Stick with Ham or time to go GMRS?

[DaveInDenver]

Indeed, a 40W mobile GMRS off the shelf is certainly not an inexpensive endeavor, especially considering the $70 licensing. I'm not suggesting GMRS presents a high value alternative necessarily.

 

[DouglasVB]

People talking like the test is the Bar exam. It's not. If you graduated high school you should be able to pass it. You probably don't even need to study if you are already a nerd like most of us.

I passed my technician exam back in my late teens or early 20s and I definitely was not very smart then. (I'm even less smart now.)

This is a 4WD club, not a ham radio club.

I disagree. This is a ham radio club with a 4WD problem. 🤣

I was introduced to amateur radio in Boy Scouts

I was introduced to amateur radio by my grandfather operating from his rumpus room. But I ended up getting my license to impress a girl. It worked.

I'm curious, how many have become ARRL members?

Nope. Not a member of any amateur radio club. I've listened to a couple nets in my local area but never participated in any of it. The most active amateur radio people I've run into outside of 4x4ing are some of the weirdest people.

 

[DaveInDenver]

Nope. Not a member of any amateur radio club. I've listened to a couple nets in my local area but never participated in any of it. The most active amateur radio people I've run into outside of 4x4ing are some of the weirdest people.

"Most of those 4wd people I've run into at HRO are the weirdest people." said some highly stereotyped amateur radio operator.

One person's "weird" is another's "interesting", "focused", "offbeat", "unique", trailblazer". Normal people lead normal lives and I'm sure they're perfectly content in their normalcy.

Thanks for the inspiration!

 

[DouglasVB]

"Most of those 4wd people I've run into at HRO are the weirdest people." said some highly stereotyped amateur radio operator.

One person's "weird" is another's "interesting", "focused", "offbeat", "unique", trailblazer". Normal people lead normal lives and I'm sure they're perfectly content in their normalcy.

Thanks for the inspiration!

Haha exactly!!!

 

[DaveInDenver]

Haha exactly!!!

I mean, seriously, what kind of knucklehead spends all their time in the garage keeping a rusty old carb'd truck on the road anyway? Don't they realize there's a new American Idol on tonight?

 

[DouglasVB]

To COMPLETELY derail this thread... I love me some Cybertruck.

But would HAM or GMRS be better for a Cybertruck with all that stainless steel bodywork? 🤔

 

[Inukshuk]

Wow, this discussion has gone off the rails.

I'm just going to leave this post here for people who happen to read all the way through and think we are all nuts for having such a long public discussion over what type of radio to use as a club promoted concept:

See you on the trails!

 

[DaveInDenver]

Wow, this discussion has gone off the rails.

I'm just going to leave this post here for people who happen to read all the way through and think we are all nuts for having such a long public discussion over what type of radio to use as a club promoted concept:

See you on the trails!

View attachment 85949View attachment 85950View attachment 85951View attachment 85952

Indeed. It was RF quietness last weekend somewhere between GJ and not GJ.

Details of which are not secret if a ham happened to use APRS. I never even saw a beacon from the group in Moab nor a response to calling them when briefly heard I believe on 147.420. So good thing we can trust it'll work in an unexpected backcountry emergency, eh? Was able to use the Skyhub linked repeater on Grand Mesa to chat with hams in Denver, which is currently the only working cross-state link, so I had high confidence on my end being able to hit a repeater being roughly 50 miles distant from this spot using UHF nonetheless.

 

[mcgaskins]

"Most of those 4wd people I've run into at HRO are the weirdest people." said some highly stereotyped amateur radio operator.

One person's "weird" is another's "interesting", "focused", "offbeat", "unique", trailblazer". Normal people lead normal lives and I'm sure they're perfectly content in their normalcy.

Thanks for the inspiration!

Reminds me of a time I was at the HRO and was waiting to be helped. There was a dude standing by the counter with multiple ham handhelds strapped all over him and had a remote mic like the kind EMTs use. The guy behind the counter called me up, and I said "you can help him first - he was here before me". The guy behind the counter "goes oh no that's 'fill the blank name' he's not a customer", and I replied "I should have figured he works here with all those radios!"...and the guy behind the counter goes "no he doesn't work here either. He just likes to hang out here all the time" That's exactly the kind of guy I'm afraid would shank me if I said I just simply wanted good comms on the trail when I'm off roading with my buddies!

