GMRS Community

[WRUQ758]

I am new to GMRS and I am pleasantly surprised at the great community, professionalism and courtesy shown on the national net and repeaters in general. I have been a ham since the 1980's and have watched repeaters go silent and that even includes DMR. While the GMRS community is smaller there is more activity on my local GMRS repeater than all the areas 2 meter repeaters combined. GMRS operators in general are very helpful and I see great potential with radio operators that are easily licensed and willing to put their skills to use for the good of the community. I am pleasantly surprised that the "CB slang" from the 70's is absent and everyone talks in plain English. My only gripe with the service is all the unlicensed business operation on repeater outputs courtesy of the "bubble pack" radios sold everywhere. Thankfully the repeater overpowers most of them and tone silences the constant stock room chatter. Let's keep this great service alive and active so it doesn't turn into another 2 meters. I would like to see more wide area linking or repeaters. 

[UncleYoda]

Well, I was looking forward to it at first, but even before I got all the gear I needed, I was told about the obscure limitation by omission that base stations aren't allowed to use repeaters.  That mostly dulled my interest for now due to lack of mobile-ing around but maybe your interests/needs are different.  I agree the licensed GMRS repeater users I hear are well behaved.  I do hear foreign language users on the repeater outputs sometime but can't tell for sure that they are local on simplex.  I rarely hear anyone on the shared FRS channels other than little giggly kids (I guess I should set tones to block those, or disable scanning).  I may try shifting my interest in GMRS to some kind of neighborhood comms that don't need a repeater but would benefit from a base station.  But that probably won't be used until the grid and regular comms are down long term.

2m isn't quite as dead here as it is for you.  Hear more if you know when to listen rather than monitoring throughout the day.  I think HAMs are making a mistake by veering off into so many different formats - 2m analog should be the focus.  But heck, people don't even agree on what HAM's primary purpose is.

[SteveShannon]

13 minutes ago, UncleYoda said:

Well, I was looking forward to it at first, but even before I got all the gear I needed, I was told about the obscure limitation by omission that base stations aren't allowed to use repeaters.  That mostly dulled my interest for now due to lack of mobile-ing around but maybe your interests/needs are different.  <snip>

Manufacturers only sell three kinds of GMRS radios: repeaters, mobile radios, and hand-held portable stations.  The entire concept of fixed stations and base stations may have stopped meaning anything to anyone who doesn’t have a license that has been grandfathered since the FCC licensed stations at a specific location. 

Use your mobile station from your house. The FCC won’t know and doesn’t care.

[WRUQ758]

My station at home is "portable", Midland MXT-400 with a mag mount 1/4 wave on AC wall unit. Not attached to a fixed antenna and easily moved. 

[MichaelLAX]

On 11/24/2022 at 6:01 PM, WRUQ758 said:

. Let's keep this great service alive and active so it doesn't turn into another 2 meters.

How bad can 2 meters really be in Rapid City, South Dakota?!?