SteveShannon

I didn’t make it very clearly. My point is that 90% of the GMRS users with whom I’m personally acquainted use it simply as a communications medium when they’re many miles away from civilization. They don’t know about or care about repeaters; they’re using simplex in the 462 MHz frequencies. They use it because cell phones don’t work where they’re recreating. For them it’s not a hobby or a vocation. It’s simply a tool that enhances, and in some ways enables, the enjoyment of their hobbies. For most of them the Garmin Rino is the only GMRS radio they’ve ever owned. They chose GMRS strictly because of the ability to see where the others are and to mark locations to share with each other. I cannot disagree with you about why we should be licensed, but the fact is that most outdoor recreational GMRS users never will unless they get deeper into it like those of us on this forum. We on this forum are not an example of the average outdoor recreation user of GMRS and probably never will be.

You kind of missed the whole point…

I’m using an iPad and yes, emojis are not appearing in posts. More evidence to suggest that something ist kaput.

Yeah, maybe it’s broken today. I don’t think you or I are troublemakers who deserve repression! ?

Hi Paul, Yes, each of you closes out by identifying yourself. You can add a unit designation, such as “WRQV411 unit 1”, but there’s no requirement to do so. You could have your entire family closing out one after the other with the same call sign.

Today I’m unable to give any posts a like or a thanks. I see a message saying that I cannot add any more reactions today, but I haven’t added any today, at least in my time zone. So I am curious. How many reactions am I allowed daily? How does that quota work, is it a sliding 24 hour window, a finite limit per calendar day, or what? When does it reset? Do premium members have a higher limit or possibly even no limit? Why is there a limit? Thanks! Steve

Even though this is the first post I’ve read today, I’m unable to “react” with a like emoji, so I want to say this is an absolutely excellent post! As far as licensing goes, that’s how it is here in Montana as well. I’m literally the first person I’ve met in Montana with a license. I requested an FRN many years ago (pre 2005 I think because it was before my job change) for the purpose of obtaining a GMRS license, but then the FCC said they were going to request to make GMRS licenses free. So, I thought I’d wait. I and everyone I know who owns GMRS radios have been using them ever since without licensing, until I decided to get legitimate in 2021. None of the people I speak to using my GMRS radio have a license and most of them couldn’t even describe the licensing process. Our usage of GMRS radios happens entirely at our monthly rocket launches so we can keep in touch if we need to. We don’t have conversations on the radio. We have conversations while we’re sitting together, but when we’re recovering a rocket the radios allow us to check on each other, or to offer suggestions “I think it was more east than that!” Most of us went to an outdoor sporting goods store and bought a Garmin Rino for the mapping ability. When we’re walking around in the hills looking for our own rocket we appear on each other’s maps screens, at least the last known location. We may only speak on the radio for a few seconds once a month, but those few seconds are important to recovering rockets that might be worth thousands of dollars. Having radios also allows us to react in case one of us has a medical emergency. Many of us are in our fifties, sixties, or seventies (some are even older) and hiking up and down rock strewn hills stresses the human body. Plus, it’s easy to get turned around on an overcast day. We don’t use networks or repeaters and we never ever hear anyone else on the channel we’ve agreed upon. I have toyed with the idea of setting up a portable repeater on one of our hills to keep in better touch, but that will result in losing our ability to see each other on our maps. I still have only physically met one other GMRS licensee, other than on this forum. But I know a lot of unlicensed people who use GMRS for purpose driven communications just like I did. They don’t know or care about the regulations and they’re not hurting anyone. They’ve never even heard the word “interstitial” before.

I should have included that. It’s usually the first reference I cite. It can be overwhelming, but it is an authoritative source.

Chirp is updated very frequently, to the point where there’s a daily check for updates built into the program when you start it.

Exactly- you don’t (and shouldn’t) need a bunch of radio theory to use GMRS, but you have agreed to follow the rules (cryptically written though they may be) so a licensee needs to know and understand them.

Mine make me look like I have an different kind of social life: But I’m really not even looking to avoid ads. I just want to be able to support the site at a level that I’m comfortable with.

