UncleYoda

I'm hearing digital on 725 now so I can't stand to monitor it anymore. It does have good coverage but he needs to kill that linking once and for all. That would work the best for me but it being closed off to new members is what kept me from getting GMRS license 10 years earlier. How far up the lake? There is still the 550 on the Lexington side of the dam right? And 625 on the Ballentine side should cover the lower half of the lake on the water and waterfront (and the owner is friendly). And there's a 575 in Batesburg-Leesville but it's not open. If you could get approval (big if), putting it on the same tower as the 147.000 would be my best suggestion.

I know the one Andy's referring to. It is the one that's linked nationally (and was the focus of my Linking is back thread before it got derailed with "meaningless jibber jabber").

The ham coordination is being covered on the Mt. Mitchell repeater. These websites are supposed to be updated with current needs: projecthelene.org (doesn't appear to have as much detail as it once did) wethepeoplemission.us (Avery Co airport group that also covers Yancey and Mitchell) From what I can remember Avery Co. airport mostly needs people to do chores at the distribution site. Last I heard they don't want any more water. They were looking for chainsaws and people that know how to use them but that may be old news now. They lock the gate at 9pm so if you arrive later you have to camp outside the gate.

No, you're mixing up the process. The state did not try to regulate ham radio, at least not in any enforced way. They told ham operators, in particular the net control who went along with their approach, that hams or other individuals listening should not be doing the actual on-the-ground welfare checks. They said to refer the requests to the central state NIMS position which in this case was AUXCOMM and they would follow up at the appropriate time after search and rescue phase was completed. But they were not doing anything with them right away. It was a very poor, short-sighted approach since doing the checks quickly could save lives.

You might get a better response by asking something specific. Don't be like that other guy who kept posting his ID and never said anything meaningful. I listen to the local repeaters sometimes but don't talk on them.

In my area it did, for a while. The mygmrs page of the owner of one of them says that the official answer is it is not linked. I can't and don't want to listen 24/7 but it was linked when I started this thread. Another member here in my area says the other linked members-only system I can monitor was linked backed up temporarily due to the hurricane. The nationally linked one certainly cannot fly under the radar. That's why I posted about it here. If FCC allows that, then they have no basis for blocking any of them.

You can set the TX frequency to something that won't cause trouble. For non-hams, FRS ch. 1-7 are good choices on UHF and MURS is good for VHF. Either make sure offset is zero to manually enter TX freq or calculate offset to get desired TX freq. Also low power like someone already mentioned.

Sounds like the typical infantile behavior here that the owner always ignores and wastes our time wading through useless posts, if we even bother reading. What I'd expect where a you-tuber is the hero. Back to the topic, I haven't heard anymore yet.

I haven't taken time to monitor the pay-to-play group that I used to be a member of - too busy following NC hurricane relief. I agree that this sort of emergency/disaster is not a good reason to link; stand-alone repeaters might even be more useful in that scenario.. That other one is the one I was referring to. I heard the former regular user from the Chicago area say he was glad to be back so I know there was some kind of link active. And they did mention the same network by name but no details.

I don't know about the rest of the country. The linked systems around me were shut down (unlinked) for a while (maybe a couple of months). The national one is back up tonight; that's all I know right now (I've been monitoring mostly 2m for hurricane relief). I'll listen more to see if I hear discussion about it.

Linking is back: Legal or not I don't know. Maybe rogue repeater owner flaunting the rules. Just one so far but it's national in scope.

It's a common attitude with emergency workers. I had the same experience in my home county in SC. They think citizen volunteers are more trouble than they're worth. We are only good enough to help if we take the training courses and are members of one of the relevant organizations. I think it's Federal oversight / FEMA training they go through now that teaches them that. They claim that it's because they don't want us to get hurt or have to be rescued (which is bogus). Even just being a ham isn't good enough for ARES anymore; you need FEMA courses and they only want people to staff the EOCs. None of this extra super-qualification/certification/approval stuff is what ham was historically about. If you have your ham license and a radio, you should be qualified to knock on doors etc. if you're willing to take the risk.

Mt. Mitchell 2m repeater (145.190, no tone). Spivey Mtn. (146.910, 91.5) was also doing similar yesterday. There's also a net on HF, 7232 I think but I don't have that to confirm freq. Have not heard of any coordinated GMRS activity. Note that State Emerg. Mgmt. has poo-pooed hams doing on the ground welfare checks; phone and email are allowed for what that's worth (mostly useless). Also 147.105 (91.5) on Bearwallow Mtn in Henderson Co.

Negative = no or none Traffic = messages to pass

I mostly agree, but I do not see the off-topic or irritating (especially useless wisecracks) getting voted down or ganged-up on in the sections that don't have voting. I hate all the BS that is allowed to be posted here. It makes this site just a playground for the forum regulars and drives other people away. But I'm putting them all on ignore (only works though if logged in). I really don't need this forum anyway.

I have seen it on other types of sites (Q&A, Reddit) but not standard forum software (Vbulletin, etc.) which is categorized, threaded topics. Anyway, it's no longer an issue for me; I'm done with posting in that section.

Since the jokers here want to bury this with down votes in Technical Discussion, posting here instead. Some users try to stay "legal" while the enforcement agency still exists. The fact that someone you're talking to doesn't know what type of setup you're using (unless they ask, which they often do at least on HAM) doesn't make it OK. The rationale that you're not likely to get caught can be used for many other things if you choose to take the risk. But that won't-get-caught approach is not how our system of government is intended to operate.

Attorney, and you trust him because of that? What about a base station talking to another base station? That kills that whole ridiculous concept. And if there were no base stations why would they be addressed in the regs? Also, you say "base station radios", but you don't need a unit designed for tabletop use in order to set it up that way. Handheld and mobile units can be setup as base stations (that's in fact all I have).

Easy. The wording of the rules is ambiguous and therefore open to individual interpretation. And we see lots of examples of how that goes off the rails. Even if all I got was a phone call from the guy who writes the regs, it would have been meaningful to me. (They said they would forward my questions to him but in the email reply from customer service type folks there was no indication the expert was ever involved.)

I didn't say anything about the OP not being on top. But replies to replies do drift from the original post. I've never seen a forum category handled this way and IMO there is little to no benefit to it.

Absolutely. That's why I called them, to see if it was an oversight or something. I couldn't talk to a person that knew anything though.

@marcspaz @nokones I don't believe that is a correct interpretation at all. People say the same thing about fixed station. My opinion is the station type does not automatically switch back and forth depending on the station you're talking to. And if they did write the regs with that intent, they are blooming idiots.

as in Technical Discussion, is dumb. We see replies before the posts they're replying to. Not everyone replying is directly replying to the OP.

Sounds like you haven't been paying attention to what's happened to our law enforcement and court system.

Something is going wrong with display of posts (out of order, duplicated, disappearing).