Snohomish County, WA

[WRQF420]

I've had a couple of GMRS HTs for a few years but haven't used them much other than when camping. After getting my HAM license and getting involved with Emergency Comms groups, I decided it might be a good idea to have a GMRS radio at my house. I installed a base station (DB-20G) and a home made ground plane. I don't hear a lot of activity in Snohomish County. The Snohomish repeater is 4 miles from my house and I can hear it identify clearly. I don't seem to be able to hit the repeater on transmit. The tones are listed as 141.3. Does anyone know if these are correct? Also there is another repeater on Cultus Mountain near Sedro Wooly that I've heard a net on. I've reached out to the owner for permission to use that one but haven't received anything back yet. I can hear Oly-Comm1 and 3 but they're pretty scratchy and also North Bothell and North Seattle. Has GMRS just not caught on in Snohomish County?

[Hoppyjr]

I've had a couple of GMRS HTs for a few years but haven't used them much other than when camping. After getting my HAM license and getting involved with Emergency Comms groups, I decided it might be a good idea to have a GMRS radio at my house. I installed a base station (DB-20G) and a home made ground plane. I don't hear a lot of activity in Snohomish County. The Snohomish repeater is 4 miles from my house and I can hear it identify clearly. I don't seem to be able to hit the repeater on transmit. The tones are listed as 141.3. Does anyone know if these are correct? Also there is another repeater on Cultus Mountain near Sedro Wooly that I've heard a net on. I've reached out to the owner for permission to use that one but haven't received anything back yet. I can hear Oly-Comm1 and 3 but they're pretty scratchy and also North Bothell and North Seattle. Has GMRS just not caught on in Snohomish County?

I show Snohomish (Ch 22) using 141.3 tones, both in & out. I also almost never hear anyone over there and typically use East Tiger.

Most of the activity seems to be on Cultus.

There are also some repeaters up north; Sumas, Lookout 625, Marysville, & Whidbey Island.

[Socalgmrs]

Probably the antenna to be honest.  

[SteveShannon]

1 hour ago, WRQF420 said:

I've had a couple of GMRS HTs for a few years but haven't used them much other than when camping. After getting my HAM license and getting involved with Emergency Comms groups, I decided it might be a good idea to have a GMRS radio at my house. I installed a base station (DB-20G) and a home made ground plane. I don't hear a lot of activity in Snohomish County. The Snohomish repeater is 4 miles from my house and I can hear it identify clearly. I don't seem to be able to hit the repeater on transmit. The tones are listed as 141.3. Does anyone know if these are correct? Also there is another repeater on Cultus Mountain near Sedro Wooly that I've heard a net on. I've reached out to the owner for permission to use that one but haven't received anything back yet. I can hear Oly-Comm1 and 3 but they're pretty scratchy and also North Bothell and North Seattle. Has GMRS just not caught on in Snohomish County?

For repeaters it’s possible to hear them on both a simplex channel and a repeater channel but only the repeater channel will transmit at the correct frequency. The simplex channels are 15-22. The repeater channels are labeled something different, sometimes 15RP-22RP, sometimes 23-30, sometimes something else. 
Make certain you are using a repeater channel that transmits on 467.xxx MHz. 

[TDM827]

Once you confirm your radio is programed correct, consider it may be a low use repeater. Of the 3 I can hit, one has regular traffic, one has intermittent traffic and one is almost never used. Radio checks on the one with regular traffic and the one with intermittent traffic usual get a response. On the one with little use its rare for someone to come back on a radio check.