WRTT642

Lol you just watched a bunch of folks who probably have no idea what all that RF wattage is doing to the gene pool. They're running multiple alternators and megawatt amps. Basically two guys line up, aim their mobile beam antennas downrange, rev up to several thousand RPM, key up, and each yells a different word. Someone five miles away reports back which word they heard better, that guy wins. Etcetera, etcetera, ad nauseum.

I have no idea what I just watched.  LOL

This is one direction CB radio has gone. I think this is what is missing from the GMRS world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PjjL9WmFsc
 

Hi Royce,
I appreciate the offer! I think I have everything well under control but it does soak up a lot of my free time. My day job is substantially similar in many ways so burn out is a real thing. 
Your support as a premium member is greatly appreciated and that's the single best thing you and others can do, along with participating on the forums and making purchases on the online store. So thank you! 

Hide the kids cell phone to justify more radios,, well played sir, well played..

Yesterday I had a teenager home sick from school because he had thrown up in the night and the school has a 24 hour rule.
My wife called me at work on her lunch break. "He won't answer his phone. Text or call." 
I could tell by her voice that she was already worrying. She is across town and I am in the next town.
So I say. Walk out to your car and try him on the base station.
I get a text back a few minutes later that he is fine but has lost his phone in his pig sty of a room.
Not a major emergency she can get pretty worked up worrying about her babies.
Maybe I got a couple of my radios justified with the Wife.

I don’t know of a single introductory thread here.  If anything you’ll be permanently scarred by the arguments about what kinds of radios are best and whether a roger beep portends the end of the world as we know it, but it’s actually a pretty fun bunch of people.
Some of the best introduction to gmrs is in the form of Notarubicon videos on YouTube, although you will also want to pay attention to some of the people here to hear some reasoned differing opinions.  In particular, look for his GMRS for Dummies video.
Don’t let anyone tell you your radio isn’t good enough.  Eventually something someone says may sound like that, but don’t take it personally.  You’ll quickly learn what’s good enough for your own needs.
Welcome to the forum!

I have tested with the SWR meter for the Nagoya and the Aubree 18" Inch.
The results are about the same. I just like the Aubree better because I can fold it up, and its more sturdy.
1.03 for the Nagoya and 1.02 for the Aubree
The performance is close enough that its a matter of preference at this point.
This is strictly on GMRS freqs.

The 70cm is close enough to GMRS frequencies to get a good idea of performance. Many 70cm antennas can be used with out problem on GMRS.
The Nagoya 771g will likely be a good choice. Smiley antenna has a good 465MHz antenna line that is equivalent or better than the Nagoya.
I think the ABBREEs are more of a novelty/“Airsoft” antenna. They work, but I find signal stick, smiley and Nagoya to be better

Check these videos out:
https://www.youtube.com/@HamRadioCrashCourse/search?query=antenna shootout

I know multiple FRNs is fine, but wondering if there is anything for us lowly GMRS users specifically prohibiting more than one license.  We know the police are allowed to do whatever they want.

A lot of people have problems paying because of the software. I did too. I called the toll free number listed in ULS and a nice lady walked me through an alternate way to pay. Do that. 

are you sure you are using the correct channel "pair"? Its not just "the frequency".

I think I will try to connect into the 177 about mid or late February. Need the additional solar hours to recover the battery. The repeater has been popping on and off line as the battery is low.  At least this year I can say it has been reliably coming back on-line. All prior years it went down and never came back up.

Bill,
Thanks for the reply. Will be glad help where ever I can. Would be great to get a wide area repeater up so can expand our presence in the greater ANC area. 
 

