New to GMRS but curious why would a Ham want GMRS, unless to contact family members

[Radioactive]

14 hours ago, nokones said:

The covenants and restrictions do keep the neighboods from turning into ghettos with inoperative cars on the side of the driveway and on jack stands, weeds taking over the yard, paint peeling on the house, boats and RVs parking on the street and in the yards, basketball hoops in the street, and no kids under 19 years of age.  It does help keeping the neighborhood looking nice and peaceful, and keep property crime down to almost nothing.

In otherwords, if the covenants and restrictions are not to your liking, you do have the option of not buying in a planned community and go live in an area where you can paint your house purple or bright red, grow your marijuana, park your POS vehicles on the front yard and in the street all you want, and put up with undisciplined juveniles that have no respect for anything.

So, "Get off my (front yard) rocks" (We don't have grass in our yards).

Millions of neighborhoods with no "covenants or restrictions" and also no "ghettoesque" appearance. Living around other responsible adults worked for thousands of years just fine. HOA's been around what, maybe 50?  To each their own but as long as Im shelling out the dough for the land and structure I live in NOONE  is gonna tell me what I cant or can have on MY property. 

[tcp2525]

3 minutes ago, Radioactive said:

Millions of neighborhoods with no "covenants or restrictions" and also no "ghettoesque" appearance. Living around other responsible adults worked for thousands of years just fine. HOA's been around what, maybe 50?  To each their own but as long as Im shelling out the dough for the land and structure I live in NOONE  is gonna tell me what I cant or can have on MY property. 

Yep, and that is why we were seeking out older pre-nonsense communities that allowed us to live like normal people without having to deal with individuals that live a miserable existence that found a way to try making others miserable with their HOA restrictions. Been here over 36 years and if I want to erect a tower I can simply by pulling a permit and following county regs. I couldn't imagine living any other way.

[Bogieboy01]

2 hours ago, WRTC928 said:

In some part of the country, it's essentially impossible to buy a home outside of an HOA without moving out of the city entirely. 

Those are the parts of the country i try and stay away from..... hence why i am living on a mountainside in eastern TN.... i can walk out my back door and sight in the scope on my (redacted for forum rules, dont want to get in trouble) and no one cares... 

[GMRSNetwork]

On 1/27/2026 at 3:02 PM, WSLH454 said:

I'm not new to the world of radio, I was also involved the broadcast industry for years. However to stay in touch with family in an emergency in my retirement years, I'm slowly getting into GMRS. I've listened to 2 meter stuff for many years especially the weather net etc...So if someone is into 2 meter etc... why would you want GMRS? Only reason I could think of was so family could be able to communicate more easily? SHTF etc...Maybe I'm missing something here. Someone enlighten this old guy. Maybe I'm missing other reasons. Thanks and 73's

Can you please tell me where there is an active 2 meter repeater? I have yet to find any. GMRS is what 2 meters was in the 1980's. I am a 30+ year Ham / Technician. Nothing to be found on the tech bands except for an occasional ARES Net and 10 meter openings. Orlando FL is a huge city, I scanned all repeaters for months when I was there last winter and never heard anyone. You do the math. GMRS is easier to get into and zero CB nonsense, it's GREAT! 

[SteveShannon]

24 minutes ago, GMRSNetwork said:

Can you please tell me where there is an active 2 meter repeater? I have yet to find any. GMRS is what 2 meters was in the 1980's. I am a 30+ year Ham / Technician. Nothing to be found on the tech bands except for an occasional ARES Net and 10 meter openings. Orlando FL is a huge city, I scanned all repeaters for months when I was there last winter and never heard anyone. You do the math. GMRS is easier to get into and zero CB nonsense, it's GREAT! 

Eight 2 meter repeaters are listed in Repeaterbook for Orlando, twelve in total for Orange County. Two are Fusion or FM, one is DStar. All are Open  

If you click on the repeater you can see how recently it was reviewed. WD4WDW (Walt Disney World) was reviewed last October, for example. AC0Y was reviewed in December.

