I Wonder if GMRS Will Work For Me....

[@SevenFortyOne]

I forgot to mention in the video that at the far/low point of the range test I was about a mile away.

[@HowToHam_Tom]

First, LOVE the channel. Gonna support via Patreon or whatever. GMRS changed my life. It got me to renew my long-expired Ham license. And I now have a very great group of close-knit friends. We do a brunch every Sunday. We constantly trade stuff back and forth. We go to every hamfest we can, have put up and torn each other’s towers, and just great commradarire. I am the only really active Ham. I use that knowledge to augment our fun hobby. We don’t have “sad hams” here but rather ancient hams. The ham community average age is over 70. Things are very different than what you see on YT for example. But our GMRS community is very active. We are on the Gulf Coast of Florida where Hurricane Ian came ashore. Our primary repeater never had so much of a hiccup. We actually had the genuine SHTF event. Power gone over a week, internet down, mass destruction and misery. The GMRS community did as much or more than the Hams did in regards to keeping things going through the time. I even had a Ham from my ham club need me to relay a phone call to a business, and ironically I brought him a part for his GMRS repeater. GMRS Ham-ers helping HAM GMRS-ers. Literally this hobby helped cure my depression, meet old friends, and make new ones. Go all in! I did and don’t look back.

[@SevenFortyOne]

Wow- that is a great story! Its good to hear something POISTIVE about ham radio for a change. I don't do Patereon or ask for monetary support. Comments like this are worth more to me than money.

[@DaveGatton]

Got my GMRS license a few weeks ago. I'm fortunate to live a few miles from a repeater. Joined the NGGMRS and enjoy hearing folks all over Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina.

[@SevenFortyOne]

Interesting! There are a few repeaters in my area but because of the hilly terrain around here I can't hit them. I took the radio to my office in the outskirts of Boston a few times but didn't hear any repeater activity even though there are a few nearby

[@mitchh6702]

Thanks for the great ideas Dave. I am looking to add GMRS to my comms and NGGMRS looks to be a great place to get connected! I live in NO GA myself.

[@Thomas-ZET]

Got mine for the same reasons, I also added a new antenna on the tower and installed a bridgecom repeater, works great for family and friends

[@palehorse7377]

I made a repeater out of a cross band mobile utilizing MURS and GMRS. I get 15 miles average from it. 30 miles total coverage.

[@SevenFortyOne]

a local guy here has done something similar with similar results

[@RobertLeeAtYT]

Sure. You're also violating licensing rules.

[@SevenFortyOne]

that's true

[@palehorse7377]

@@RobertLeeAtYT actually the supreme court ruled that federal agencies do not have that power any longer. They arent allowed to make rules, only enforce rules congress has passed. stop licking boots like pathetic hamfag.

[@hatchetjackphillips]

I got my license a few months back, and put a Midland MXT 275 in my truck. A lot of off roaders & overlanders use em here in OH. Still run CB too.

[@w8natshenanigans705]

I have family that live about a mile away, and while FRS does not reach them, GMRS handytalkies work clear as a bell between our houses and we can all use my license. They don't have to know squat about programming or how radio works- I can set things up for them. And I don't have to try to recruit them to the Amateur Side to get to play radio with them!

[@SevenFortyOne]

That's awesome 👍

[@RightYouAreKen01]

I use FRS/GMRS for off-roading communication between vehicles or multi vehicle sports car drives. It’s ideal for these types of situations where you can hand out a bundle of radios to friends for the day.

[@SevenFortyOne]

I don't really care one way or the other but I'll point it out before someone else does...the GMRS license only cover your family, not friends. Having said that, I'd probably do the same thing if I were in your situation.

[@RightYouAreKen01]

@@SevenFortyOne True. Most of the radios I hand out are FRS, which don't require a license.

[@forgetyourlife]

Got my GMRS license just the other day. We have been using MURS radios for awhile and I’m pretty impressed with the distance. The 2w VHF limit seems to get through foliage better that the 5w UHF GMRS frequency.

[@SevenFortyOne]

Uhf is more affected by objects in the environment than vhf. I have better luck with vhf as well

[@dabugman6415]

Nice video and seems like a successful test! Curious, how far as the crow flies to weakest signal ( old archery range)and any idea on elevation change?

[@SevenFortyOne]

Range seems to be about a mile. Highest point was about 100 feet above my house and lowest point on the other side of the hill is about the same elevation as my house.

[@Littrell1966]

I have my gmrs and like it, just no repeaters in my area.

[@RobertLeeAtYT]

Set up a repeater yourself. It's trivial to do these days. Just google for "gmrs repeater". Go look for the lunch box sized, all in one repeater. It'll cost around $400. You get what you pay for with these. That means these won't be great for "serious" permanent mountain top installations intended for heavy use. These are more than good enough for the backyard install to give the family reliable coverage out a few tens of miles.

[@Team-fabulous]

If its anything like VHF here in Northern Ireland it will be full of every idiot that bought a radio..

