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Here is the line of sight tool. I know that area. That is a good reach for sure.

I had to circle back to this. Congratulations sir, you have successfully planted this ear worm. I’m walking around humming this for hours wondering why…

Question - what platform are you using so we can better address what’s happening.

I didn’t know it was one, I just wanted to be sure I understood what you were saying and not make assumptions.

I have to agree with @SteveShannon. He tends to articulate better than I do. I don’t think you are being met with gatekeepers but rather people who want to preserve the availability to all users of the GMRS/FRS channels. That’s where I am coming from at least. Including those that have no interest in getting a license. People that use FRS for talking in campgrounds, between vehicles on family trips, little kids having fun, four wheelers, and on and on. People who will never even come to this site get a license or join a club but just want to use radios for what they are doing. These are all as important and valid as anything else. Try and organize and change a simple service for the people and make it into something that already exists elsewhere and you may see some pushback. For instance local ham clubs near me support bike races, marathons and other activities. just the sort of thing you look to do. They use simplex or their own repeaters to do so. One such club even has a dedicated repeater for such things. Plenty of room on the ham frequencies to do this as well as organized use of the bands and frequencies and it’s great that they do this. Would this also be great on GMRS? Not so much room on GMRS. I have witnessed people thinking that because they put a repeater on a GMRS frequency/channel that they somehow have priority to that channel, that it’s theirs. It is not, they do not. Yes we should all be respectful. So people may have concerns and wish to preserve what is all of ours. As for helping people understand how to use radios, set up repeaters, use of tones, programming, equipment reviews or troubleshooting this place, this forum is here for all that. No gatekeeping isn’t met very well here. My interpretation of gatekeeping is not sharing knowledge, which is just wrong. We can all work on making this site more welcome. But you didn’t ask about this site, you asked “Has GMRS lost its welcoming vibe?”. I don’t know but if it has it’s because some people think it’s theirs and I would just bet they are part of a club and not the kids up the street giggling on their radios.

Well said as always Steve.

@SeaScholar, first let me say thanks for joining the thread and entertaining questions. I didn’t see you had joined here and yes you are correct. Asking questions would be more helpful. I apologize if I came across negative. I have looked over your plan of activities and I must say it looks exactly like what ham radio is already. Some questions. Have you considered becoming a ham? How do you plan to use GMRS for events? (as this is a limited service open to all) What sort on air networking are you looking at using if any? Fees have already been addressed? I see Amateur radio clubs doing what you propose and they have a non profit tax status. I do think it’s important for money transparency when it’s my money. Anyway thank you again for bringing any info. I suppose other people may have questions. That’s all for me.

When money is involved, now you got my attention. I completely missed that at first, mostly because it says “Free” at the top of the club page and I didn’t really look at it, but then when you dig in it’s $10 - $15. Guy doesn’t even have a repeater, only had his license for a month and appears to be interested in turning GMRS into Ham radio. Does the club have non profit tax status? No thank you and yeah I’m not worried. I think joining a local CERT would be more beneficial or get your amateur license and join a local ham club if this sort of thing is appealing to you.

I don’t see any tone pattern pertaining to different bands in my area. What I do see is a group, club or area may tend to use the same tones regardless of bands. For instance here in San Luis Obispo county the predominant tone is 127.3 and to the south in Santa Barbara county the predominant tone is 131.8. It’s not absolute but certainly the majority.

I honestly haven’t looked at the schematic for any of my mics and none have a speaker but they do have a keypad and led lights so I wonder if this might be an issue. I like @marcspaz’s idea for a Bluetooth mic but if it were me I would constantly forget where I put it .

@nokones has this correct, talk around only changes your TX while of course using the tones of the repeater, the RX remains the same. Reverse on the other hand does just that, it reverses TX and RX frequencies. Which sounds like what @H8SPVMT is describing rather than talk around.

