So who here uses GMRS properly?

[HHD1]

9 minutes ago, WSHH887 said:

even without repeaters a message could be handed of from users to user and passed a long way

I like that idea.  There doesn't seem to be that many people around me that are into GMRS.  Which I find strange considering how much outdoor recreation there is around here.  Washburn County, Wisconsin.

[WSHH887]

1 hour ago, HHD1 said:

I like that idea.  There doesn't seem to be that many people around me that are into GMRS.  Which I find strange considering how much outdoor recreation there is around here.  Washburn County, Wisconsin.

Surprised it's not a thing.  Since I'm new I'm wondering, are there groups like the old REACT that use GMRS?

[WRTC928]

4 hours ago, WSHH887 said:

Surprised it's not a thing.  Since I'm new I'm wondering, are there groups like the old REACT that use GMRS?

Amateur radio has ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service) but I'm not aware of anything comparable on GMRS. It seems like a good idea, though.

[SteveShannon]

8 hours ago, CaptainSarcastic said:

I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing that searching for the PL so you can notify the workers at Tidal Wave Car Wash that the vacuum is out of order (when in reality it probably isn't) is not proper use of GMRS...

It’s actually fine according to the rules.

[CaptainSarcastic]

14 hours ago, WSHH887 said:

Surprised it's not a thing.  Since I'm new I'm wondering, are there groups like the old REACT that use GMRS?

I don't know about a national organization like REACT, but just lurking on here I see various references to locally organized community/neighborhood watch groups that use GMRS/FRS and I think that's a great idea. 

[Sonicgott]

I've been using my GMRS radio for work, and helping others set up their stuff and giving signal feedback. It's also fun to play with the kids in the neighborhood.

Other than that, I leave the extensive ragchew to my ham radio, but leaving the GMRS open just in case. My mother will use the GMRS radio as well (she can share my call sign, thanks FCC) just to keep in touch with me when I'm out and about at the nearby nature trail.

[Hoppyjr]

[WSFF627]

I normally don't respond to posts or spend a bunch of time on forums. I found this interesting with lots of differing opinions and some good points. My thoughts on radio and its use are shaped by a carrier in public safety, emergency management, and my personal use of Marine VHF, GMRS and HAM, within licensure guidelines.

The FCC states "95.1703 Definitions, GMRS. General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS).   A mobile two-way voice communication service, with limited data applications, for facilitating activities of individual licensees and their family members, including, but not limited to, voluntary provision of assistance to the public during emergencies and natural disasters."

As mentioned, I have both GMRS and HAM licenses. I also own a local GMRS repeater that has a large footprint, and am involved in HAM repeater systems that are part of the SKYWARN network. No, GMRS was never meant to be HAM. But all things evolve over time, it will not become HAM (nothing will become HAM, it is literally an experimental license that allows HAMs to do many, many things), but its use has and will evolve (grandfathered licenses for example) just like CB radio did.

In my opinion, GMRS has some distinct advantages over HAM. The biggest being that once license covers a family. Repeater linking is not allowed in GMRS, so that keeps comms more local. A big benefit to GMRS and GMRS repeaters in particular, is the ability to provide alternate and emergency comms for families and friends. Most of the people who want access to my repeater specify they want it for emergency use to communicate with family and friends.

Something a lot of people don't realize about cell phone service. Cell providers, and really all of telecom, are not required to provide long term emergency power for their sites or nodes. Most only have battery backup that doesn't last very long. My area gets hit with some severe weather once a year that causes widespread outages due to power and telecom lines being down. The first thing that happens is the cell towers get loaded up and bandwidth drops. If you have a cell provider that is not a big company that owns its own network, you are the first to get dropped from the network / site. Most people also don't realize that most "landline" phones are now VIOP. When the node goes down because its batteries are dead, so is you phone and internet (assuming you have power). As soon as the cell site without a generator looses it battery backup, its off the air and your cell is out. This can last for days. In contrast, the "big" repeater sites, both HAM and GMRS, are on UPS and gen power. My GMRS repeater can run a minimum of 24 hours with moderate use before I need to plug it into the generator. All the HAM sites I'm familiar with are the same way and are usually on commercial towers with gen backup.

