown a tendency to further liberalize such things, as they did by first allowing blister pack FRS to include the eight high-power/repeater channels (only to be used with a license ), then allowing them to be used without a license. If DMR becomes a reality on GMRS, one of the "advantages" to be touted will be the ability to see the name and call of the person you hear on the screen. That will require frequent updates (daily or weekly) to keep the alphanumeric info current for new licensees or DMR operators, as is now the case on ham DMR. This is not a great idea. I wish people would stop trying to make GMRS into ham radio lite. As has been said many times, if you want to do ham stuff so badly, get your ham license and do ham stuff.

YES! Linking is about done to death on GMRS as it has been on ham for a while! It has become a major annoyance on 2m/70cm ham. When I got on ham in 1996, I joined a club that had a great three (and sometimes 4) repeater linked system. In that day, before everyone had a cell in their pocket, it was a great conduit for family, friends, and social interaction in a 3-county region. Over time, the linking has gotten out of hand. One ham radio group I am thinking of has some great, and some not so great, repeaters covering part of two states. There are around a dozen. In my state they have a UHF repeater that has phenomenal coverage for that band. As such, many locals like to use that repeater, but since the owner group insists on 24-7-365 linking, whenever we use it, it ties up the system for all, including those in the other state. Ditto when they are on there complaining about their hemorrhoids or whatever. There should at least be a publicly known DTMF de-link/link code for these times. I know GMRS is not ham, but I see the same problems coming to GMRS because everyone is suddenly link-happy. I am a member of a GMRS paid group with repeaters in two states, because it is paid, traffic is not very heavy most of the time. Individual repeater coverage could be better, but they have a decent system. Every Sunday evening for a couple of hours or so, the system is unuseable because it carries a nationwide GMRS net. Were I broken down on the side of the road and needing to use the radio to get help because my cell was in a dead spot, I would be a very unhappy camper having to wait for this net to go off. Some people love hearing the voices from across the country coming through the speaker on their ht, mobile, or base. After a while, the novelty wears off. With only eight pairs available, I would much rather see repeaters carrying "local" traffic from a bigger footprint than duplicating a conversation being had 100 or more miles away and stifling local comms.

LScott, thank you! That designator has been driving me bonkers for some time. Great idea, BTW! I always figured if someone used 141.3, especially on 675, they must intend that it be open. Interesting how many do, yet restrict access. I will give you a like when the site allows it. It says I have used up my likes for today. ? 73

Definitely, paper repeaters are the biggest issue confronting this site. I agree with all who said there needs to be a user input for status (on or off air), as well as incorrect tones, coverage, etc. Just as an example, as far as I can tell, none of the repeaters listed for Sumter, SC are on the air. There is one listed for Andrews, SC the operator of which shows an expired license. Sadly, as with too many ham repeaters, there are some owners who just did not have the extra 30 seconds it would have taken to encode a tone on the output of the repeater that requires one to key it up. Separate listings for tone status on the input and output would be especially helpful regarding these repeaters. As there becomes an increasing number of repeaters with wide/narrow capability, there should be a wide or narrow notation for every repeater. One last thing I may have overlooked, on the window that appears on the location/coverage map, what is "ORI"? Thank you and 73!