It’s a tad bit more in that it will do this with the tones set for the repeater output automatically without you having to put them in separately for simplex. This makes it useful in my opinion to see if you are within simplex range with the touch of a button. it’s all magic This is my understanding as well.

I'll chime in on this too (thus turning it into an official ham rag chew, lol). I also went through this about seven years ago, full tear of the shoulder and a full and a partial for the wrist. The wrist still gives me the most grief. Physical therapy is key. It can be difficult but stick with it. Being carefull with it is a good call, I have found there are limits to what I can put the shoulder through and pushed it hard once last year and was sure I had F'd it up again, though it went back to it's new normal after a couple of weeks. I guess I'm not in my 20's anymore. Wishing you a good recovery. 73's

If you have the funds you could consider a second radio (you can never have too many, am I right) and maybe a switcher for the antenna cable. Just offering a different approach.

To quote Steely Dan “no static at all” Perhaps an exaggeration but clearer audio I’m guessing and some might see the lack of traffic as a plus. Just a thought.

Do you have an AM/FM CB and if so did you notice anyone using FM?

I get what you’re saying but it is fairly common (really common) for people who are new to GMRS to not realize they are in fact different and try and change all their settings to make the simplex channels talk to a repeaters when they’re not grasping the concept. I think @SteveShannon is just trying to avoid putting out info that is confusing and point out what may be obvious to some to those that don’t know.

Marc, while I believe that you had that conversation (I've never had reason to doubt you) and find it interesting, it isn't however the official reason the FCC put forth with their clarification. Thus I think using "sending voice over POTS / Broadband is considered theft of services" as an antiquated idea argument wont go very far. Perhaps that was the genesis of the reason some time ago for not linking GMRS but it's clearly not the reason they put forth recently in writing despite what this engineer says. It certainly is an easier argument to fight in this day and age it just isn't the one I think would sway the FCC because it dosn't address what they have publicly stated as the reason. In addition to violating Commission rules, linking repeaters is not in the public interest. Because GMRS spectrum is limited and used on a shared “commons” basis, the service only works well on a localized basis when users can hear each other and cooperate in the sharing of channels. Linking repeaters not only increases the potential for interference, but also uses up a limited spectrum resource over much larger areas than intended, limiting localized availability of the repeater channels. GMRS and the Family Radio Service (FRS), which share many of the GMRS channels, are intended for individuals such as family members and friends, scouting troops, emergency response groups, and hobbyists to communicate with each other over short distances, directly or through a repeater station. Linking repeaters, via the internet or other networks, undermines the purpose and usefulness of the GMRS and FRS.

I remember an interview with Steve Wozniak explaining how he would do this. I'm of the age but I wasn't privy to this info at the time... darn it

This would be my thought exactly Edit: that said I use Dark mode on my iPad and light on my Mac and don't have this issue, but the question remains what browser and setting is @UncleYoda using, or device for that matter

I was asking myself the same question and have been reading the rules and so far I don’t see a problem. It’s not simplex, it’s through repeaters. I could see a situation where HT One is hearing both from HT Two through both repeaters and from say a third HT only going through the first repeater. I don’t think I’d want to do this but I’m with you on the thought exercise. Mc Escher drawing only with radios?

… and yeah, this is a new idea to me at least. Very interesting.

Since it looks like Retevis has to set this up before shipping and is irreversible I bet a major YouTube guy like yourself could get them to send you a pair.

That's why the majority of pilots will just put a mag mount on a cookie sheet in the window...

This ^^^ I would add also that a lot of people assume Amazon will be the cheapest but many things like radios, cable, antennas, and other things you’ll find are less from places like DX Engineering, Ham Radio Outlet, Gigaparts… it’s definitely worth shopping around and comparing from reputable places. Make sure you factor shipping cost though but sometimes you’ll find what you want is cheaper at one place over two or three others for whatever reason and it doesn’t always seem to be the same place that’s cheaper… just my two cents, that I saved lol.