Half Duplex

[GMRSNetwork]

To give a little more clarity - antenna high on silo. Nearby repeaters overpowering family farm transmissions. Farm Base if used simplex on 462 with high antenna would have repeaters with "rag chewers" doubling with farm mobiles, guess who wins. Putting base on 467 would only have mobile interference which is much lower. Yes, I know different PL's are used but signal still present. Just wondering if legal or base has to "repeat". Back in the day GMRS was used for intended purpose, business (at the time) and personal. Personal mean family keeping in touch with family on the road for personal business. It wasn't treated like a hobby back then with long winded people chatting about the Phila Patriots. Getting a family farm licensed on analog business band is expensive, time consuming and a big hassle. Narrow channel spacing (less range/volume), having to hear digital noise from oversold DMR when monitoring off hook etc etc. GMRS is the last vestige of what radio was before services were combined into business pool and DMR was oversold to unsuspecting users. Used to flip the PL switch off on my lowband Motrac and hear many businesses clear from all over the county. 

[SteveShannon]

11 minutes ago, WRUQ758 said:

To give a little more clarity - antenna high on silo. Nearby repeaters overpowering family farm transmissions. Farm Base if used simplex on 462 with high antenna would have repeaters with "rag chewers" doubling with farm mobiles, guess who wins. Putting base on 467 would only have mobile interference which is much lower. Yes, I know different PL's are used but signal still present. Just wondering if legal or base has to "repeat". Back in the day GMRS was used for intended purpose, business (at the time) and personal. Personal mean family keeping in touch with family on the road for personal business. It wasn't treated like a hobby back then with long winded people chatting about the Phila Patriots. Getting a family farm licensed on analog business band is expensive, time consuming and a big hassle. Narrow channel spacing (less range/volume), having to hear digital noise from oversold DMR when monitoring off hook etc etc. GMRS is the last vestige of what radio was before services were combined into business pool and DMR was oversold to unsuspecting users. Used to flip the PL switch off on my lowband Motrac and hear many businesses clear from all over the county. 

It’s really straightforward. If it’s used as a base station and not as a repeater, it’s a base station and not a repeater. 

[Radioguy7268]

If you've got a decent enough business that you can afford it, just get yourself licensed on a UHF business channel and forget all about the GMRS issues. You have much more freedom to do what you need to do on Part 90 general business channels, and you can run higher power, DMR, encryption, etc. You also don't usually have to deal with a ton of airtime hogs unless you are in a major metro area, but then again, most farms aren't in major metro areas.

[Radioguy7268]

BTW - getting licensed for a single simple business repeater should be less than $800,  take less than 3 hours to do, and would last for 10 years.  Getting equipment programmed to the new repeater freq's is more of a hassle than the licensing part.

[GMRSNetwork]

$800 for a license is a LOT more than $35 for a struggling farm. Lowband is the only place to escape the Narrowband and DMR nightmare, only choice is used equipment. A used lowband Maxtrac is WAY better than any current mobiles. 

[SteveShannon]

The simplest solution might be to simply put in a GMRS repeater. Then you are permitted to use the frequencies you want. Something like the Retevis 97L. 

[LeoG]

5 hours ago, Northcutt114 said:

Apologies if this is outside the scope of this thread, but I've always found that to be an almost impossible definition. "...that directly communicates with other fixed stations only" seems to be a really high bar. I have a base station that I would consider to be "fixed." It doesn't move and while it is a "mobile" radio, it is not mobile at all. But the people that I talk to on it are sometimes on a mobile radio in their car, or an HT, or a mobile unit at home. But my, somewhat, fixed station does not communicate with other "fixed" stations only.

So what is a use case where you have two units that only talk to each other and are both non-mobile where you would have to downlimit you TX power? Something like a ranch where you have a base station in the barn and one in the house? And the idea being to keep the TX power down so as not to spill outside of the AO of the two radios?

 

I think they mean 2 fixed base stations that only communicate with each other or a group of them that communicate.  Like sister companies miles apart that still need communication.  These days I'll bet most is done by phone.  But maybe like a ranger station communicating with a ranger outpost in the middle of nowhere where phones aren't possible.

[WRUU653]

8 hours ago, Northcutt114 said:

So what is a use case where you have two units that only talk to each other and are both non-mobile where you would have to downlimit you TX power? Something like a ranch where you have a base station in the barn and one in the house? 

Exactly.

Imagine a home and it's up on a hill but you had a shop further out on the property. Let's say your wife (who isn't interested in other radio traffic at all) but wants to be able to reach you. So you set up a radio at the house that was just on a 467 channel set with tones (a fixed station). She could call to you at the shop on that 467, it's not a regular simplex channel so she isn't subjected to you talking with "Bob"(we'll get back to him). Of course you picked a channel that isn't used by any repeaters to avoid interferance and at 15 watts it reaches the house fine, no need to blast all the way to the repeater input in the next town.  

