New to GMRS and can here people but cannot reach them.

[BrianMclean]

Good day!

I am very new to the GMRS, and I have signed up for the license, and I have requested for the local repeaters, but I cannot seem to communicate with anyone on the repeaters. I must be missing a step. Or I am thinking the 15 watt radio I picked up cannot reach them. MIDLAND MXT115 with ghost antenna mounted to hood near windshield. The only time really I have been able to communicate with radio since I bought it, I was in a group driving together close to each other. Not using repeater channels. Thanks for helping.

[SteveShannon]

10 minutes ago, BrianMclean said:

Good day!

I am very new to the GMRS, and I have signed up for the license, and I have requested for the local repeaters, but I cannot seem to communicate with anyone on the repeaters. I must be missing a step. Or I am thinking the 15 watt radio I picked up cannot reach them. MIDLAND MXT115 with ghost antenna mounted to hood near windshield. The only time really I have been able to communicate with radio since I bought it, I was in a group driving together close to each other. Not using repeater channels. Thanks for helping.

1. Are you on repeater channels for the local repeaters?  If not, they’ll never hear you. 
2. Do you have the right TX CTCSS tone or TX DCS code set for your local repeaters? If not they’ll never hear you. You can hear everything without an RX tone/code, but you must have the right TX tone/code set. 

[OffRoaderX]

Here are some things to check/consider:

• Are you sure you are on the correct REPEATER CHANNEL?
• Are you sure you are using the correct TRANSMIT TONE? 
• For simplicity, remove the RECEIVE TONE for now, it is optional
• Try driving closer to the repeater - just because you can hear it does not mean it can hear you.

[SvenMarbles]

• Are you sure that the people on that repeater WANT to hear you?

 

Not all traffic on the GMRS is an invitation for a "chime in".

[amaff]

10 hours ago, SvenMarbles said:

• Are you sure that the people on that repeater WANT to hear you?

Not all traffic on the GMRS is an invitation for a "chime in".

Ain't that the truth. Unless it's someone with an emergency trying to reach out, if some rando comes on the frequency we're on when we're out doing something using the radios for comms, we're switching to another channel lol
Momma always told me not to talk to strangers

Tho most of the time, we wouldn't even hear them. WHen it's just us, we usually have tones set so we're not hearing extraneous chat

[SvenMarbles]

5 hours ago, amaff said:

Ain't that the truth. Unless it's someone with an emergency trying to reach out, if some rando comes on the frequency we're on when we're out doing something using the radios for comms, we're switching to another channel lol
Momma always told me not to talk to strangers

Tho most of the time, we wouldn't even hear them. WHen it's just us, we usually have tones set so we're not hearing extraneous chat

The whole reason why I'm even on this crusade is because of some goof getting on the radio and making my shy wife uncomfortable while we were trying to use GMRS correctly... Since then I've just been willing to let let people know where 70cm's is...

[SteveShannon]

6 minutes ago, SvenMarbles said:

The whole reason why I'm even on this crusade is because of some goof getting on the radio and making my shy wife uncomfortable while we were trying to use GMRS correctly... Since then I've just been willing to let let people know where 70cm's is...

I’m sorry that happened to your wife. It shouldn’t have. Not on GMRS and not on any of the ham bands. 
As long as people are not intentionally violating regulations in a way that interferes with others, we should be welcoming and supportive. 

[SvenMarbles]

6 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

I’m sorry that happened to your wife. It shouldn’t have. Not on GMRS and not on any of the ham bands. 
As long as people are not intentionally violating regulations in a way that interferes with others, we should be welcoming and supportive. 

She didn't know about what kind of antenna she had and how much gain it had...

[SteveShannon]

21 minutes ago, SvenMarbles said:

She didn't know about what kind of antenna she had and how much gain it had...

I could understand people being curious about that, especially if the conversation was about how strong or weak the signal was, but they shouldn’t have made her feel uncomfortable. 

[SvenMarbles]

51 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

I could understand people being curious about that, especially if the conversation was about how strong or weak the signal was, but they shouldn’t have made her feel uncomfortable. 

Nah, not on the GMRS. The problem is that the radio nerds moved into GMRS as a novelty, not appreciating that is was for the casual appliance user. It became so prevalent they started to make themselves at home here. When they hear traffic, they get on to let us know they're monitoring .

