New guy from Grandview, TN

[Guest JamesR]

Hi guys! New to GMRS and got my license last week. A guy at work got me interested but he lives to far to talk to from home. Just got a Baofeng GM15 with a Nagoya 771G so far. Hard to find uses for this thing so far with a cell tower close to my home. I have been using it to monitor police while at work. Anyone else close to Grandview tennessee?

[labreja]

Hi James.

Welcome to GMRS.

This repeater may work for you.

https://mygmrs.com/repeater/4682

Good luck

[TNRonin]

I'm in Cookeville. I just got hooked up to that repeater. It's got pretty good range. There are others in East TN as well. Once you get the programming down it's not hard I'm learning.

Sent from my SM-T860 using Tapatalk

[SteveShannon]

5 hours ago, WRWG777 said:

Do you know if this repeater and the once near Oakridge are linked together or if there is any interset in doing so for complete coverage from Nashville to Knoxville without have to change repeaters while on the move.

The trouble with linked repeaters is that a conversation on one can tie up all of the linked repeaters.   It's not like cell towers that pass you along.

[SteveShannon]

4 minutes ago, WRWG777 said:

Well, that's sad. The more I learn the more I wish I did not spend the money on the radio and stayed with the cell phone. Maybe I should just forget repeaters all together an see if the simplex world may be better like car to car, line of site only and call it good. I don't think there is going to be much to talk about anyway. Maybe I just need to find a good repeater I can hit, bookmark it and then only use it when I have an emergency or just listen in and call it good. It's not at all like CB radio. At least there we had a lot of traffic and could talk long distances without a repeater. Heck, I've talked from CA to the Ukon Canada on a good day on a 102" wip from the car.  Didn't have to pay any fee or get permission to use the repeaters. What we have here is very expensive glorifed walkie-talkie. Very discouraging and disappointing. Thank for the come back.

It sounds like you would really enjoy ham radio.  See if there's a club nearby (I can just about guarantee there is!) and see about their classes.  By law hams are prohibited from charging you to use their repeaters. (GMRS has a similar rule, but it allows non-profit contributions to pay for equipment).

Most hams are very friendly, although there are some who are idiots, but that's true of anything.  You might even be able to repurpose the radios you bought and use them on nearby ham repeaters.

[WRQC527]

2 minutes ago, WRWG777 said:

The more I learn the more I wish I did not spend the money on the radio and stayed with the cell phone.

I'm going to make a suggestion. Keep GMRS for the reasons you cited. Car to car, simplex kind of stuff. You can't beat the audio quality and antenna compactness of GMRS, especially when you compare it to CB. Get a ham license so you have access to more repeaters and a wider array of bands and frequencies. 

[SteveShannon]

3 minutes ago, WRWG777 said:

Been there with the UHF / VHF stuff and it was the SOSDD. Just no one really out there. You are correct though. When I had an HF guy hepling me I got to get on 10M and talk out quite a ways. However, unless you are a very friendly person and don't mind dicussion your personal like on the airways, it's not all good. For me the biggest kick would be talking to people over seas where you get information the news media don't dare tell you, aka "the truth". If I had one now I'd be talking to the Russian's to see what is really going on and why. I did see something else yesterday though and it was call VOIP for hams but I do not know is we are allowed to do this with GMRS, it was like a radio connected to the intenet and visa - versa

VOIP is Voice Over IP, meaning an IP (Internet Protocol) network.  It is simply a digitization of analog voice that is broken up into packets and routed over the internet.  That's allowed using ham radio, but not GMRS.  

If you ask a Russian ham for their opinion you should also ask a Ukrainian ham.  Unfortunately, but for defensive reasons ham radio transmissions have been prohiibited in Ukraine to prevent hams from becoming targeted and probably also to prevent intelligence reports being sent back to Russia, but a Polish ham radio organization has been helping provide radios to Ukrainian militias for communication purposes.  Poland's ham radio operators would probably be more neutral than the Russian ones if you really want the truth.

[SteveShannon]

4 minutes ago, WRWG777 said:

I should have renewed my UHF / VHF KD6CJH as a just in case. I forogot where to go to do this. I still have time, I think

You can still renew it, but after 10/29/2023 you will have to completely redo it. It expired 10/29/2021

Go here to find out how: https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/support/knowledge-base/common-amateur-filing-tasks/common-amateur-filing-task-renewing

 

 

[SteveShannon]

Here's an article about Ukraine ham radio silence:

https://www.arrl.org/news/ukraine-maintains-ham-radio-silence-in-state-of-emergency

[SteveShannon]

I don’t debate politics on this forum.