RayP

There are areas in and around the Greater Columbia (SC) Metro Area where you hear incessant DTMF streams, digital noise, dead carriers, and other stuff on a pretty near constant basis. As big cities go, this is not one of the larger ones, therefore I would expect the same or worse in other areas.

Agreed! Once again, in a perfect GMRS world, with no linked or "networked" repeaters, this should be a minimal problem. Absent garbage being constantly piped in from across the state or across the nation, most repeaters I have ever heard, have little traffic. If you regularly operate on one repeater output for 50W simplex, and a repeater becomes active, you could switch to another 50W output and probably find it vacant. Without linking, the chances that all eight are in use via an overpowering repeater in your area are kinda slim. With so much linking, well, that can be a problem in some areas, especially when all eight 50W channels are blasting the same conversation out at the same time.

Great, another excuse to clutter GMRS frequencies with digital noise. MURS (already thoroughly cluttered) or ham might be great places for this technology, though.

Hi James! I understand the headache thing. Once it is adequately explained, hopefully it will fit together more easily for you. I will try to do that but if I inadvertently leave holes of gaps, please feel free to question me. This will be lengthy so I beg the pardon of those who feel that all comments should be brief. Your mobile, base, or ht, when operating through a repeater will necessarily transmit on one frequency (the repeater input), and receive on another (the repeater output). Those input/output frequencies need to be spaced a certain distance from each other frequency wise to prevent de-sense and other issues of self-interference by the repeater to itself. On land mobile UHF frequencies in the USA (like GMRS), the standard spacing is exactly 5 MHz. Using the lowest GMRS repeater pair for instance, to operate on repeater channel 15, your mobile, base, or ht (here shortened to ht for brevity) will necessarily transmit on 467.550 which is where a repeater using repeater channel 15 listens for all transmissions. When the repeater hears a transmission on that frequency (its input), it begins transmitting on the output channel (462.550). Audio (voice, etc) received on the input is transferred to the output and broadcast over it, where others' mobiles, bases, and ht's receive it. Given that ideally, a repeater is up high on a tower, water tank, building, mountain, etc, and usually with a large gain antenna, it enables transmissions from an ht to be heard and retransmitted at much greater distance than would normally be possible. The repeater is doing something that most ht's etc cannot do, which is transmitting and receiving at the same time. When your unkey your ht, the signal into the repeater drops and after a few seconds (usually 2 or 3), and the repeater stops transmitting. That extra 2 or 3 seconds is called "hang time" (often erroneously referred to as "squelch tail") and is helpful in determining your relative signal received from the repeater and whether or not you actually keyed it up or "hit it". It can be set by the repeater owner regarding duration and some repeaters (thankfully very few) may have no hang time at all, leaving you to guess whether or not you hit it or whether or not it is even on the air. If the repeater is using carrier squelch (aka CS or CSQ), chances are high that it will regularly receive and re-transmit traffic intended for other repeaters operating on that same repeater frequency or "pair" (input/output). Those transmissions could be in the same town or even hundreds of miles away depending on elevation of the repeater, the other system ht's, band conditions, etc. Enter CTCSS/DCS! CTCSS (Continuous Tone Coded Squelch System) and newer DCS (Digital Coded Squelch) allow a repeater owner to set his repeater's tone decoder to a specific tone. That tone will be needed before the repeater receiver can receive an ht's transmission on the input and begin re-transmitting it on the output. Other signals using carrier squelch or a different tone will not open up the receiver and activate the repeater. Think of the tone decoder (for instance set to 141.3 Hz) as a lock. The encoder on your ht, also set to 141.3 is the key that opens the receiver and allows it to key the repeater transmitter, rebroadcasting your transmission over the repeater. The term "encode" is generally associated with transmitting from a given ht or repeater and "decode" is associated with the receiver on a given ht or repeater. You encode a 141.3 tone so the repeater's decoder set at 141.3 will open up and activate the repeater. Likewise, most repeaters, as a convenience and courtesy to their end-users, will encode the same tone on their output. In this example, we will say that when this hypothetical repeater begins transmitting, it is encoding a 141.3 tone on the output. As many ht's (and mobiles or bases) have rather loose front ends (the part of your receiver that screens out a host of noise and interference sources), being able to set your ht's decoder to that output tone to keep your radio silent except for stuff coming through the repeater is a big deal for many. Setting your ht's decoder to 141.3 on this repeater will greatly reduce annoyances from other repeaters, kids playing on FRS, intermod, spurious signals, etc, from coming through your speaker. Unfortunately, some repeater owners neglect to set the encoders on their repeaters, forcing their end users to endure the aforementioned noise sources and more. Some repeater owners who limit access to their repeaters may encode one tone on the output and require a different tone on the input to make it more difficult for an unauthorized user to hack their tone by using tone scan. Even if the repeater encodes a tone on its output, you have the option of leaving your decoder on your ht turned off if you desire, allowing you to hear other repeaters, simplex conversations on GMRS/FRS channel 15, etc. Many repeaters have a Morse code automatic ID which will sound every 15 minutes during a conversation and at random times throughout the day and night. As many repeater operators thoughtfully set their repeaters to not encode a tone during these random Morse ID's, setting your decoder on your ht can let you work, watch tv, and sleep better, if you have your radio on while doing those and other things. I hope this was of some help.

I realize the FCC does not condone scramblers on ham or GMRS. That said, I wish there were a hack to activate scrambler encoding, along with the decode feature some Wouxuns have, in case things deteriorate to a WROL situation. No, the voice inversion scrambling would not give you total privacy, but it would eliminate around 70% of a potential listening audience from hearing your group's transmissions.

On all of my ht's and mobile radios, I set them to encode (transmit) only on all thirty channels with a 141.3 PL. As this is the universally (in the USA) accepted travel and open system tone, I figure my chances of being heard increase greatly, whether on an open system repeater, or on simplex where an operator needed more protection from noise blaring through their speaker than the carrier squelch alone on their radio had to offer. As others on here have correctly noted, I leave the receive on those channels in carrier squelch (cs) mode or "Off" on some CTCSS Decode menus. For some reason, many repeater operators just couldn't spare that extra 30 seconds it would have taken them to program their repeater to encode a tone on the output to match the one required on the input to activate their repeater. If such is the case on a repeater you are trying to use, if your CTCSS decoder is turned on, you will not hear that repeater, thus the cs mode. Most of my stuff is Wouxun, so adding other repeaters and simplex channels where differing PL codes are used is no problem. If you have Midland radios or similar that do not readily allow addition of more repeater and/or simplex channels, programming your radio as I described above may not be a luxury you can partake of on all channels. I hope this helps.

Normally, I would totally agree. That said, we only have eight 50W Simplex/Repeater channels on GMRS. In an increasing number of areas, more and more repeaters and "nodes" are being added which pipe in inane chatter from all over the state and/or nation for much of the day. This makes ignoring those setups less of an option when the garbage being piped in from elsewhere ties up half or in some cases, all of those eight channels. If your own bike is using a repeater or 50W simplex to stay in touch with family or friends in your local area, riding it becomes very difficult when you have multiple repeaters or nodes that pipe in pointless chatter from around the country jamming an axe handle between your spokes. Just sayin'...

Lemme know if you get it to encode on the scrambler feature!

I will be coming back to give this an up-vote when my reactions bank is replenished.

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!