Hello All,
Just joined the Club. Conner WRVL 467 let me know about the club. I didn't realize there was a place for GMRS clubs on the MyGMRS site. My not new to GMRS but always open to new information and ideas. There's always more to learn. I actually had a GMRS station in Kenai way back in the 1990's. It was pretty basic and there weren't any other users at that time. I then got into Amateur Radio. About 5 years ago I got back into GMRS while living in the Seattle area. There were quite a few repeaters in the area and were ECOM groups using those repeaters. The was a lot of activity on GMRS. One group was helping people study up (over the air) for the Amateur radio tests. I remember you could put out  a call anytime of the day and you would likely receive a reply. 
I have some info on the repeater situation here in Anchorage. The repeater owned by WRCA670, to the best of my knowledge, is not on the air. However, there is a repeater on the same channel with a tone of 100. Since about Oct of 2021 I have been trying to find who owns the repeater. There is no IDer. It appears to work fairly well all over Anchorage. I have made my calls on the channel but have never received a reply. 
Well it's nice to know there is a group of GMRSers in the area. Hope to chat with all sometime on the air waves!
Jim WQCG 563
 

How will passing the ham test make the GMRS Pro useful?

I bought one too because it was shiny and new, and quickly realized it is a purpose driven radio. It works well, but better if the whole group uses the same one. 

I hope it will continue sending text messages over repeaters.

Bluetooth is actually a good feature that I didnt mention in my post ^ above, but i have not tried to connect it to anything yet.

As someone (someone) who has enjoyed your fine YouTube Hobo channel, one thing that intrigued me about this radio was the bluetooth ability. I was wondering if you tried it with connectivity (connec-tivity) to a headphone or an automobile, aka hands free?  Seems like this could be useful on the road if it works for that. 

Its a nifty little radio, but unless everyone else in your party also has one, most of that nifty'ness doesnt matter.
As for basic use and fars, it's pretty much the same as any other radio.

Mid Feb works for me 
 

SUPER long-time CBer. VERY long -time ham and yes, now repeater owning GMRSer.
Besides just trying to be as cool as Randy, I wanted a way to be able to talk to my family without the internet or being at the mercy of some technocrat app like Facebook.  After all, The Zuck shut even my messenger down that I use with my children that drive to school nearly 30 miles from home.  Plus we live rural and cell coverage is just getting up to speed out here anyway.  Only one of my sons got his hammy-ham license and my wife and daughter have no interest at all.  They (The Facebook Police) would even look at or use AI to look at our private texts and shut My messenger down during elections, inauguration, J6, again as we (The US) began to support the proxy war in Ukraine and any time I mentioned the global warming coincidence AKA 'Died Suddenly'.  Now, most the time they would reinstate me after a week or so but this time they permanently suspended my account.  Long story short I needed or wanted a backup way I could communicate with non ham licensed family members that can't easily be shut down during your average TEOTWAWKI--SHTF event so now we use the encrypted Signal App and our family's GMRS repeater as a back up.

Well of course when I am doing serious testing or just want to let down what's left of my hair, it's GMRS and also of course most my friends are experienced licensed ham radio operators and yes, we do indeed talk 'Radio' and about everything including ham radio and ham frequencies.  IMO the best range tests should include and ongoing conversation to identify holes or lack of coverage.  And yes, I am sure some of the jargon bleeds into our GMRS conversations but those are the guys that will recognize problems with the signal or give me the best reports and ideas on how to make improvements.  The only real difference though that I think might stick out to GMRSers is our group tends to me a bit more anal about IDing to stay in compliance than most the other GMRS only users I know, not that we care though, it's just what we are used to.

Like other hams, I don't feel I must give anyone an explanation per se but if this helps pure GMRS guys understand when and why I personally use GMRS then I will share.  

Now to find that Affiliate Link for the Mossberg Parts mat... 

Maybe I didn’t understand what you were asking when I answered earlier. 
I thought you were asking why hams also use GMRS. That’s the question I answered, thinking in terms of different services used differently.
Or are you saying that they’re taking over GMRS and bringing with them traditional ham activities in an effort to make it ham-light, such as calling CQ, using Q codes, and ragchewing on GMRS?
Steve