MarkInTampa

One of the retirement communities 20 miles south of me (Sun City Center) has some kind of FRS/GMRS emergency network thing on simplex they do every Wednesday morning. Net control starts the net with a preamble of what it is, a website for more information and his GMRS call sign. About all I can hear is net control and their security patrol, everyone else I assume are FRS (like I said, 20 miles away but net control hits me full scale). The users are assigned radios and a id, something like Alpha 1-20, Bravo 1-20, etc and they go through the check in procedure including asking for relays. At the end of the net, they sign off with their GMRS callsign, that's about the only time it's used.

Just for fun... Here's the coverage maps of a location near you. First example is assuming a 9db antenna, 50watt radio and a 50ft mast. Second example would be a 5watt HT with a 3db HT antenna.

It was down in yesterday morning when I saw this post, back up in the afternoon. The FCC data base is and has been SLOW for a long time. I just looked up my call and it took 11 seconds. I ran a query of all active licensed GMRS users in my town (92 of of them) and it took 10 seconds. Weird. Edited: Just for fun I ran a query for all new GMRS licenses sorted by Grant Date in the last 1 year. Left off Call Sign, Name and FRN from screenshot. 28 in total. What I found odd is that we normally see 2-4 new licenses a month. Only 2 so far this year.

I picked up a VGC VR-N7500 50 watt mobile a few years ago just for grins for use as a base station. No display, no mic and everything runs via a app on a Android device and Bluetooth. What is kinda cool (and why I bought the radio) was that you could allow others on the internet with permission and app installed access to the radio, kinda like Zellow. So I setup a spare tablet connected on internet and the radio, installed the app on my phone and was able to access my favorite GMRS repeater from anywhere and it was cheap - like $150 or so, it's hard to find ANY 50 watt mobile for that price. I could have setup multiple users, but I don't own the repeater I had the radio programmed to. IT WASN'T MY REPEATER to do so. I don't think a repeater owner would be very happy to find out his repeater is now a "networked repeater" without his knowledge. I just thought it was cool to be able to use for myself. Used it for a week or so and it worked great. The radio now sits on the shelf unused, I just hated the interface and never really used the radio remotely.

Setup the radio for the Bartow repeater (462.725 141.3 tone). Easy to reach from Lakeland even with a HT and is one of the more dominate repeaters in the area. On Tuesday nights at 7:00 there is a net you are welcome to check into with around 30-35 folks checking in a week. Have fun!

I used to run a Argent ADS-SR1 Simplex Repeater ($90 + $7 for cable) that has both programmable CW-ID or Voice-ID connected to a cheapie HT on 1watt to inject the ID every 10 minutes into the repeater. After configuring the controller, I setup the HT receive to listen on some random unused VHF frequency (after configuring, don't really need the input anymore) to keep the front end of the HT from being overloaded by the repeater and the output of the HT set to the repeaters input frequency. Worked like a champ.

Just got back to my desktop from a cruise. Here's a link to legacy licenses. It lists the license holder by zip, state and city. The list is a few years old but does give you the callsign and you can use the FCC license search to see if it's still valid or expired. I keep it bookmarked just in case. https://www.thepeters.org/grandfathered_gmrs.html

True

I have a Connect Systems CS800D DMR mobile sitting in a box I haven't had a chance to play with that supports Motorola encryption and passive timeslot and color code monitoring. Guess I could hook it up and try and mess with them, but not worth my time. What is messed up is when there is a strong band opening, the Orlando 700 repeater users will complain about hearing DMR thinking it's coming from their repeater when it's coming from Tampa. The band doesn't open that strong very often though, maybe a few times a year.

Not in this case. You can tell by the DMR headers it is running a Motorola system.

It's encrypted DMR. About all you can see with SDR are the headers at start of tx and they are using GPS tracking and reporting but can't see the data. It showed up 2 years or so ago and drove a really strong GMRS repeater off the frequency. A few other GMRS repeaters have tried using the frequency only to give up after a few weeks and move to another frequency.

It is not listed in the FCC database, at least by frequency. The local Motorola shop is one of those that filed a complaint. It has made .700 unusable in the area. The City of Tampa does have a legacy license on .625 that ID's every 10 minutes but in 3 years I have yet to hear anyone use it. I have a list of all legacy licenses by zip code if anyone wants it.

I understand that. I don't know or even care if the P25 repeater has a waiver. It's used so infrequently and if you have tone on receive you won't hear P25 at all. It doesn't bug me but like I said, some folks go banana's the when hearing it for the first time.

Learn to live with it. In my area there is a business operating a illegal DMR repeater and has been for a few years. It's been reported to the FCC by numerous folks, yet it's still there. The best repeater in the area is running a Motorola Quintar repeater that can work with analog or P25 digital. The info to use P25 is on their website if you have a P25 capable radio. 95% of all traffic is analog though. I hear P25 maybe a total a 5 minutes a month. It freaks out new users and the FCC rule hounds. For such a nice FREE repeater, it's a small annoyance I can live with.

Probably a part of the North Georgia GMRS Network

I wouldn't have bought a 1000G if there was only one speaker output. While the OP is wanting to merge both VFO (in Wouxun speak "Area") speaker outputs into one speaker, a lot of us want to have each them separated. For my base station I have a external speakers on ether side of my computer monitor and a different scan group setting on each side of the radio. I can quickly tell without looking what side of the radio is receiving based on what speaker is outputting. It's kinda like having two radios in one.

Here is an easy way to test the Y-adapter. If it is working on one side of the the radio, swap the speaker out cables on the radio and see if the side that was working stopped and the other side starts working.

If I had to guess you have a stereo to mono 3.5mm Y adapter. It needs to be a mono to mono or stereo to stereo 3.5mm adapter.

I'm pretty sure you can set up a VXR-7000 for 70cm ham band by accessing the repeater with the PC software in dealer mode (-d option). You can search here on how to do that.

Just on one channel or all of them?

I like the chart for how is visually displays the channels and frequencies, didn't even look (or care) about the power limit thing. I've got a similar chart for shipboard communications in kind of the same format, it's just the first one I've seen for GMRS.

I'm stealing this chart. It's the first time I've seen the frequencies laid out this way, pretty cool.

I just saw a YouTube video on new aftermarket firmware for the H3 a hour or two ago. One of the things claimed is that it is programmable/firmware updateable via the USB-Type C port. He shows a video on how to do just that. I have no idea if it works on the GMRS locked version or not. The 3rd party firmware actually looks half decent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QbwW1Sgy5o

I was testing for the OP on the lookup issue and didn't want to log out of mygmrs in Chrome (to be honest, I don't remember my password but have a good idea - someday I need to remember to dump my saved passwords from Chrome before it's too late). I use MS Edge maybe a few times a year, more for testing if a site has problems in Chrome than anything else. I typed "mygmrs.com" directly in the address bar - didn't search for it when the scam site came up. I exited Edge, tried in Chrome and it was fine, went back to Edge and it worked fine. Like I said, most likely a issue on my side. I'm just used to uBlock Origin in Chrome blocking such sites for years, killing the commercials on YouTube, etc. It's a shame Google killed it from the plugin store. It still works, but don't know how much longer.