SteveShannon

Tim, You're right. Someone will always be unhappy, no matter what you do. The problem is that if repeater owners are allowed to remove negative comments, every repeater will only have positive comments. Reviews will no longer have any value. You may be better leaving them in place. Many of us are capable of weeding out BS reviews from honest reviews. Steve

Being able to transmit on frequencies isn't strictly prohibited - the radio just has to be certified for the service which uses those other frequencies and for which certification is required. Also, it must not be FRS or Amateur Radio Service. Here's the portion of the regulations that addresses that: § 95.1761 GMRS transmitter certification. (C) No GMRS transmitter will be certified for use in the GMRS if it is equipped with a frequency capability not listed in § 95.1763, unless such transmitter is also certified for use in another radio service for which the frequency is authorized and for which certification is also required. No GMRS transmitter will be certified for use in the GMRS if it is equipped with the capabilities to operate in services that do not require equipment certification, such as the Amateur Radio Service. All frequency determining circuitry (including crystals) and programming controls in each GMRS transmitter must be internal to the transmitter and must not be accessible from the exterior of the transmitter operating panel or from the exterior of the transmitter enclosure.

No problem at all. Hopefully you will hear from @rdunajewski.

Almost every day this week Adafruit has released 100 Raspberry Pi model 3A+ for $25. Customers are limited to one only and you must have an Adafruit account with two factor authentication in order to buy. They appear in inventory at about 9:15 am Mountain each day. They sell out quickly and the 2 factor authentication isn’t explained well until you try to login after creating an account.

I don't know. I held off saying that yesterday. I didn't know then, but I was hoping someone who did know might answer. You deserve some kind of response.

With your permission, I can report this part of your post. That gets Rich's attention (it's not a strike against you!) and in the past he has helped others fix their usernames.

Also, consider the use case. If you’re mostly just hitting a repeater you might not need much.

You’re right, it’s case by case, but I would lean towards getting the antenna up a little higher.

It will depend entirely on the type of cable and how well your system is performing now. Every type of cable has a characteristic loss figure that is much higher at the UHF frequencies of GMRS. It’s usually specified in terms of dB loss over 100 feet and the loss is linearly proportional, so for 50 feet you would expect half that loss. Getting an antenna with some gain and getting your antenna up in the air can make up for that though. Using LMR400 you lose 3dB over 100 feet. That’s half of your output power and half of your input signal strength that you would be losing. That doesn’t mean that you cannot use it, but be aware of the limitations. So, over 50 feet, using LMR400 you would expect to lose a quarter each way. If you have a good strong signal both ways you might not notice. Switching to better cable will reduce the losses. Getting your antenna in the air will also.

Maybe that was MURS. If you can’t use the FRS channels because they’re busy, you won’t be able to use GMRS. With the exception of the repeater input channels they’re exactly the same frequencies. And you’re not allowed to use the repeater input frequencies for simplex between handhelds.

This! If people don’t know the rules they don’t have a chance of following them.

Will 2 watt MURS or FRS radios work for your purposes?

Welcome! You’re pretty fired up over a two year old post. You’ll fit right in here. ?

I agree completely and I believe that’s exactly what was intended when the FCC used the language “under the authority of the individual licensee.”

I agree; it’s a language issue. I understood that you were not advocating for government regulations, but when you state up front how you want people to behave, those are rules that you are attempting to impose. And that’s absolutely fine for your repeater, but you started this thread hoping to gather support for wider support of the constraints you enumerated. They may only be house rules or in this case specific to your personal repeater, but by definition they are still rules and if you expect anyone to respect your rules you should start by obeying the official rules. Do I care that you break the rules? Not usually, but this comes across as self serving hypocrisy for business purposes. Just buy your employees GMRS licenses and you’ll be compliant. Or do as @gortex2says. If you truly cannot afford $35 for each employee with a radio, buy them FRS radios or MURS radios and just buy GMRS licenses for your team leaders if you need a little bit of extra range.

But you should understand that because they are operating under your authority, you share in the legal responsibility for them to obey the rules. In fact for minors it’s specifically spelled out (at least for base and repeater usage): § 95.1743 Minor GMRS operators. Operators under the age of 18 will not be held personally responsible, pursuant to § 95.343, for improper operation of a GMRS repeater or base station. The holder of the individual license under which the minor operates is solely responsible for any improper operation that occurs while an individual under the age of 18 is operating the station

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnstile_antenna

One of the grandfathered corporate licenses or association licenses can allow its employees to use their stations and call signs. Of course no more corporate licenses will be issued under the current rules. As we all understand, under the current rules, only family members may be allowed to use a licensee's call sign and station(s). But, I do think it's funny that @WQWX838wishes to implement rules dictating behavior when using GMRS while knowingly violating the actual AHJ's rules for GMRS. However, I am guilty of using GMRS before I had a license and I continue to talk to friends who don't have GMRS licenses so I can't shake my finger. I think we all need to relax a little, including me.

Business use on GMRS is fine as well as long as people are properly licensed. There's no prohibition against using GMRS for business purposes, but you may not charge someone to use your GMRS station. § 95.1731 Permissible GMRS uses. The operator of a GMRS station may use that station for two-way plain language voice communications with other GMRS stations and with FRS units concerning personal or business activities.

I’m curious. How are you stretching the letter of the law?

Sometimes "privacy" means "We want fewer interruptions." Privacy tones help in that sense, but they do not prevent you from being overheard.

Well done!

It doesn’t appear to be limited to GMRS.

Look at Notarubicon’s website and videos: https://www.notarubicon.com/wouxun-kg-s88g-gmrs-hand-held-radio/ https://www.notarubicon.com/ham-radio-extreme-durability-test-wouxun-kg-uv8h-kg-935g/

I would agree. These jokers don’t play the siren because they want to hear it. They do it to get a response. A complete lack of response might result in their boredom and moving on to torturing bugs.