WRVG593

So I was hiking the other day with a group of friends who all have 2 radios. (Emergency and General Coms). As a general rule we all stick to GMRS as it is more common to use. (Non repeater, just RTR). The other day we were convinced to have a 3rd radio, only about 20 bucks each. A cheap MURS radio. So we used it... and man is it better or what. I didn't think that the lower frequency would change that much. But its traveling farther, though trees better and everything. Does anyone else who uses their radios to do outdoor activities find the same conclusion if they've tried it? Or am I over hyping the change? I mean we saw differences and the murs were 2W vs the 5W GMRS.

I realized later after I said that I was being goofy! I thought "duh" and came back. You had already answered what I came back to fix! Lol

I'm new to GMRS in general. So forgive me if this is a goofy question. I have joined a GMRS group and have all the repeaters obviously. Been using them for about 3 months now. My question is, are there repeaters that connect to other repeaters that create a web of repeaters so that I can talk to more than just people in my area? I know that's more of a ham thing, but was wondering if it was even a thing on GMRS. I always figured it would make sense considering I'm seeing more and more truckers use it, and more offroading and hiking groups use it. Thanks!

That's cool. Does it also do channel 15 or no? I noticed you said 16-20. What about 21 and 22?

So yes it only scans 1-22, which for my purposes is all I need. Channels 15,16,17,18,20,21 are all regularly used on my area (repeater wise), and obviously I can pick up those channels on my FRS Radio. That being said, it scans faster than my HT, which has 2 channel observation. Also, with 16 and 20 being the MOST utilized in my area, I keep my HT set to those while my FRS radio scans all channels.

As I said above, Ozark Trail OZA19LT001 It's a 20 dollar for 2 pack FRS radio. Only pushes half a watt, but is weirdly great at recieving and scans channels 1-22 in about 2 seconds

Well that's why earlier in the thread I said to set up the repeater to not receive within a certain amount of time. I was asking hypothetical. If you set a repeater to close its rx after the end if the transmission, could it then work?

Much more of an answer. So from what I understand and has already been said, repeaters can only emit 462.xxx range. Thank you! Not a repeater owner anyway. Just curious about how things work and why they're done the way they are.

If transmission was on 467.550, frs radios would not be able to pick up. They would only be able to pick up 15/462.550. The 5mhz would prevent them from hearing.

The 465.550, although it's flawed thinking. And the FRS was just about not wanting general FRS radios (listening on 15) to hear the traffic

So my theory goes as follows- Set your HT or Mobile(if possible) to TX on 467.550. So... User1: TX on 467.550 onto repeater1 Repeater1: catches the signal and puts out 467.550 to radio listening units and more importantly repeater2, shuts off possible incoming traffic for however long the transmission is. Repeater2 catches, pushes out 467.550 as well. Keeps general FRS radios from hearing, and interfereing

Well what if they were to offset -3Mhz instead? Or are all of them regulated to be offset by 5mhz so that general FRS radios are unable to communicate with it?

I'm fairly new to GMRS so forgive my lack of knowledge. Is it possible to take a repeater whose Channel/Frequency is 15/462.550 (offset of 5 mhz) and have that repeater spit out a 467.550 Mhz transmission that connects to other repeaters owned by the same person, eliminating the need for an offset and just utilizing 467.550 as opposed to adding an offset, causing unwanted listeners to not hear? Or even connect it to a repeater far away and increase the range from 50 miles to 100? Or would It spit back at the repeater it came from? Could you not set up a timer before it can accept the next transmission?

As people have said, yoy both share your callsign and can use numbers. From my understanding she also has to say the families callsign before her first transmission, as she is a second entity yielding the callsign. But I could be wrong. I'd air on the safe side and just repeat it on the first transmission every 15 min, as well as go by unit 1/2.

