Blaise

Thanks, I appreciate that. Have any good ideas to contribute?

I'm proud to say I actually owned one of those red Captain Crunch whistles, back in the day. I'm more than a little sad to say my mother threw it out while I was at college because it was "just a cheap old toy"...

Whereas when you say "primer", normal people picture several pages just of the most basic necessities, so something in-between would be the logical conclusion, wouldn't it? I don't think there's a specific term for a document that hits all the basics plus just enough theory and technical detail that you have guideposts to do further research if desired, but don't waste your time on hundreds of pages of unnecessary stuff... Generally, when attempting to brainstorm an idea, it's important that you don't specify exactly what you are looking for. Being extremely specific limits the places discussion can go, and ensures you'll miss out on good ideas.

Books? Like that you pay for? For info that's theoretically on the internet? How 20th century...

Yeah, see, that's the opposite of what I envision. That's the rabbit hole I fell into when I started out, and like I said, it seems far more likely to drive normal people away than to get them functional... A new person getting started, like the kind targeted by the presentation I'm trying to prepare, and the one marcspaz admirably presented, doesn't need to read 150 pages on antenna theory. With ham, you're building a car. With GMRS, you just want to drive it. You need to understand a bit of technical theory to understand *why* you are doing what you are doing, but you don't need to be able to calculate ideal compression ratios to push the accelerator...

Since CB died, it sure would be nice if there were a way while driving long distances to put out a call to random strangers to ask how the road is ahead, and warn people about speed traps!

Does such a thing exist? It occurs to me that it took me several months to acquire the basic knowledge to operate on GMRS without constantly questioning myself and going back and watching dozens of youtube videos and coming here and asking endless "dumb" questions. It wasn't very... accessible. Coming originally from the depths of the 80's hacker community as I do, I just accepted this, and put in the work, but it occurs to me that most people coming to GMRS are probably fairly normal, and instead just give up. I've been trying to set up a class for my local makerspace on GMRS operation, but it occurs that there really isn't *that* much to know, assuming you only shallowly care about the technical side. Has anyone sat down and done an in-depth "Zero-To-GMRS Operator" document to get people up and running without all the gaps? If not, does anyone want to write one?

Oh, you *are* a sneaky one!

But do they, though? I feel like effectively none of them are running TV or broadcast radio stations or dumping massive amounts of digital traffic on the air. Even the "freebanders" are mostly within a couple of MHz of where they're supposed to be... I get that some of them play with amplifiers and such, and they pay little attention to specific rules like "cursing", but otherwise, CB is nowhere near a "wild west", is it?

Wow, so I finally broke down and added three specific individuals to my 'Ignore" list, and *man* is this a much more useful and enjoyable forum all of a sudden!

I'm so confused. Why do people keep saying this? CB only exists because of, and is regulated by, the FCC! Even CB wouldn't be like CB if the FCC didn't exist..

19 can't be used by the something like 20% of US citizens who live above Line A...

Hey man, that's awesome! I like how you used those line of sight/repeater graphics. They're a lot better than the ones I had in the prototype materials I shared... Would you be sad if I stole/redistributed/adapted some of your work for the presentation I'm trying to set up? You clearly are better at this than I am!

You're welcome...

Krampus is coming...

If you have kids, I highly recommend Retevis RT38s : https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B088ZYRVZ8/?th=1 They work well and are so cheap you can buy six and go through them as lost/broken without any real frustration!

The Retevis version of its little brother (DB20-G), the RA25, is also at a significant discount for $92. And: the Radioddity GM-30 is less than $30 the UV5Rs are going for about $15 the QUANSHENG UV-K5 is $24

And yet here you are obsessively testing new equipment and posting instructional videos online! To be fair, I guess you've made GMRS more of a job than a hobby...

I was randomly scanning the other day, and heard: OP1: Do you have any idea why sandwiches are so popular in <local town>? OP1: Well yeah! They're all F***ing inbred! I'm pretty sure it violated at least 2 FCC rules, but I laughed so hard I nearly drove off the road!

If only we could get all manufacturers to put the same default CTCSS tone on all simplex channels...

You have a Grindr call sign?

Just grab some old phones on ebay/craigslist. Much cheaper and easier to store/move/organize...

Well as I said, I don't. I can't hear my phone *ring* at that range with the ring volume on max, so it seemed reasonable to assume that the speakers can't reach that far. It's certainly possible that the ultrasonic frequencies penetrate farther through my house, I suppose. With a dog, a wife, and two rugrats constantly thundering through my environment, opportunities to test are few and far between, so I haven't had the opportunity to implement more variable-controlled experiments yet! Although, if this app can actually send data 20+ feet through doors and down stairs in your home just using your phone speakers, that would be pretty amazing in and of itself!

I didn't think you were. I freely admit that I barely know what I'm doing, and that my methodologies are questionable. It's certainly possible I tested it wrong. putting a radio down a flight of stairs and in a room across the hall is hardly a variable-isolated testing environment. Maybe the phone picked up the sound directly, or maybe the app wasn't really transmitting at 20kHz. I just tried some shit, and it worked, so I based my opinion on that observation without really analyzing it! If you load the app, there's a menu option for "Danger Zone". If you go in there, you can turn on ultrasonic transmission. If you then pick a high sample rate (up to 48kHz), you see lots more frequencies in the Carrier Frequency list, as high as 23,200 Hz. Now, I have no way of validating that these numbers are *true*. All I have to go on is that it *said* it was 20100 Hz. When I didn't hear the data burst, but a message arrived, I just assumed it was true!

Yes. That's the point. We're talking about the sound frequency, not the radio wavelength. You can't have an "ultrasonic" radio frequency, because "sonic" means sound, not EMF.