The Mike Holt videos are excellent on YouTube. He understands and clearly explains the actual requirements of the National Electrical Code as seen by a Professional Engineer . Here’s one of his more recent videos discussing antenna grounding: https://youtu.be/WRv8AKVAfyc Ward Silver does a very good job of explaining it from the perspective of an amateur radio installation. In fact, he wrote the book for ARRL on Grounding and Bonding. Here’s one of his videos: https://youtu.be/WizvvhQgtoA The short answer is that yes, your tower, antenna, and coax may share a ground. In fact, their grounds are required to be bonded (connected) to each other and to your electrical system ground. Here’s how I understand it: A four legged tower would have a ground electrode for each leg. Then, all four ground electrodes would be bonded to each other with a ground conductor ring and a sufficiently sized solid ground conductor would then run from that ring to the electrical system ground which is connected to your electrical panel. The bonding is as important to the grounding because it prevents differences in ground potential (between ground electrodes) from creating currents that flow through your radio equipment. You really want those currents to flow through the ground conductors or bonding conductors rather than through your radio or your body. Then, where your coax enters the house, it passes through a lightning protector. The lightning protector is connected to a ground or ground plate, which is bonded to the electrical system ground. Inside your house, all of your devices (radios, power supplies, amplifiers, etc.) are connected to a single ground point (frequently a copper bar), which is also bonded to the electrical system ground with a decent sized conductor. Steve

Unfortunately, there are dicks everywhere. That’s offensive (or at least should be offensive) to all of us. Unless listening is required because you need situational awareness of some kind, I would just block that channel from being scanned. If it continues, record it and turn it in to the FCC, but chances are they won’t do anything about it. If you feel personally threatened (not just offended) then call the police.

Amen! We had a case of P&B control relays which were designated to be used in automating a hydroelectric plant which we had to replace because mice urinated on them. Plus, a lot of times when an electronic device is submerged the water has contaminants in it that become deposits as the water evaporates. All that must be cleaned off in order to assess damage and possibly restore functionality.

Some of what you posted is accurate, but some is distorted and some is just plain wrong. Although GMRS is used by people as a short range radio communication medium, at least for the people I know in radio, it's not an alternative to ham radio. It's just a way to communicate. I use GMRS for one reason only, to stay in communications with my friends when I'm out chasing rockets. Someday, I'll also use it to talk to my grandkids. I've given them FRS radios to play with. I don't ever leave my GMRS radio on so I can have conversations with people. Even when I use my GMRS radio for rocketry I don't have conversations. I simply use to to provide directions or notify someone of an impending launch. But there are a lot of other reasons I am a ham radio operator. Primarily I am interested in the technology and learning more about it. I learn about antennas, digital modes, propagation, etc. Occasionally, I listen to other people talking and sometimes I join in. You're wrong also about ham radio losing participants. The growth is not phenomenal, but it is positive. I didn't check on CB. At the end of 2018, the total number of hams in the US was 755,430, following steady growth for the previous several years. At the end of 2022, the number of hams in the US was 768,942, 13,512 more than in 2018. I didn't find the statistics for 2019 - 2022, these were the easiest statistics I found. The fact is the GMRS is growing, not because ham radio is shrinking, but because it has changed into something that attracts more people. Perhaps repeaters are part of that. Certainly, extremely lenient licensing is a driver. GMRS is suffering growing pains. To blame those pains on any other service misses the mark. To change the other services to fix GMRS is ludicrous. You might just as well suggest that GMRS licenses go back up to $70 and for a shorter term, or implement theory and regulation testing to slow down the growth, or prohibit networking repeaters. Or issue a test to weed out sad hams. You cannot blame the problems in GMRS on amateur radio. Nor can amateur radio problems be blamed on GMRS. I suppose that means I should GFM. That also isn't going to happen.

So the problem with GMRS is that too many hams are rag-chewing on it? ?

