SteveShannon

I'm a general and an admiral

I did, passed my Extra April 3rd

In my area, D.C., we "use" to have heavily used multiple repeaters.

Well, this was till, some one bitched on an group where a tons of people in the area where part of. Openly bitched, about it not being ham. That people shouldn't rag chew yadda yadda. This killed almost all the traffic. He was not the repeaters owner. Both the repeater owner and I are friends with him
Then a member whom everyone knew passed away. He was always listening and always talked to everyone. God speed Roland, 42.

The repeaters then fell silent because of the two events. Now all we get is radio checks.

Myself, I am a ham, I have tried to keep all the ham crap off of gmrs. Trying to teach radio basics, get the antenna up high etc. I am at this point done with radio as well due to the anti-ham rhetoric. So much so I have been trying to return all my borrowed equipment, and ham disconnected and boxed much of of my gear.

I am sorry for the way you feel about the hobby. There are great people out there. It isn't easy to connect with them at times. But is well worth all the efforts

I will say amateur technician test isn't hard, in fact, it's barely an effort. Most that have taken it will agree. But, if you are into rag chewing, experimenting with antennas, or "feeling better than your fellow radio operator", according to non-amateurs. It's for you, and offers some incredible things.




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Can I ask….? if you have your own repeater are you advertising it?  Are you talking to people out in the world and talking to people on it once they join your repeater? Do you have weekly net check ins?   You could bring up topics after the weekly check ins, or even play games like radio bingo or have local get  togethers in real life.   Encourage wives and children to use it.  Have kids check ins maybe?  Have round tables where you talk about…cars, radios, antennas, other hobbys,……   Gmrs is designed as a bring your own friends kind of thing but yet repeaters bring a different level to that.  And if you have your own repeater you can have the chance to guide the way the repeater is used.  It takes a while but as people find your repeater they will adapt to the way it’s used by the owner. 

Growing up with Smokey and the Bandit and CBs in every vehicle is a great memory of mine.  I do think that the use of cell phones have made it much easier to communicate in some of the same ways that made CB useful (traffic jams and bear traps).  
 
There is a place for GMRS tho but it will be specific to each individual (or users).  As SteveShannon mentioned, we use it to communicate with kids who don’t have phones or where phones don’t reach.  Or, if the cell networks are jammed up bc everyone needs data during a hurricane (yea, that happens).  

1. Make sure they’re turned on and on the same channel.
2. Clear out any tones from all of the radios.  You might have to read the manual for this. 
3. Give one radio to a friend or sweetheart. Have them go to the other end of your house or yard.
4. Push the largest button (usually the top) on the left side of one of the radios. 
5. Start talking. 
6. Your friend or sweetheart should hear your voice. 
7. If not, come back with some details about the radios. 

First, I’m very sorry for your loss. 
Second, although there are some people who use GMRS like ham radio, listening for people to visit on either repeaters or using a popular calling channel like 19, for most of us it’s a service we use to support communications while engaging in other activities, like hiking, biking, rocketry (that’s mine) etc. 
Additionally some people have adopted it as a way to communicate and gather information in an apocalyptic event. 
But I will tell you that if you want to reach out to others over longer distances and visit with others who are interested in radio, ham radio is much more active than GMRS in more places. Plus it has never been easier to study for the tests and Morse code is no longer required. 

First, I’m very sorry for your loss. 
Second, although there are some people who use GMRS like ham radio, listening for people to visit on either repeaters or using a popular calling channel like 19, for most of us it’s a service we use to support communications while engaging in other activities, like hiking, biking, rocketry (that’s mine) etc. 
Additionally some people have adopted it as a way to communicate and gather information in an apocalyptic event. 
But I will tell you that if you want to reach out to others over longer distances and visit with others who are interested in radio, ham radio is much more active than GMRS in more places. Plus it has never been easier to study for the tests and Morse code is no longer required. 

First, I’m very sorry for your loss. 
Second, although there are some people who use GMRS like ham radio, listening for people to visit on either repeaters or using a popular calling channel like 19, for most of us it’s a service we use to support communications while engaging in other activities, like hiking, biking, rocketry (that’s mine) etc. 
Additionally some people have adopted it as a way to communicate and gather information in an apocalyptic event. 
But I will tell you that if you want to reach out to others over longer distances and visit with others who are interested in radio, ham radio is much more active than GMRS in more places. Plus it has never been easier to study for the tests and Morse code is no longer required. 

