SteveShannon

That is a good idea. If there aren't a lot of GMRS users in you area you can start with you closest neighbors. I did an FCC search for licensed GMRS people in my area and found one in my neighborhood. I purchased a cheap GMRS radio for my well-neighbor's birthday this month. He saw me using mine during a snow storm multiple day power outage earlier this year. I have talked to several other people in our area about getting radio, even a simple FRS radio to begin with. From there we'll try to encourage folks to turn them on when the power goes out (like it did last night), during bad weather, wild fires in the area etc. It seems the biggest hurdle is to get non-radio nerds to see the value of having a non-cell phone method of communication. Good luck and have fun.

You can certainly use an external controller & set it up like a community repeater with multiple PL or Tone groups.
If that's what you want, there are other Repeater options out there with that feature built in, but a $75 or $100 used external controller will do the job.  I doubt you would want to manually switch tone groups.

For what?  If they’re using FRS radios they’re well within the rules. It’s not their fault that the FCC put FRS radios on the same frequencies as GMRS radios. 

Welcome to the forums!

OffRoaderX gave some good advice. Based on what you wrote, I would start with videos that explain tone squelch and digital code squelch... as well as how to use a repeater. 

Youtube is probably a good place to start, but here are some basics:
Channels 1-22 are listening & talking channels. There are no globally accepted channels like CB Ch9 or CB Ch19 on GMRS To communicate with others, you tell your buddy/family member, etc to put their radio on the same channel as you, get within range, push the button, then talk. If you are looking to talk with strangers as a hobby, you bought the wrong radio.
To make things more confusing, GMRS repeaters share Channels 15-22, so if someone is talking on a repeater you will hear them on channels 15-22, but (generally/normally) they will only be able to hear you if you configure your radio to use that same repeater.
Again, Youtube is a great place to learn everything, but when you have a specific question, this place isnt too bad.

I’ll make it simpler yet.  I’ll put you on my ignore list. 

No - If set to TSQL (Tone Squelch), the radio sends a tone and requires a tone to reproduce received signals. 
If set to Tone, the radio sends a tone but doesn’t require one to reproduce received signals. In this case the more traditional squelch level is used to prevent reproducing low level signals, or noise, depending on the level to which the squelch is set.
If not set to TSQL or Tone, no CTCSS or DCS tone is transmitted, and none is required.  Again the traditional squelch level is in effect. 
I hope this helps with your confusion. 

It’s like a domino effect of miss understood statements… 😂 I’m getting more coffee. 

Howdy Folks! New GMRS user here.

I would disagree that we don’t use Tone squelch a lot in GMRS.  When setting up a radio you often have a choice of “Tone” or “TSQL”.  TSQL is also referred to as “tone squelch”.
Tone in this example means that the radio transmits a tone (CTCSS or DCS) but doesn’t filter the receiver. Everything transmitted on a particular frequency will come through. The regular squelch level is then used to prevent hearing static or noise.
TSQL means that the radio receiver filters out any transmissions it receives unless they incorporate a CTCSS or DCS tone that matches their setting.
We frequently recommend that people set a repeater channel to “Tone” in order to troubleshoot an issue, but once they have figured it out it’s common to change the squelch mode to “TSQL” to prevent interruptions from other transmissions.
If neither Tone nor TSQL is chosen the transmitter doesn’t send a tone.

There are ways to do channel steering through the rear accessory connector - and programming the GPIO pins, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone doing it on the lower end repeaters.
As you discovered, there is no real reason to do anything more than 1 channel for most of us.
Other than that, it's just legacy from the original mobile radios that are inside the box - and someone decided that advertising a 16 channel repeater was more impressive than just a single channel.

It's amazing how things can work out when you have the patience to listen to those that are trying to help you.