So years ago I bought a cheap Walmart FRS Radio (Ozark Trail OZA19LT001) that talks between channels 1 (462.562) and 22 (462.725), and I forgot all about it for I only used it a couple times while camping and hiking. So I pulled it back out about a week ago and played with it so I could figure out what tones equaled what Hz (tone 1=67 hz, tone 2=100hz, it has "127 tones" or something similar. They're all over the place and hard to calculate exactly which one.) While doing so I found that almost all GMRS repeaters were still being picked up by my cheap 20 dollar for 2 pack radio, even though it has a hard time communicating with each other (figures it would suck at transmitting and be okay at receiving). So I hit scan. This thing scans incredibly fast. So i set it to no tones and pick up everything it heard. So I had my HT set to the channels I generally use (16/575 and 20/675) and my cheap one listening for other frequencies. This way I could use FRS channels I picked up while also having the option to pick up GMRS 15/550 - 22/725. Obviously not the fastest way to scan. I'm sure there's plenty a million times faster. But to go from 1/562 - 22/725 in only about 2 seconds, it scans at a decent pace im not upset about. Anyone else have jury rigged ways of picking up frequencies while not disturbing their HT/Mobile?

That's a shame there's no repeaters in the area. Open systems are a ton of fun. Especially when you and older family members are involved. Not to mention when it drops in the negative in temp and my tmobile goes out, but I still have coms on my HT. The most FRS activity I receive is on Channel 3 and 13. 3 seems to be business and 13 generally seems to be car to car coms.

Hey there. Unapologetic baofeng supporter here. I only have a few quarrels with these cheap Chinese HTs. The squelch is basically non existent. If you have it set to 0, you will pick up noise like no other. If you have it set to 1, it'll filter out all noise. If yoy set it to 10... it's the same as 1. Basically it would be just as useful to set it to "Squelch" on/off. I understand the reason why it does this. I know you get what you pay for. But honestly when it comes to beginner radios, they can't be beat. It's my only major quarrel.

Interesting. I pick up some fast food place near me. Not sure what it is. I'm sure if I listened long enough I could figure it out. Weird because I thought most FF chains stopped using anything UHF. I also pick up alot of police in my area using UHF and VHF radios still instead of trunking their systems.

As we all know GMRS as defined by the FCC has no "main channel". Something I've noticed is that some states have more repeaters on specific channels than others. In your area, what is the most used channel/frequency? Here, the most tied up frequency is generally [.575/channel 16] and [.675/channel 20]. Although there are other repeaters that people generally use, they are never usually as active as the other frequencies. So what are the most active channels in your area?

After I Downloaded BaoFengs version of chirp, it suddenly recognized the radio on the actual chirp program. Unfortunately i already programmed in every frequency up to 120! lol. What was the solution you had?

I would love to hear your solution. But I did create some sort of solution for my needs. I was able to save my repeater channels to channels 30+ and just change the repeater tones to be what ineed and change the name in program. I did that so I could have a repeater anywhere i go in the state of Ohio. Would love to hear your solution!!

I'm sure you've already got all the answers you need. But in case not, manually enter in your offset of 5MHz, make sure your duplex direction is positive (labeled SFT-D in menu) and make sure you have your Tones right. If their repeater is 100.0 hz and you have a tone of 67 hz, you're not going to be received. And obviously make sure you are on the right channel. 15=462.550 16=.575 17=600 all the way to 22.

Quick overview of CHIRP of you're that fresh. LOC is the channel number. The number you place is the channel its set to in Memory/Channel Mode. Frequency is obviously the frequency you set. Follow FRS/GMRS frequency for instructions. Tone mode can be CTCSS or DCS. Think of these like the key to repeaters. You can listen without them, but need to use the PL tones to talk on them. CTCSS will be along the lines of 67 hz+ while DCS is more D023N+. The tone is as above but the number part. It's what allows you to talk with other people with the same tone. Assuming you want to use GMRS repeaters, select a positive duplex. This is the frequency offset direction while you transmit. IE: Offset of 5 Mhz for 462.00 would be 467.00 because of the duplex being positive. Negative would result in 457.00 which isn't a GMRS channel and therefore is useless to you. For your use always will be in FM Step is how much frequency your skipping in VFO I believe. Skip is wether or not you want the channel to be recognized in the scan on Memory/channel mode.

Did you ever end up testing the Bluetooth option out over the last 2 months? If sounds like an extremely nice feature that might go underutilized.

Did you ever end up testing the Bluetooth option out over the last 2 months? If sounds like an extremely nice feature that might go underutilized.