I can’t imagine using someone else’s equipment without asking first. It’s so simple it’s crazy. Doesn’t matter if it’s a mower, chainsaw or a repeater. JUST ASK . It’s the proper thing to do. Why is this so hard for people ? 

Because "some people" are very, very stupid.

I commonly request permission to use repeaters that are listed as 'open' when I first see them listed.  This is partially to ensure that the owner actually intended to list it as 'open', but more just to thank the owners for making them available and let them know that their generosity is appreciated.

No they dont but that doesn't mean you can use their system without permission. This is the issue with GMRS as of late. I spend thousands of dollars on my gear and use it for my use. Its not open for others. Your just as capable to spend that money and put up your own. 

You are wrong. Free means you don’t pay. 
Open access means you don’t have to ask permission. 

To me, the best day on GMRS is communicating with people I want to communicate with and not hearing anything I don't want to hear.  Therefore, I love PL filters (CTCSS/DCS) and the 3,000+ combinations they give to our 22 rx frequencies. 

That’s a very nice box, possibly one of the nicer ones I’ve seen. I’m sure glad I checked for new unread posts so I could see it.  😄

You are correct  - and this specific problem is probably worse with GMRS than 'coordinated' Part 90 systems.  However, the Linking issue can make the problem much worse over a much larger area.
This exact issue would be part of the reason why people should read the "You just got your license, now you want to put up a repeater?" sticky - and then understand why overlapping coverage is usually less than ideal, and should be avoided.
Still, there's a difference between me putting up a machine that I know might be lacking in coverage and still making best attempts to monitor before transmitting (up to and including monitoring the output freq. at my repeater site, in order to disable my repeater when a co-channel user is on the air), and me putting up a linked machine that by default says I don't care about your conversation, mine is somehow more important.
If there are linked networks that are monitoring somehow, I'd still be interested to hear about it.
 

If I have to suffer... you have to suffer....  😆

That’s a very nice box, possibly one of the nicer ones I’ve seen. I’m sure glad I checked for new unread posts so I could see it.  😄

You don’t HAVE to wait…

oh. you are missing out..   very good tool, much easier to navigate then use of the site navigation tools.  And it has a LOT of other uses too...  

Adam I was looking at a group photo from a Field Day in 2000..I was only 40 then....in the group of 11 there are four of us left.  It brings back a lot of good memories, but it's also a bit depressing.  We met at Caesar Creek State Park in Ohio for 6 or 7 years in a row....some great times, and great memories.  Flying Pigs QRP Club International was the group.  We ran QRP CW for the entire Field Day.  So much fun it should have been illegal. 
 

I unfortunately don't have an HF transceiver but I did run my SDR with a homemade inverted V dipole wire antenna and was able to pick up California/Mexico very easily. (Am in Michigan) and I just had the wire elevated about 10 feet. It was more of a proof of concept as I am surrounded by trees so I wanted to check for future use. I heard mainly 20m, 17m and 15m.

Was going to go to our local clubs field day, unfortunately it seems to have been rained it, but that's alright. All in all not bad. Hopefully by next year's field day I'll have a HF rig.

In terms of after-action, i'll say there's room for improvement.  wasn't going for points, so i was doing some hunt and pounce between 20m and 40m, around 0700-0900 UTC.  For some reason I decided to play on high difficulty, and on top of the compromised antenna (end fed wire, sloping from 7ft up to around 20 ft roughly east/west), I was running QRP phone.
In retrospect, I should have either taken the effort to set up the interface box and computer for FT8, dragged out the 100 watt radio, or both. I heard club stations as far away as Indiana, Kansas, and Central FL, but nobody could hear me, apparently.

It's tough doing QRP during some of these QRM contests.  Even with 500w+, it can be difficult to get through the noise of 1kc of separation.  Field Day is no exception.
 
For the past 2 years I have skipped all contesting for health reasons and the fact that it has been close to 100 degrees two Field Days in a row.  Normally, I bring out a portable shelter, solar and batteries, and I will string up a dipole between two 35' masts.  Same thing on Winter Field Day.  It's always fun, but its a lot of work to setup and tear down.