Moral of the story,... I want the wives and kids to be able to grab a radio that we set up, key up, and call eachother. Callsign is label maker printed on each mic, but frankly, do we need to even be about that? If my son raises me on the radio for some minutia communication, and rando Dave jumps in to ask for a callsign ID, am I wrong for feeling like that guy can kind of F off? We've got our call and IMO that's between us and the FCC..

I AM a radio nerd. I'd equate myself to a highly informed and motivated Tech class (despite not being one). But I understand and appreciate that the fam (and fams in the plural sense at large) aren't going to be. And we should be ABLE to set the radios up within our circles and do the GMRS thing without the ham types getting mixed into our practical comms type situations..

 

[SteveShannon]

29 minutes ago, SvenMarbles said:

Nah, not on the GMRS. The problem is that the radio nerds moved into GMRS as a novelty, not appreciating that is was for the casual appliance user. It became so prevalent they started to make themselves at home here. When they hear traffic, they get on to let us know they're monitoring .

We disagree then. People should feel free to ask about the radio that someone else is using. And I really don’t think that radio nerds moved in on GMRS to the extent you imply. Certainly some people do use both. I do. I started with GMRS and became a ham, not the other way around. GMRS made me want to learn more about radio. To say that asking about the technology while using it is not allowed is completely impractical. People will be curious. Just like any other aspect of life. There are those who want to absorb information and those who just want to use it. Both are perfectly acceptable. 

[SvenMarbles]

9 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

We disagree then. People should feel free to ask about the radio that someone else is using. And I really don’t think that radio nerds moved in on GMRS to the extent you imply. Certainly some people do use both. I do. I started with GMRS and became a ham, not the other way around. GMRS made me want to learn more about radio. To say that asking about the technology while using it is not allowed is completely impractical. People will be curious. Just like any other aspect of life. There are those who want to absorb information and those who just want to use it. Both are perfectly acceptable. 

 It's illogical to say that you doubt what I'm telling you my experiences are. I'm pretty sure that we do not live in the same places. Do you suppose it's possible that what you experience in your location could vary from what I experience in my location? It is in fact what is prevalent here. And it isn't just that it's inappropriate to ask about equipment, It's inappropriate to make the unwelcome contact to begin with. When someone hears chatter on the GMRS, maybe listen to it. If it sounds like a couple of people just exchanging mundane information between eachother, use your non-autistic brain to recognize that it's not a CQ call...

This only sounds alarming and insulting if you frame all-things-radio with a Ham radio mind. And therein lies the issue.. Hi, not ham radio...

 

 

 

[SteveShannon]

8 minutes ago, SvenMarbles said:

 It's illogical to say that you doubt what I'm telling you my experiences are. I'm pretty sure that we do not live in the same places. Do you suppose it's possible that what you experience in your location could vary from what I experience in my location? It is in fact what is prevalent here. And it isn't just that it's inappropriate to ask about equipment, It's inappropriate to make the unwelcome contact to begin with. When someone hears chatter on the GMRS, maybe listen to it. If it sounds like a couple of people just exchanging mundane information between eachother, use your non-autistic brain to recognize that it's not a CQ call...

This only sounds alarming and insulting if you frame all-things-radio with a Ham radio mind. And therein lies the issue.. Hi, not ham radio...

 

 

 

I don’t think I cast doubt on your experiences. I just disagree with your opinion. 

[SvenMarbles]

The problem is that I believe that a lot of people genuinely believe that the principal mission of GMRS is to get on and socialize with the traffic that they hear. They probably legitimately don't know better because there IS this pervasive thing happening on the band. It's clear to see just by the way people discuss it on THIS forum..

Here's a litmus test... Did you buy 1 GMRS radio, or did you buy 2 or more?... If you bought only 1, you're probably a perpetrator.. lol

 

[SteveShannon]

1 minute ago, SvenMarbles said:

The problem is that I believe that a lot of people genuinely believe that the principal mission of GMRS is to get on and socialize with the traffic that they hear. They probably legitimately don't know better because there IS this pervasive thing happening on the band. It's clear to see just by the way people discuss it on THIS forum..

I think people want to use it like ham radio. I’ve seen lots of that on this forum, people wondering why they are not finding people to talk with. But at least in my experience, those are not hams coming to GMRS; they’re people who want to use GMRS like they imagine ham radio to be. 
But ham radio isn’t very often like that on VHF and UHF, except for some new people. People call CQ on HF, looking for further and further contacts. Most seasoned hams I know use VHF and UHF like GMRS, to communicate while doing something else. And for Nets of course. 