[@frankbowman22]

I have been a CB operator for most of my life when I discovered gmrs I decided that I will never go back to CB radio there's too much noise and bad language on the CB radio and I just set up a small repeater here all my friends and people in this little town in northern Idaho can use it and it's a bunch of great people where we are at so I love your video and wish that you would have put the miles and distance from your house to where you're talking to anyway it was a great video thank you for posting it

[@DeLorean58]

Ah, The town being talked about in the first thing picked up is Centralia, PA. A modern American ghost town caused by them burning trash at the dump that then set underground coal seams on fire. It'll probably be burning for hundreds of years, no exaggeration.

[@manandatractor]

Once the bug bites you'll be putting an antenna up in the air with a repeater and then you'll be talking all over the county. I'm able to hit a repeater 28 miles from the homestead on an HT or the mobile and talk to folks for quite a ways. I started with CB, recently went with GMRS and now thinking about a Technician license so that I can get on 10 meters and see what that's all about.

[@donniedotson3318]

I am a radio enthusiast also Ham operator and GMRS licensed but I only have ht's for GMRS so far a KG-905 and a KG-805. No repeaters in my local area.

[@bobdillashaw4360]

I use a couple handhelds and when I’m home I use a mobile as a base unit with a kb9vbr gmrs J pole which works great if my kids are using the ht that way they can hear me better and likewise I can hear them better, only time I use my ht is if we’re away from the house.

[@SevenFortyOne]

Excellent! I'm thinking of putting up a "base" using a mobile radio as well

[@Hero1395]

I use GMRS to talk to family and friends. That’s all I want to talk to. Several in my area are turning it into ham radio. They get mad and act like you’re a jerk if you don’t want to talk to them. I have zero desire to talk to strangers on GMRS.

[@SevenFortyOne]

I agree - hams should understand and respect that about GMRS and I think most probably do.

[@richwallace4632]

Like the video on GMRS. How does the family use the radio’s with you being the only one with the call sign? I would love to do the same with my family, just not sure how they would communicate without a call sign. Seeing the Wyoming plate, you had the county number covered up, do you live in Wyoming? I used to, went to Rawlins high school. Carbon county.

[@SevenFortyOne]

We all use the same callsign

[@SevenFortyOne]

I'm from CT, I've been to Wyoming but just driving through the southwest corner of the state

[@wild-radio7373]

I'm interested in both an GMRS baseStation with exterior antenna, And a set of the most powerful handhelds. Any recommendations on future purchases would be appreciated ❤

[@SevenFortyOne]

I'm pretty new to GMRS but I'd go for the wouxun kg1000 mobile radio and a power supply for a home setup. Any of the wouxun handhelds should be good and should all put out max power allowed. I've heard the b-tech radios are good too. I'm not sure about antennas as I haven't looked into those yet. If I were to set up a base I would probably home brew something like a 1/4 wave or 5/8 wave vertical. For mobile any mag mount should be good but go for one with decent coax. For HT antennas, I don't know if you'd see much improvement over stock antenna with something after market.

[@daniell8387]

With so many commercial interests leaving the HF spectrum, it'd be kind of cool if some of the abandoned bandwidth could be apportioned for HF GMRS. Even if just to give GMRS radios something to experiment with and maybe motivation to get a ham license.

[@SevenFortyOne]

I get your point but I think that may have been part of the reason for granting FM privileges' to CB radio. Antennas at frequencies below 11 meters tend to be a little unwieldy, especially for those that aren't tech savvy.

[@daniell8387]

True enough, I'm kind of hoping FM on CB gets more people on that band. Always good to see interest in RF communications increasing.

[@1crazynordlander]

It has been my experience if you get more than a mile away you lose signal with a GMRS handy talkie. Even with my 15 watt Midland micro mobile the handy talkie loses signal. I bought my GMRS license about a month before I passed my first ham exam. I just bought the B-Tech GMRS Pro that has a proprietary APRS system built in. I need to get another one to to some testing with it. They are not horribly expensive at $139 from B-Tech. I like them for the family and ATV trails.

[@SevenFortyOne]

If I thought my family would use the APRS function I'd try them out but I think voice comms is about as far as we'll take it.

[@1crazynordlander]

@@SevenFortyOne I would like to get a mobile Wouxun radio in my wife’s car and home base station. I think Wouxun makes the best GMRS radios. I think a person could repurpose a UHF police mobile radio for GMRS. They are used to make GMRS repeaters so why not? I’m not sure how many channels you can program into them though but who cares. LCARA channel made a GMRS repeater out of a couple of police radios for their ham repeater site.

[@Martinpr59]

Get a good aftermarket antenna and your all set.

[@brianspilsbury8953]

that is almost enough dogs!

[@SevenFortyOne]

more than enough actually....I wanted one but the wife insisted on two.

[@brianspilsbury8953]

@@SevenFortyOne we have 6.....

[@SevenFortyOne]

Yikes!

[@hudefuk]

I'm sure it's probably impossible for technical reasons beyond my understanding, but if GMRS could be integrated into Winlink or a Winlink type system, it would be a perfect prepper solution for the common man.

[@SevenFortyOne]

That might a rules violation - I'm not sure what type of data is allow on GMRS if any. But I get your point....

[@manandatractor]

There's a bunch of folks that are "Netting" GMRS for Internet relay. Pretty sure it's illegal but they are charging forward anyway. Poke around with your search engine, I'm sure you'll find them.

[@1958johndeere620]

I got my license and use it,,,,,,,,, never. LOL! O well.