For the record, no, I did not "threaten" anyone with a restocking fee - they asked what my return policy was and I offered it - I don't run a radio rental service and when someone is unwilling to go through the most basic troubleshooting, especially on a problem that I've solved for several others in the past, and they can't wait even a day for a response (to an email sent after-hours) before they demand a return (because they know they are right and I'm wrong) then it's nearly impossible to satisfy them. So bet it.

In the "Radio Information" category, click on "TX Power" and set the minimum TX Power setting for 5 watts. Don't forget to save your work, periodically. Then, for each channel/personality, you need to click on the "Options" tab, and change the TX Power Level to "Low".
Assuming, you're referring to the interstitial channels. Obviously, change the freq to the appropriate GMRS freq i.e. Channel 1 - 462.5625 MHz through Channel 7 462.7125 MHz, for both TX and Rx., respectfully.
Channel Bandwith must be 12.5KHz ( FCC Requirement on the interstitial channels.)
Tx Squelch Type - TPL for analog CTCSS i.e. 156.7 Hz. The common travel tone is 141.3 Hz. The Code is a Motorola Tone Code and will correspond with the CTCSS tone freq you program/select so, don't worry about it if you don't know the tone Code. It's just a short cut to program the CTCSS tone freq. DPL is for digital tone code.
Rx Squelch Type - recommend you not program a tone so you hear everything on that freq. for now unless you only want to hear radios that transmit with the CTCSS tone freq you select. So, select CSQ for this setting.
Do you know how to add a new zone, or channels to an existing zone?
Let me know if you need any help.

Make one.

How does “installing a repeater just because they want one” even remotely equate to “install a new repeater to save lives?”

I think if Hams were honest many would admit to owning one or more radios like this. Some are specifically modified while others are opened up out of the box. The later isn’t just the cheap Chinese radios either. The Part 90 radios are one huge category as an example. I have a huge collection of those.
I have several buddies new to GMRS and Ham back a few years with such radios.  I had to do my due diligence and advise them of the rules and potential FCC enforcement actions if they operated outside of their licensed bands. They’re big boys and make their own decisions and that’s where I leave it. If they do at least they do so informed. Then we have fun conversations about radio etc. 

This is part of SSB operation 101.

You will be able to listen to the repeaters but if you want to transmit on the repeaters you will have to return them and buy repeater-capable GMRS walkie-talkies, which is  just about any GMRS walki-talkie that is not made by Midland.

Not a problem I have seen. You could try to just load them in yourself if you’re so inclined. 
 

I don’t understand why some Hams get so hung up on this. Not that long ago radios used analog VFO’s for TX and RX. It was the sole responsibility of the operator to know the band edges and to ensure his radio’s dial was calibrated. In fact a popular beginners project at that time was building a crystal calibrator for that purpose. It was very easy to go outside of the band if one wasn’t careful.
Today Hams have gotten lazy by depending on the radio’s firmware to limit the digital PLL programming to keep within the band limits. Most Hams don’t realize they can’t operate too close to the band edges since the occupied signal bandwidth would extend past the edge even if the center frequency is within the band. When the FCC says you have to stay within the band limits that INCLUDES the signal’s occupied bandwidth too. Oops.

Dude - give him some time.

How does a 2 watt FRS radio “key the RX side of the repeater?” It’s transmitting a full 5MHz off.  Your duplexer should be filtering out any transmissions in the 462 range; after all it has to filter out the TX side of the repeater. 
I’m more inclined towards the barndoor theory. 

For what?  If they’re using FRS radios they’re well within the rules. It’s not their fault that the FCC put FRS radios on the same frequencies as GMRS radios. 

So the GMRS radio keys up the repeater.  The repeater transmits the tone which opens the squelch on the OP’s radio while the kids with the FRS radios are transmitting on the same output frequency as the repeater.  This lets the OP hear the FRS transmissions. That’s the barn door effect @WQRQI583 described.  I agree, that’s very possible. To my sleep deprived mind it sounded like you were saying the bubble pack transmissions were coming through the repeater, which didn’t make sense to me.