[SvenMarbles]

25 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

I think people want to use it like ham radio. I’ve seen lots of that on this forum, people wondering why they are not finding people to talk with. But at least in my experience, those are not hams coming to GMRS; they’re people who want to use GMRS like they imagine ham radio to be. 
But ham radio isn’t very often like that on VHF and UHF, except for some new people. People call CQ on HF, looking for further and further contacts. Most seasoned hams I know use VHF and UHF like GMRS, to communicate while doing something else. And for Nets of course. 

Yes I agree with that. And where have they gotten this idea?

[Elmo777]

Congrats on being part of GMRS.  With that said, the radios themselves can be frustrating at first to set up correctly.  There are some great YouTube videos that explain this very well, check out (NotaRubicon) as well as some as well as others on youtube.  if you feel like you have the frequencies and tones set up correctly drive to the repeater and key up, if you get a static back, your hitting the repeater.  Chirp software is a great tool that makes setting things up easy if your radio is compatible.  Good luck and most on here are a wealth of knowledge that are willing to help.

[WRTC928]

16 hours ago, SteveShannon said:

Most seasoned hams I know use VHF and UHF like GMRS, to communicate while doing something else. And for Nets of course. 

On my favorite repeater, it's mostly nets and people chatting while stuck in traffic or the like. Of course, there could be people using ham for simplex while talking to family, traveling in a convoy, etc. and I just don't hear it. There are literally thousands of available frequencies in amateur radio and people doing that probably aren't on a "high traffic" frequency. The ability to use a frequency that nobody else is on is the main advantage over GMRS for those purposes. The big disadvantage, of course, is that all participants have to have an amateur radio license, so unless they're doing something ham-related, it doesn't seem like that would happen a lot. I used GMRS a lot in Alaska, but I've hardly even keyed up since I moved to Oklahoma. There are two good repeaters in Anchorage and two in Palmer, and people used them a lot to communicate highway conditions, much like CB is used elsewhere. It's possible there was a lot of CB action for the same reason, but I didn't have a CB, so I don't know.

[SteveShannon]

On 2/10/2025 at 3:41 PM, SvenMarbles said:

Here's a litmus test... Did you buy 1 GMRS radio, or did you buy 2 or more?... If you bought only 1, you're probably a perpetrator.. lol

 

I think I have five GMRS certified radios, beginning with a Motorola Talkabout set of 2, nearly twenty years ago, then 2 Midland handhelds.
 

At about that time I got my FRN, but the $70 for five years seemed too high. Then I felt I needed a Garmin Rhino because my rocketry friends had them and used the location sharing feature.  Then, in 2021, I got my GMRS license at $70 for ten years.  About then I started watching Notarubicon videos.

My interest in radios was rekindled and the following year I got my ham license.  Then I bought two more GMRS certified radios, both DB20Gs, but I  converted them both to ham frequencies. They’re the only 95e certified radios that I have capable of operating on ham bands and I no longer use them on GMRS. If I buy better mobile ham VHF/UHF radios I’ll probably revert them back to GMRS use.

I’m not sure what I was supposed to be a perpetrator of.

 

[WRUU653]

On 2/10/2025 at 3:32 PM, SvenMarbles said:

Yes I agree with that. And where have they gotten this idea?

I think it’s good to remember that it’s radio and radio isn’t private. You can’t control how people want to use it or what people want to use it and certainly not if they are within the rules. Respectfully, there are cell phones for conversations you would rather were just between you and your people.

I do understand where you are coming from regarding  your wife being made uncomfortable and that is unfortunate that happened to be sure and shouldn’t. If on simplex and you don’t want to be intruded on you could set up tones to try and eliminate some unwanted bother.

As for someone asking for your call sign, I have not heard anyone do this on GMRS simplex ever but if you are on simplex you could just as easily tell them you are on FRS and not to worry about it. I personally would expect that two people talking without call signs was just that. However if you’re using a repeater, well at the very least the owner certainly has the right to ask you for a call sign, after all it is their equipment.

I suspect where the population is denser you might have more to deal with. Where I am there isn’t a lot of traffic on GMRS and seems to be enough room for all. You will hear occasional conversation on GMRS repeaters often it will be someone on vacation and they are looking to see if they can reach it from where they are and someone local will jump on and respond. You might hear some simplex traffic that will be a couple or friends traveling in separate vehicles, the occasional farm communication or even a daycare. Once I heard a young daughter giving dad a play by play report of where she and her mom were to her dad, “now we are at the post office” lol, adorable. I never hear anyone unwanted jump in those conversations. That’s just my experience where I am.