In order to use radio for emergency comms, you need to be familiar with radio and be fluent in its use.  You need to know your radios work, you need to know the repeaters you programmed a year ago are on the air, and you need to know where you can use them from and who you can communicate with on them. You also need to have a plan for using radio to communicate when cells and landlines are down. Radio checks, general conversation, and rag chewing on repeaters helps ensure this.

[SteveShannon]

2 hours ago, WSFF627 said:

I normally don't respond to posts or spend a bunch of time on forums. I found this interesting with lots of differing opinions and some good points. My thoughts on radio and its use are shaped by a carrier in public safety, emergency management, and my personal use of Marine VHF, GMRS and HAM, within licensure guidelines.

The FCC states "95.1703 Definitions, GMRS. General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS).   A mobile two-way voice communication service, with limited data applications, for facilitating activities of individual licensees and their family members, including, but not limited to, voluntary provision of assistance to the public during emergencies and natural disasters."

As mentioned, I have both GMRS and HAM licenses. I also own a local GMRS repeater that has a large footprint, and am involved in HAM repeater systems that are part of the SKYWARN network. No, GMRS was never meant to be HAM. But all things evolve over time, it will not become HAM (nothing will become HAM, it is literally an experimental license that allows HAMs to do many, many things), but its use has and will evolve (grandfathered licenses for example) just like CB radio did.

In my opinion, GMRS has some distinct advantages over HAM. The biggest being that once license covers a family. Repeater linking is not allowed in GMRS, so that keeps comms more local. A big benefit to GMRS and GMRS repeaters in particular, is the ability to provide alternate and emergency comms for families and friends. Most of the people who want access to my repeater specify they want it for emergency use to communicate with family and friends.

Something a lot of people don't realize about cell phone service. Cell providers, and really all of telecom, are not required to provide long term emergency power for their sites or nodes. Most only have battery backup that doesn't last very long. My area gets hit with some severe weather once a year that causes widespread outages due to power and telecom lines being down. The first thing that happens is the cell towers get loaded up and bandwidth drops. If you have a cell provider that is not a big company that owns its own network, you are the first to get dropped from the network / site. Most people also don't realize that most "landline" phones are now VIOP. When the node goes down because its batteries are dead, so is you phone and internet (assuming you have power). As soon as the cell site without a generator looses it battery backup, its off the air and your cell is out. This can last for days. In contrast, the "big" repeater sites, both HAM and GMRS, are on UPS and gen power. My GMRS repeater can run a minimum of 24 hours with moderate use before I need to plug it into the generator. All the HAM sites I'm familiar with are the same way and are usually on commercial towers with gen backup.

In order to use radio for emergency comms, you need to be familiar with radio and be fluent in its use.  You need to know your radios work, you need to know the repeaters you programmed a year ago are on the air, and you need to know where you can use them from and who you can communicate with on them. You also need to have a plan for using radio to communicate when cells and landlines are down. Radio checks, general conversation, and rag chewing on repeaters helps ensure this.

 

Excellent post!!! Maybe the best first post by a new member!  Welcome to the forums!

[nokones]

On 3/7/2025 at 8:31 PM, WRTC928 said:

Amateur radio has ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service) but I'm not aware of anything comparable on GMRS. It seems like a good idea, though.

The Arizona GMRS Repeater Club has an Emergency Services Group with trained members and has on-going field training and involvement with community events throughout the year.

Now, you are aware that there is a comparable service with a GMRS organization.

[TDM827]

4 hours ago, WSFF627 said:

In order to use radio for emergency comms, you need to be familiar with radio and be fluent in its use.  You need to know your radios work, you need to know the repeaters you programmed a year ago are on the air, and you need to know where you can use them from and who you can communicate with on them. You also need to have a plan for using radio to communicate when cells and landlines are down. Radio checks, general conversation, and rag chewing on repeaters helps ensure this.