I think there are about 100,000 DMR users in the United States, which appear to mostly use repeaters or hotspots in the 70 cm UHF band. There are fewer C4FM users and D-STAR users who also concentrate their activities on the 70 cm band. Plus there’s probably quite a few who do analog. I don’t think you’ll be successful in a petition.

I’m writing to suggest creating lower cost ways to support this site. I would gladly pay $20 per year. I think you might get more subscribers at that level, even without the benefits that a $50 subscriber receives. To me, $50 is just too much, a psychological hurdle, but I would like to help.

Or maybe we just leave things the way they are. Maybe all three services mentioned (CB, GMRS, ARS) are simply evolving into their next versions, for better or worse. I really liked your post and agree with almost all of it. A lot of people are making GMRS into a hobby, but unlike amateur radio, a hobby they can do without convincing their family members to become hams. I don’t see how Amateur Radio could change to accommodate that.

There are 26 repeaters listed for Wisconsin, with a few in Milwaukee and one in Waukesha that looks like it’s well within range of you. It’s listed as Armored 1 in the list of repeaters and requires permission to join. I used the advanced search facility to look at all repeaters in the state. https://mygmrs.com/repeaters

Unfortunately, Gman1971 hasn’t posted since July 3, 2022. I hope you get a response.

No problem at all. Many radios have the ability to scan for tones, to determine which tones are used. Notarubicon has a video that shows how to do that. I don’t have your radio, so I cannot promise you that your radio does it. You really only need the transmit (also referred to as the repeater input tone) to use a repeater (assuming you have permission of course.) Obviously you already receive the repeater in your area or you’ve heard some people talking on simplex. The offset for GMRS is almost always 5 MHz. GMRS repeaters always receive in the 467 MHz band and transmit on the 462 MHz band. So, whatever frequency you receive them on, (462.???) you will almost certainly need to transmit on 467.??? where ??? represents the decimal part of the frequency. Most GMRS radios have that offset built in when you choose the repeater channels, so you may only need to program the transmit tone. You don’t mention where you are, but posting that might get someone here to help you learn what repeaters are in your area. Did you look in the Repeaters section of this website? It’s probably the most comprehensive listing of GMRS repeaters anywhere.

I don’t know how to disassemble an 805g case, but whenever a piece of electronics gear gets immersed it’s important to remove the batteries, disassemble it, rinse it in fresh water (if you know what you’re doing), or clean it with alcohol on a q-tip (while protecting any components that have ports, like beepers, microphones, speakers, barometric sensors, etc), and then raising its temperature slightly until it’s completely dry. Overnight eight or ten inches from a standard desk lamp works well. Closer is not always better. Even placing a circuit board on top of a power supply or electronic device that feels warm to the touch can do it. Circuit boards and most of their components are not usually damaged by water per se, but powering up a circuit while moisture and dirt are present can really foul things up. However, some of the components on a circuit board might be permanently damaged by getting wet. It’s important to avoid getting them wet. They’re the ones I mentioned above, the beepers, microphones, speakers, barometric sensors, etc.

Lately, there has seemed to be a large number of folks asking for initial configuration files because they have written to their radio and now their radio is not working as expected. In some cases the result is a bricked radio. I don’t mean this to be critical; it’s exactly the kind of mistake I have made in the past. So, I would like to remind everyone who is getting a new radio to always, and I mean always, read and store your initial configuration using whatever software you choose to use. Save it with the date you read it and the name of the software you used to read it. Also, if you’re going to flash your firmware, make a backup beforehand AND after. Second, don’t change software in the midst of configuration. It might work just fine, but it might not. In other words, don’t read your configuration to a file with one software and then try to write a new configuration using that file but a different software. There may be something in that file that makes it incompatible jumping between software programs. Finally, as a last resort, I wonder if we could create a depository of initial configuration files, files that are pristine, just as shipped from the factory. If so, where on this site is a good place? I can contribute a Radioddity DB20G initial file. Steve

If the CPS for a radio supports importation of a CSV file you might be able to export from Chirp to a CSV file (assuming that Chirp exports), and then reformat the file to work with your CPS.