AG4BV was reviewed in November. It has a 65 mile radius and a website. 
I could continue but surely there must be a repeater you can use. 
 

[AdmiralCochrane]

10 hours ago, GMRSNetwork said:

 Orlando FL is a huge city, I scanned all repeaters for months when I was there last winter and never heard anyone. You do the math.

It's called 2 way radio for a reason.

[WRTC928]

13 hours ago, Bogieboy01 said:

Those are the parts of the country i try and stay away from..... hence why i am living on a mountainside in eastern TN.... i can walk out my back door and sight in the scope on my (redacted for forum rules, dont want to get in trouble) and no one cares... 

I'm totally with you on that, but for some people due to family, job, etc., that's not an option. I find it interesting to learn how people deal with those restrictions. 

[WRTC928]

1 hour ago, AdmiralCochrane said:

It's called 2 way radio for a reason.

I had to decide between "liking" this and laughing at it..

[WRTC928]

12 hours ago, GMRSNetwork said:

Can you please tell me where there is an active 2 meter repeater? I have yet to find any. GMRS is what 2 meters was in the 1980's. I am a 30+ year Ham / Technician. Nothing to be found on the tech bands except for an occasional ARES Net and 10 meter openings. Orlando FL is a huge city, I scanned all repeaters for months when I was there last winter and never heard anyone. You do the math. GMRS is easier to get into and zero CB nonsense, it's GREAT! 

I agree that GMRS is taking over the role 2m/70cm used to fill, at least according to older hams. That alone is a good reason to have a GMRS license and equipment, IMO.

[beerftw]

On 1/31/2026 at 8:24 AM, TNFrank said:

For me GMRS was a good entry point into radio. As many have said, there's no test, family is covered and if you have Repeaters in your area you can access you can have pretty good range for communications.

A lot of us move from GMRS to HAM because we want/need more options. There are way more 2M/70cm Repeaters in my area I can use. With my current Technician Class License I can cover a Very Large area on the limited amount of 10M I'm permitted to use and once I get my General Class License I'll have even more HF to play on. 

For many GMRS is the "Gateway Drug" into radio and for others it's as far as they go. It all depends on your needs/wants. 

Personally, I really love HF so HAM is where it's at for me but I also have my GMRS so if my family needs to use a radio that works better than the little FRS radios they're covered under my license.  

In my area gmrs repeaters can not be reached, I live in the middle of texas in what we call the crater and are borderline to the mountains of the western half of the country. I am close to i-35 which is also the dividing line which seperates the wet half of the country from the drought ridden half.

 

  But being in the middle between the major cities, we have a very big ham community here, and plenty of 70cm and 2 meter repeaters close by. I love my gmrs but outside of friends and family use or emergency use within my neighborhood it has nowhere close to the range of ham radio. That might change if more repeaters are put up but as of now the neighboring towns have them with terrain blocking me from using them short of driving 20 miles to get within their range.

[Bogieboy01]

3 hours ago, WRTC928 said:

I'm totally with you on that, but for some people due to family, job, etc., that's not an option. I find it interesting to learn how people deal with those restrictions. 

While i am in the middle of nowhere, closest grocery store (fairly large chain food lion) is 12 min away, and work (lawn and garden mechanic) is 27 min away. As for family, my wife and i are the "black sheep" of our families, so not much contact there, and we have no children, only fur babies. My wifes commute to work is 15 min as well...

[WSLH454]

On 1/31/2026 at 9:52 PM, GMRSNetwork said:

Can you please tell me where there is an active 2 meter repeater? I have yet to find any. GMRS is what 2 meters was in the 1980's. I am a 30+ year Ham / Technician. Nothing to be found on the tech bands except for an occasional ARES Net and 10 meter openings. Orlando FL is a huge city, I scanned all repeaters for months when I was there last winter and never heard anyone. You do the math. GMRS is easier to get into and zero CB nonsense, it's GREAT! 

