Radio Tones

[nokones]

2 hours ago, HHD1 said:

SoCal???? Is that you??? 

Now, do I look like that guy? No, I have never had the privilege to talk to a repeater 200 miles away with a handheld.

I would never live in Phelan anyways.  Born and raised, and lived in Orange County up until 1976, promoted and ended up in Merced for 18 months way too long, than promoted to Sacramento and lived in Roseville until 2008, retired in 2006 and moved to Plumas Lake, and finally called it quits in California and moved to Sun City West in 2019, old people country, where if you hear a siren going to, but not from, guaranteed there will be a Golf Car on the corner for sale and an Estate Sale the following week.

[HHD1]

3 hours ago, nokones said:

guaranteed there will be a Golf Car on the corner

How many have a rooftop antenna and a bullhorn P.A. ?

[HHD1]

Speaking of Radio Tones...

Does anyone else here like to dial random DTMF's at work, then join everyone in their confusion and questions of, "What the hell was that?" ?

[nokones]

10 hours ago, HHD1 said:

How many have a rooftop antenna and a bullhorn P.A. ?

I doubt that anyone is that kooky, but my Golf Car has XM Radio and Stereo Speakers.

[HHD1]

3 hours ago, nokones said:

I doubt that anyone is that kooky, but my Golf Car has XM Radio and Stereo Speakers.

Hey that's nice!!  I really like that color.  And the wheels are sweet.  If I had one, I would definitely put a mobile GMRS in her. 

[nokones]

On 11/26/2025 at 9:10 AM, HHD1 said:

Hey that's nice!!  I really like that color.  And the wheels are sweet.  If I had one, I would definitely put a mobile GMRS in her. 

I thought about it. One of my Kenwood TK-880s would be a prefect sized radio to be mounted overhead.

My portable does a fine job and I can hit every repeater that I need to which they have a large foot print of coverage, including my own repeater.

[WSAQ296]

On 11/22/2025 at 8:07 PM, Jaay said:

Listening to Pocsag can make you go blind, and develop projectile vomiting ... 

That's not what made you go blind, OR what put the hair on your knuckles. 

[Jaay]

9 hours ago, WSAQ296 said:

That's not what made you go blind, OR what put the hair on your knuckles. 

I'm happy to say, I have Neither issue ! 

[Adam2817]

Anyone think that CHIRP will ever make it clearer when it comes to the TONES column? CTCSS, DPL, tone, DTCS etc. As a newbie, it's still so FN confusing!

[SteveShannon]

3 minutes ago, Adam2817 said:

Anyone think that CHIRP will ever make it clearer when it comes to the TONES column? CTCSS, DPL, tone, DTCS etc. As a newbie, it's still so FN confusing!

It looks like you’re conflating some things.
DPL and DTCS are two names for the same thing.

CTCSS is the same as PL.

Once you use them a few times it will make sense to you. Feel free to ask questions. 

[Adam2817]

12 hours ago, SteveShannon said:

It looks like you’re conflating some things.
DPL and DTCS are two names for the same thing.

CTCSS is the same as PL.

Once you use them a few times it will make sense to you. Feel free to ask questions. 

Thanks for that. I searched the interweb for the answer but was not getting a clear answer. Thanks for clearing that up. Now I just hope I'm outside the local repeaters range.

[SteveShannon]

52 minutes ago, Adam2817 said:

Thanks for that. I searched the interweb for the answer but was not getting a clear answer. Thanks for clearing that up. Now I just hope I'm outside the local repeaters range.

Something that’s not obvious sometimes is that leaving the tones (CTCSS, PL) or codes (DTCSS, DTCS, DPL, etc) out on the receiver side will allow you to hear everything.  Depending on your radio that can be done simply by leaving the RX Tone empty or by setting the Tone Mode column to “Tone” rather than “TSQL”. And of course as you’ve already determined, different manufacturers call things different names.  

Second, GMRS repeaters only receive on one of the eight main 467 MHz channels.  GMRS radios which attempt to talk to those frequencies sometimes number those channels 23-30, or sometimes they call them something else like RP15, RP16 … RP22.  If you’re not transmitting on a repeater channel the repeater will never hear you.

How far away from the repeater are you?  What’s the terrain like?  Be sure you keep the antenna on your radio vertical when transmitting; sometimes I’ve seen people hold the radio horizontally in their hands.  That can cost you some range.

[WRZK526]

On 11/18/2025 at 1:54 PM, WRWH232 said:

New to GMRS and I am looking for guide on learning and understanding radio tones.

For example: what is Tone Mode, Tone, Tone Squelch, DTCS, and etc...

Any guidance is greatly appreciated.

 

Hope you got some good information on this since you posted awhile ago. Try not to let people make it sound so complicated just so they can feel smart.