You got to the most important part right here. Also coming from a public safety and emergency management background I have seen plenty of people, or groups of people, plan to use land mobile radio in emergencies. Only to never learn to properly use, and equally important, regularly practice using radio. 

So if there is an emergency those folks are faced with having to "relearn" their plans during some really stressful times. Without doing some "practice" or "maintenance" comm sessions its even tougher for groups of people or families to stay committed to an emergency comms plan. 

[marcspaz]

Today was my first day reading this thread. Great topic and it was fun reading. 

 

I feel like it's pretty easy to use it properly. By definition, it's for facilitating activities of individual licensees and their family members. So, follow the rules and use it however you like.

 

I realize some people don't like long-winded rag chew between a friend or three, and that's okay. You don't have to participate like that. If you are using exclusively for staying in touch with family, that is fantastic, too!  If you're sticking to the rules, there is no wrong way.

 

Me personally, back in the late '80's and early '90's, my family used to caravan up and down the east coast or out west several times a year. We used GMRS to talk RV to RV and around whatever park we were at. It was mostly to get away from what was (at the time) very busy CB radio.

 

When my son got a little older, he started driving and asked me to get a new license and some radios so we could stay in touch while driving around or if we were using multiple vehicles to go somewhere. 

 

The last 6 years, I have also been using GMRS for communications with our offroad groups, using mobile radios for the extra power and no need for internal batteries that need regular replacement or charging. 

 

That said, I have a lot of friends in the area and I run a GMRS club. A lot of us use GMRS for staying in touch, filling in silence while we drive, and some people even use it to try to find new friends. I think all of that would be considered using it properly.

[WSHG549]

We are new to GMRS . We recently had a bad snow storm with a several day power outage. This brought up a renewed interest in emergency comms. We have poor to none cell phone signal here and have to drive about 10 miles to get a good signal. We installed Starlink internet a while back and that has been rock solid for us even in heavy snow. I can talk to my wife on my GMRS handheld through a repeater when I go to town which is about 30 miles away but she prefers text messaging. That's ok but if she is not at her computer it may be sometime before she reads the message and she rarely uses her cell phone. I prefer the radio because she can hear me right away. I have to find ways to make it easier for her. I ordered a plugin handheld mic/speaker so I can keep the radio out of her way. That should help. She used to like the radios when we would caravan on trips but she has become disabled and rarely goes out anymore. Luckily we have some new friends on the mountain we live on that are interested in radios and that has peaked her interest a little.

[ULTRA2]

On 2/12/2025 at 4:59 PM, Socalgmrs said:

 these clubs call the gmrs radio service a hobby

To some of us that are not into Amateur Radios (HAM) these are our hobby you ham operators have your hobby and us GMRS operators have our own hobbies why is so hard for you HAMS to realize that?? It gets me so upset to hear them talking down on GMRS all the time.

 

YOU HAVE YOUR HOBBIES (HAM BAND) WE HAVE OURS (GMRS) 

[WSHH887]

4 hours ago, nokones said:

The Arizona GMRS Repeater Club has an Emergency Services Group with trained members and has on-going field training and involvement with community events throughout the year.

Now, you are aware that there is a comparable service with a GMRS organization.

Okay, thanks for the info.  I'm in SoCal so I'm looking for a local "club".  Anyway to find out how you have set up your ESG?

[ULTRA2]

On 2/17/2025 at 5:15 PM, TDM827 said:

I prefer not to hear rag chewers and contact junkies, but they have as much right to the frequencies as I do! 

I'm glad you said that in my area there are repeaters that are active, but no one is on there as soon as you transmit the owner/admin of the repeater comes on and this repeater is permission use only or it's private use. 