Where we live 2 meter used to be very active. Nowadays I could listen all day and not hear anyone for hours. If someone has the license then why not use two meter instead of GMRS? Well they can't talk to family as easy with 2 meters. I'm not a HAM and I'm retired, however I'm wondering if the younger folks aren't interested in something that takes effort. It's a different generation now. Studying, getting the license, and in some cases more $$$ involved in equipment. I'm having little interest in getting my family interested in GMRS. They've got their phones that will always work lol

[Lscott]

1 minute ago, WSLH454 said:

I'm having little interest in getting my family interested in GMRS. They've got their phones that will always work lol

Until they don't. People get so use to always having the cell phone handy they forget it only works due to extensive reliance on complex infrastructure.

I've traveled a lot on company business. It was infrequent but I ended up in areas where the cell phone service sucks, or non existent. 

I had my buddy, radio tech for the transportation department in Ann Arbor, told me during football games at the University of Michigan they disable general cell phone service except for certain first responders. I asked him a few times afterwards and he repeated the same comment. I don't know if this is routine or not, but if only occasionally should be enough to get one thinking. 

Of course if you quit paying the bill the phone quits working, except for maybe 911 calls.

With a two-way radio, GMRS, even though it might be short range can communicate directly with another radio on simplex without infrastructure, and also no monthly bills either.  Many times that's all you need to keep track of family members traveling together or live close by.

 

[WSLH454]

4 minutes ago, Lscott said:

Until they don't. People get so use to always having the cell phone handy they forget it only works due to extensive reliance on complex infrastructure.

I've traveled a lot on company business. It was infrequent but I ended up in areas where the cell phone service sucks, or non existent. 

I had my buddy, radio tech for the transportation department in Ann Arbor, told me during football games at the University of Michigan they disable general cell phone service except for certain first responders. I asked him a few times afterwards and he repeated the same comment. I don't know if this is routine or not, but if only occasionally should be enough to get one thinking. 

Of course if you quit paying the bill the phone quits working, except for maybe 911 calls.

With a two-way radio, GMRS, even though it might be short range can communicate directly with another radio on simplex without infrastructure, and also no monthly bills either.  Many times that's all you need to keep track of family members traveling together or live close by.

 

My son is 46 and I'm slowly trying to get him interested in GMRS. He's sort of into some prepper stuff otherwise. The grown grandkids can't sit their phone down long enough to do anything lol. If any sort of disaster happens they wouldn't have a clue what to do. It's smart to have various ways to communicate just in case. That's interesting about Univ Of Michigan. I wonder if the jam the phones somehow...Hmmmm

[Lscott]

25 minutes ago, WSLH454 said:

That's interesting about Univ Of Michigan. I wonder if the jam the phones somehow...Hmmm

All I have his his word on the issue. He seems to be plugged in to what goes on out there so I'll have to believe it for now.

How they go about it he never mentioned. It could be just requiring a special code be punched in before placing a call. Just MHO. 

[Bogieboy01]

8 hours ago, Lscott said:

Until they don't. People get so use to always having the cell phone handy they forget it only works due to extensive reliance on complex infrastructure

This right here..... i never would have thought that to be able to make a call from my property here in Tn, only 10min from "town" i would need 2 cell boosters in the house, just because we are on the wrong side of the ridge LOL 

 

Also, i am not far from where hurricane Helene ripped down all that complex infastructure last year... and NOONES cell phones worked here for months... 

 

This is why i am studying for the ham test... it happened once, it is only a matter of time before it happens again.... and i want to have comms working sooner than later... my "ham shack" is already 100% off grid. With battery banks and solar, and has not run out of power yet... have 2m, 70cm, gmrs, and cb comms already, about to put up a tower and a base antenna (antron 99) for 10/11m, and invest in a sideband capable setup for HF... i am going to be ready.... and i want to see if i can hit the skip to my buddies back in NY

[Davichko5650]

On 1/30/2026 at 11:12 AM, Lscott said:

Humm...

First time I saw someone actually do this, he referred to it as the "Country Screwdriver."