General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) Emergency Channel

[WSGM532]

Can anyone explain how to use The GMRS Emergency channel?  Is is similar to CB 9 or Marine 16? 

[OffRoaderX]

13 minutes ago, WSGM532 said:

Can anyone explain how to use The GMRS Emergency channel?

no, because it does not exist..

Contrary to "some people's", wishes, hopes and dreams, there is no generally accepted or FCC-designated emergency channel for GMRS. There may have been one, long, long ago, but not anymore. "Some people" claiming otherwise should be ignored, laughed at, and called names.

[Haroldo]

There is a "Travel" channel that seems to have ears listening on "Channel 20" 462.6750 many times.

You can use the simplex channel 20, or the repeater equivalent, with a tone of 141.3 and possibly make contact.

 

[OffRoaderX]

25 minutes ago, Haroldo said:

There is a "Travel" channel that seems to have ears listening on "Channel 20" 462.6750 many times.

You can use the simplex channel 20, or the repeater equivalent, with a tone of 141.3 and possibly make contact.

This is, in no way, related to, or even similar to an "emergency channel" as asked about by the OP.   This advice should be ignored as it relates to a GMRS "Emergency Channel", unless your plan in a serious emergency is to die alone.

[dosw]

2 hours ago, Haroldo said:

There is a "Travel" channel that seems to have ears listening on "Channel 20" 462.6750 many times.

You can use the simplex channel 20, or the repeater equivalent, with a tone of 141.3 and possibly make contact.

 

No, there WAS a travel channel 30 years ago. There is no travel channel today. 

[WRYZ926]

As mentioned, there is no emergency or travel channel on GMRS.

Your best bet is to look for GMRS repeaters where you plan to travel and program them into your radio. You can also transmit on the repeater output frequency/channel on simplex and others will still hear you if you have tones set correctly (if the repeater used them). Most open repeaters will use a tone of 141.3 

PS: for those with CB's, Channel 9 is pretty much useless most of the time. I have heard stations in Puerto RIco and other countries running high powered amps on Channel 9. The one from Puerto Rico sounds like he is just down the street from me here in Missouri.

[SteveShannon]

While there is no official national emergency channel for GMRS, some areas have announced that they monitor a particular GMRS channel.  An example is the state of Wyoming.  The state has this webpage instructing people to use channel 3 with privacy code 7.  The state has the area code 307.

https://hls.wyo.gov/307
 

So, before you travel, do some research to see if there’s a local effort to monitor a channel.  But if you really need reliable emergency communications, consider one of the emergency satellite communications devices.

[nokones]

14 hours ago, dosw said:

No, there WAS a travel channel 30 years ago. There is no travel channel today. 

No there wasn't any designated travel channel 30 years ago. 

About 30+ years ago, there was a designated emergency channel and that was the 467.675/462.675 MHz channel pair with 141.3 CTCSS.  On the license in those days, it stated that channel, which is Channel 20 these days, was reserved for emergencies operations.  REACT was allowed to use it for relaying emergency information amongst their monitoring stations.

According to my old GMRS license, effective 2-16-1999, GMRS licensees may operate on 462.675/467.675 MHz channel pair at any time and that channel pair was no longer restricted for emergencies.

After the FCC changed the rule, several REACT organizations and GMRS Radio Clubs adopted the Ch. 20 as a nationwide Travel Channel with 141.3 Hz CTCSS, but there was never a rule whereas it was never a FCC mandate.  It was widely ignored by most users and never took hold as nationwide travel channel.