[ULTRA2]

On 3/4/2025 at 5:37 PM, H8SPVMT said:

Just bouncing along hardly ever using call signs on the FRS channels like a bunch of rich kids with no regard for authority

Why do we need to have callsign on FRS these are license free service. The only issue I have is since the FCC paired the FRS with the GMRS service together I'm hearing them on the output side of the GMRS band and causes unwanted interference. IMO doing that was not the smart thing they (FCC) made (LIKE THEY DO ANYWAYS)

 

[SteveShannon]

2 minutes ago, ULTRA2 said:

Why do we need to have callsign on FRS these are license free service. The only issue I have is since the FCC paired the FRS with the GMRS service together I'm hearing them on the output side of the GMRS band and causes unwanted interference. IMO doing that was not the smart thing they (FCC) made (LIKE THEY DO ANYWAYS)

 

What are you talking about? If you’re using an FRS radio you don’t need to use a call sign.

If you’re using a GMRS radio you are required to.

There are no FRS only frequencies. 

 

[WSHH887]

12 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

What are you talking about? If you’re using an FRS radio you don’t need to use a call sign.

If you’re using a GMRS radio you are required to.

There are no FRS only frequencies. 

 

As a newbie I was a bit confused about the overlap of FRS and GMRS channels.  Perhaps that is where the confusion springs from.  I have heard call signs on FRS channels so that doesn't help.  

[amaff]

4 minutes ago, WSHH887 said:

As a newbie I was a bit confused about the overlap of FRS and GMRS channels.  Perhaps that is where the confusion springs from.  I have heard call signs on FRS channels so that doesn't help.  

It's not just some overlap. The simplex channels are *the same* frequencies. And 8 of the simplex channels are repeater outputs. So, yeah it can get a bit messy when little Timmy is using his $20 FRS radio to make animal noises at his little sister, the road crew down the road doing traffic management, and people talking on repeaters are potentially on the same frequency.

[SteveShannon]

50 minutes ago, WSHH887 said:

As a newbie I was a bit confused about the overlap of FRS and GMRS channels.  Perhaps that is where the confusion springs from.  I have heard call signs on FRS channels so that doesn't help.  

There are no FRS channels that are not also GMRS channels.  GMRS and FRS use exactly the same first 22 channels.  There are also eight channels, referred to as the 467 MHz Main Channels in the regulations, which are available in GMRS only to transmit to a repeater.

[WRUU653]

1 hour ago, ULTRA2 said:

To some of us that are not into Amateur Radios (HAM) these are our hobby you ham operators have your hobby and us GMRS operators have our own hobbies why is so hard for you HAMS to realize that?? It gets me so upset to hear them talking down on GMRS all the time.

 

YOU HAVE YOUR HOBBIES (HAM BAND) WE HAVE OURS (GMRS) 

Why do you think he’s a HAM? He is not. Your anger is misplaced.

[SteveShannon]

1 hour ago, ULTRA2 said:

To some of us that are not into Amateur Radios (HAM) these are our hobby you ham operators have your hobby and us GMRS operators have our own hobbies why is so hard for you HAMS to realize that?? It gets me so upset to hear them talking down on GMRS all the time.

 

YOU HAVE YOUR HOBBIES (HAM BAND) WE HAVE OURS (GMRS) 

socalgmrs’s GMRS callsign is WRXP381. 
Here’s a website that will tell you whether a GMRS licensee is also a ham:

https://gmrs.app
 

Feel free to try it with my call signs:

WROM258 is my GMRS call sign.

AI7KS is my ham sign.

Virgo is my astrology sign.

 

[FishinGary]

41 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

socalgmrs’s GMRS callsign is WRXP381. 
Here’s a website that will tell you whether a GMRS licensee is also a ham:

https://gmrs.app
 

Feel free to try it with my call signs:

WROM258 is my GMRS call sign.

AI7KS is my ham sign.

Virgo is my astrology sign.

 

Cool! Thanks for sharing this. At least, it doesn't show your street address. 

[SteveShannon]

1 minute ago, FishinGary said:

Cool! Thanks for sharing this. At least, it doesn't show your street address. 

That’s available to anyone at the fcc website.