While in the shop you could have a second channel set on the radio you set up there for something else... talking to your neighbor "Bob".

Bob has been out fishing and calls you on simplex at the shop to see if you want some and tells you a bunch of terrible jokes you think are funny on his way over. Bob shows up and you say "where's the fish?".  Bob says "oh, I didn't catch any". Typical... he just wants to come drink your beer while you tinker on your classic car.

Your radio at the shop is a Fixed station when talking to the wife at the house and it's a Base Station when talking to Bob. Your wife thanks you because she dosn't have to hear Bob's terrible jokes on the radio (let's face it she's not a fan) but she can reach you when she wants. Bob thanks you because, well because he drank your beer. And you thank you because when your wife calls you can say "I gotta go Bob" and you don't get stuck at the shop all night.

This has been a GMRS dramatization.

The story you read may or may not be true. Bob's name hasn't been changed on account of he's not innocent 

[AdmiralCochrane]

Locally in central MD I still hear data transmission between fixed stations.  It was one of the business conventions of GMRS use in the early days of GMRS when businesses had licenses.  It is not the use described above where the action changes depending on use.  Fixed stations have only one use, to communicate to their other fixed station.

[WRTC928]

It seems to me the utility of fixed stations is essentially to fulfill the role of a telephone line between two locations where telephone is not available. Say, for example, a large ranch with a remote line cabin with no cell phone service might want a "fixed" radio in the cabin and at the base of operations. If a ranch hand arrives at the cabin by horse and doesn't have a portable radio, or a portable radio couldn't reach the base, he/she still has a means of communication. Of course, the obvious question is why not just use the 462.xxx channels and up to 50 watts of power? "Fixed" stations aren't limited from doing that, as far as I can tell. 

My guess is that "fixed" stations are almost exclusively used for telemetry, which would typically be short bursts of data. Since it's digital, it doesn't require as much power, and using the repeater inputs avoids annoying digital squeal on frequencies which are being used for conversations.

[TNFrank]

If you don't need to talk a long distance you might give MURS a try.

[WRUE951]

52 minutes ago, TNFrank said:

If you don't need to talk a long distance you might give MURS a try.

here in the desert I do pretty good with MURS.. 50 Miles +. 

[tcp2525]

On 12/16/2025 at 2:57 PM, WRUQ758 said:

$800 for a license is a LOT more than $35 for a struggling farm. Lowband is the only place to escape the Narrowband and DMR nightmare, only choice is used equipment. A used lowband Maxtrac is WAY better than any current mobiles. 

As much as I hate to say it, just get a couple of 27 MHz CB radios using FM and find a clear channel, it should be easy if you're rural.

[WRUE951]

1 hour ago, tcp2525 said:

As much as I hate to say it, just get a couple of 27 MHz CB radios using FM and find a clear channel, it should be easy if you're rural.

CB is too much of a pain anymore..  but still fun

 

[LeoG]

I think the only pain is the size the antenna needs to be.

[TNFrank]

FM CB isn't used much at all so it's nothing like the AM that the truckers use. Also being HF you can get decent range out of it even at 4w and if you go SSB you can bump up to 12w. With a good antenna that should go quite a few miles.

[marcspaz]

4 minutes ago, TNFrank said:

FM CB isn't used much at all so it's nothing like the AM that the truckers use. Also being HF you can get decent range out of it even at 4w and if you go SSB you can bump up to 12w. With a good antenna that should go quite a few miles.

 

For sure. Not including sky wave or ground wave propagation, on SSB using a 104" whip, I can talk a good 15-16 continuous miles, and stretch to 25-30 miles depending on where I am on the mobile.

[WRUE951]

8 hours ago, LeoG said:

I think the only pain is the size the antenna needs to be.

yea, the size of the antenna and size and weight of the transceiver..  My big 'ole Galaxy is a brick.   I can get it in my truck but it aint happening in the jeep. 

[AdmiralCochrane]

On 12/21/2025 at 8:10 AM, WRUE951 said:

yea, the size of the antenna and size and weight of the transceiver..  My big 'ole Galaxy is a brick.   I can get it in my truck but it aint happening in the jeep. 

Tons of CB's that fit in a shirt pocket now. About twice the size of a Chinese HT.

[WRUE951]

40 minutes ago, AdmiralCochrane said:

Tons of CB's that fit in a shirt pocket now. About twice the size of a Chinese HT.

and not one of them will outperform my Galaxy. 

[marcspaz]

33 minutes ago, WRUE951 said:

and not one of them will outperform my Galaxy. 

 

I had a DX94HP for a hot minute.  That thing rocked.

[WRUE951]

51 minutes ago, marcspaz said:

 

I had a DX94HP for a hot minute.  That thing rocked.

that's the one I have, from Bill's.  Nice radio..