 

[DaveInDenver]

That's exactly the kind of guy I'm afraid would shank me if I said I just simply wanted good comms on the trail when I'm off roading with my buddies!

ACzeroVH got yur back homie.

Kind of the weirdo your friends warn you about?

 

[DouglasVB]

Kind of the weirdo your friends warn you about?

I only see one radio so I think you're not the weirdo I was warned about 😂

 

[Oh_shift]

Well, we're 4 pages in and still no definite answers/decision...

I'm in the group of "I have HAM and only have a CB for Cruise Moab" and from what I've read through, I'd like to get rid of it for FRS/GMRS.

I think we all agree on poling the audience.
I say we start in the Members Only side to help the club make a decision. If need be, we can pole the rest of the forum later, but the club needs to make a clear direction. I like the blind vote and no comments aspect.

We may not make a final decision, but at least need to decide what comms we support on the trail and at what priority.

 

[DaveInDenver]

I more or less have figured the discussion was fleshed sufficiently. It would be fine if the club wants to debate taking an official stance, if there isn't one already. If there is one I'm 99.9% sure it'll mirror Cruise Moab with a CB. I think the no action is to muddle on, CB to start and eventually succumb to ham. In that case the existing hams need to help mentor since that's part of being a ham.

We may not make a final decision, but at least need to decide what comms we support on the trail and at what priority.

That's the bottom line. When a new person joins he needs to know what is needed and that someone will be there to talk to. It's not just hams, it's not as easy to get help with CBs anymore, either.

 

[Oh_shift]

Here's some more food for though: another "overland channel", but the test they perform (where the video is queued up to) is pretty telling on how well GMRS works over CB.


Just don't watch the end on his view and comments about HAM...

I'll be honest, I had a "get off my lawn" attitude toward GMRS. Seeing this video got me now considering.

 

[DaveInDenver]

Just don't watch the end on his view and comments about HAM...

LOL, about his ham statements.

One thing he said is, in effect, that "fewer people use it."

I checked the most recent FCC weekly database dumps, data is current as of May 17, 2020.

There's 206,097 GMRS licenses, 853 of them are commercial and groups (e.g. those issued to businesses, schools, municipalities that were grandfathered before they moved new licensing to Land Mobile). So that leaves 205,244 individual GMRS licensees.

Of those, in Colorado, 14 are businesses and 6,639 are individuals.

There are 762,863 amateur licenses that are currently active. Of those are 386,986 are Tech license holders.

There are 18,626 hams in Colorado and 9,962 of them are Tech.

Those are of course is aggregate numbers without any way to really know anything about the license holders without a deeper analysis. I thought the in-state comparison was interesting anyway.

 

[dan1554]

All the trash talk happens on ham. Knowing that should be great incentive for everyone to get their license! You KNOW we're talking about you.

 

[Firetacoma]

Could the club get licensed for their own frequencies?

https://myoffroadradio.com/private-radio-channel-for-my-off-road-club/

Does that make things more or less complicated?

 

[Inukshuk]

Here's some more food for though: another "overland channel", but the test they perform (where the video is queued up to) is pretty telling on how well GMRS works over CB.

She's holding her mic wrong ...

 

[DaveInDenver]

Looking back through threads I saw this topic was actually discussed in another thread. That was relative to Ham & Eggs in 2019 but the poll I think helps with the club viewpoint here.

https://risingsun4x4club.org/xf/threads/ham-usage-data.27269/

 

[Inukshuk]

@DanielChase and I used handheld GMRS last weekend.

CON:

1. Most all handheld GMRS use rechargeable packs of AA. Most all cannot be plugged into 12v when you drive (I have not found one yet!)
2. Range is much less than HAM.
3. Its awkward to use a handheld versus a HAM/CB mic.
4. Encountered traffic on channels 1 & 5 and finally ended up on quiet 6 and this was a very remote area
5. Using my HAM on the GMRS frequency at low power I picked up way more traffic than did Chase. Range was noticeably better.

PRO:

1. Easy to use
2. No installation
3. Easy to get a AA battery charger that plugs into the cigarette lighter and always have some charged AA's ready to go