Blaise

OK, so I went and re-measured frequency by frequency in a big, empty parking lot. What I see is that my lowest SWRs are near 462.7, and my highest are near 462.5. My DB20-G prevents transmission outside this range, but it looks to me (based on a naive linear extrapolation) like the optimal SWR will be *significantly* higher than 467. Unexpectedly (to my own hapless self, anyway), on the lower channels, the SWRs span from 2.27 to 2.25, while on the higher channels, whose frequencies span approximately the same range, the SWRs span from 2.75 to 2.69. Am I crazy to assume that this means the electrical characteristics change with different amounts of transmission power? In any event, if my understanding is right (and I fully acknowledge the likelihood that it isn't!), this means that my antenna is too short. Now, my hacker's inclination is to braze on a few inches of stainless rod and trim it back as necessary, but I feel like all my other instincts when it comes to radio equipment have been wide of the mark,so I'd really like it if you folks could give me a sanity check here!

OK, so I guess I was just confused (hardly uncommon). But if FRS radios are allowed on the high channels, why did the Motorola Talkabouts I got 2-3 years ago come with a stern warning that I needed to get a GMRS license to operate on those frequencies?

So here's another dumb question. I've been fitting out my family for local communications without cellphones, and for Christmas, I got my young kids the smallest, cheapest FRS certified handhelds the Amazon was able to provide (Retevis RT38's, $9.50 each!). They are cute, brightly colored, and have very few buttons or features. After the kids played with them on channel one for a while this morning, they moved on to other things, and I picked one up to fiddle. I discovered that not only can they *receive* on GMRS 15-22, they can transmit, as well. At 0.5 watts, of course, but still! I even picked up a repeater ident on it... If the cheapest, nigh-disposable FRS radios I can find are outfitted for GMRS, are there *any* that don't? And are my kids technically breaking the law if they wander into a high channel?

Oh, gotcha! Map the SWRs to find the optimal point on the curve, and you see the center of the band. If the slope runs off the chart high or low, you know which way you are off!

What if the antenna has high swr because it's already too short? Is there a way to tell?

Hi all, So I've been poking and prodding at GMRS to get up to speed. I've made connections simplex with folks on the "travel channel", had a conversation over a repeater 40 miles away, learned to program my mobile and handheld units, and feel like I'm starting to get the hang of it (using a callsign is really alien and corny feeling if you've never done it before!). So anyway, I set up one of my radios to scan continuously for a few days, and video'd the silly thing with my PC webcam so I could review later at high speed, all in an attempt to see what the local GMRS landscape looks and feels like. But my scanning has revealed something unexpected. Something/someone in my area is pumping a lot of what sounds like digital transmissions out on GMRS17/600, sometimes quick in bursts, sometimes for a couple of minutes at a time. Now mind you, I'm no strict rule-follower, but I'm pretty sure the rules say you can't transmit data for more than a second at a time, so I feel like there's some sort of chicanery afoot. If nothing else, I'm curious to see what they're up to! Anyone have any thoughts about what's going on, or how to find out?

Actually, I've only been at this for a couple of months, but the only (2) connections I've made at *all* in that time were on Channel 20 from folks who were driving past our city. They both called it "The travel channel", so I feel like this must be a fairly known thing...

Hi all, still just as clueless! I bought a Tram 1187 gmrs antenna for my car unit. On the site I bought it from, it said 'tunes easily with a hex wrench'. So I got the antenna and installed it, and subsequently realized that I can't see a single hole or port to insert a tool into. I looked in the packaging, and there's no instructions, so I'm kinda lost. Anyone else use one of these, or have experience with tuning one? The magic GOOG has utterly failed me on this one... Thanks!

What would they loop if they were on different channels?

Well crap, I may have already broken this rule. We camp in the Adirondacks north of Lake George all the time!

Not sure if this is more of a question or a funny story: So I was fiddling with a couple of radios, and decided to turn vox on on one of them to try it out. I was just about to change the channel on the second radio so I could hear if it worked, when someone's conversation came in over it. While this happened, I realized that the tx light was on on the radio I just set for vox! Did I just accidentally invent a $50 repeater?!?!?

Sorry, I'm new at this. What does this mean?

I'm such a dummy for not including the frequency! 462.725 - Which means, I guess, that it's Seacom4, about 60 miles away from me! I'm at a loss as to how you got that morse decoder to work. I uploaded to the very same one, and got results like EMQWA69E9E QWA6E WQWA69EE etc My manual attempts were even less close, but still not helpful! Also, I'm confused as to how All of A911Pro's repeaters are listed in the MyGMRS site, and display on maps in their links, but do not show up on the main MyGMRS map. Is there something I need to do to enable seeing all repeaters in my area? I really appreciate you guys hooking me up, by the way!

Hi folks, I'm continuing my upward climb against complete cluelessness in the gmrs/radio arena. To that end, I've spent a good amount of time scanning the channels for traffic. I apparently live in a *very* gmrs-quiet place, but I've identified one channel that has a morse-code transmission repeated every 15 minutes. The fact that it repeats automatically makes me want to assume it's a repeater. I've attempted in vain to decode the morse, by recording it and slowing it down. I'm pretty sure it's four letters, followed by three numbers, which implies a gmrs callsign, but it just isn't clear enough to me to get the same answer twice, and none of my attempted decodings correspond to a callsign in the gmrs database. So I have two questions: Is my assumption that this is a repeater completely ignorant/crazy? Can anybody with a larger clue than I decode the morse code in the attached file? It's the cleanest recording I've been able to get... Thanks WRON559 ASR_2021_11_16_10_22_30.mp3

Thanks for all the advice!

Thanks folks, that really helps! Now for my second question. I've scanned these fora and watched some videos, and I think I have a handle on programming repeater channels, offsets, ctcss/dcs codes, and the like, but assuming I get all that right, how do I test that my radio is connecting properly? I suppose I can get my wife on my second unit to verify when it *is* working, but won't really help troubleshoot when it isn't. Is there a method for connecting to a repeater with just one radio where the repeater itself confirms that your connection is working?

I see, so you're saying that the altitude creates added range for the transmitter too, because the signal has less in its way... So if I grok that right, it would also imply that if you got two low-powered gmrs radios and put them on mountaintops twenty miles apart on a clear day, they could feasibly communicate with each other. Or am I just not getting it?

Hi folks, I'm new, so bear with my stupid newb questions, but I'm having trouble getting my head around repeaters! So I understand the basic idea: If two radios are in range of a repeater, but not each other, the repeater allows them to talk. My major questions center around range, though. I get that a repeater can be relatively high-powered, compared to say a handset, so they can reach out significantly farther, but since the handset can only manage it's own meager range, how does the repeater hear *them*? I guess what I'm asking is, does a repeater ever get you more than at most the sum of the effective ranges of the communicating radios? It seems an awfully expensive move to set one up if all it does is extend a transmitter's range by maybe a factor of 2, if you're lucky, so I feel like I must be missing a piece of the puzzle. Thanks!

Hi all, I'm a complete radio newb from the NYS Capital Region who just got his GMRS license and is here looking to learn! Blaise