Books or magazines that cover GMRS?

[AA3RT]

Greetings, I am a relative newcomer to the GMRS world although I've been a licensed amateur for over 25 years. I picked up a new scanner with a number of preprogrammed banks, one of them having FRS/GMRS/MURS all lumped into one bank. I started listening and became intrigued prompting me to apply for a GMRS license.

 

I've been looking on line for available reference material however there doesn't seem to be much out there, unless I'm looking in the wrong place. I've seen a book titled "FRS/GMRS Radio" by Max Cooper, published in 2016 that appears to be a buyer's guide and "Two Way Radios & Scanners for Dummies" by H. Ward Silver that reportedly has some GMRS content but that book is now at least 12 years old.

 

Does the on line publication "Spectrum Monitor" cover GMRS?

 

Any recommendations?

[PastorGary]

We have found over the years that GMRS has been essentially ignored by publishers - probably due to the limited audience for such publications and the limited income that they would generate.

 

If any members can assist with specific titles and availability of GMRS specific publications, please add to this thread.

 

Thank you.

 

MyGMRS Staff.

[WQWI871]

I'm not sure specifically of what reference material you're looking for, and, this may not be much, but, hamcrazy sells custom reference materials such as wallet cards. I like to keep bands and frequencies (with common channel numbers if GMRS or FRS) and other references such as phonetic alphabet, and codes printed on a small wallet card or larger if kept at a station. As PastorGary stated, even though GMRS and FRS is still technically popular among some, especially those that use the bubble pack radios for close range communication, there's usually limited audience to desire reference material. Sometimes I think the best is to find references online and compose your own materials from it.

[AA3RT]

Thank you for the replies. Just by coincidence, the May/June issue of National Communications, an on line publication, was just released this (Monday, May 1st) morning. Much to my surprise there were a couple of articles on GMRS including putting a GMRS repeater on the air and a review of the Midland MXT400 as well as mention of the possible coming rule changes for FRS, GMRS and CB.

[SteveC7010]

Thank you for the replies. Just by coincidence, the May/June issue of National Communications, an on line publication, was just released this (Monday, May 1st) morning. Much to my surprise there were a couple of articles on GMRS including putting a GMRS repeater on the air and a review of the Midland MXT400 as well as mention of the possible coming rule changes for FRS, GMRS and CB.

 

As you are discovering, there's not a lot of attention paid to GMRS by most industry publications. That's probably because GMRS is a "set it up and use it" radio service. Some folks have tried to turn it into an experimental service, but that's not its intended use. The new Midland radios, and now the release of the draft Report and Order have certainly sparked some attention from the publications, but it will be brief. Presuming that the draft is pretty much the final shape of the R&O, there will be some new handhelds from the manufacturers, but they'll mostly be bubble-pack models for the unlicensed FRS crowd.

 

You will find that mygmrs.com is a primo source of information and help on GMRS. There's also a lot of useful info over on radioreference.com. If you're looking to build a home brew repeater, repeater-builder.com is the place for info.