Welcome to General Chat - GAW Community Area
This General Chat area started off as a place for people to talk about things that are off topic, however it has quickly evolved into a community and has become an integral part of the GAW experience for many of us.
Based on its evolving needs and plenty of user feedback, we are trying to bring some order and institute some rules. Please make sure you read these rules and participate in the spirit of this community.
Rules for General Chat
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Be respectful to each other. This is of utmost importance, and comments may be removed if deemed not respectful.
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Avoid long drawn out arguments. This should be a place to relax, not to waste your time needlessly.
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Personal anecdotes, puzzles, cute pics/clips - everything welcome
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Please do not spam at the top level. If you have a lot to post each day, try and post them all together in one top level comment
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Try keep things light. If you are bringing in deep stuff, try not to go overboard.
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Things that are clearly on-topic for this board should be posted as a separate post and not here (except if you are new and still getting the feel of this place)
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If you find people violating these rules, deport them rather than start a argument here.
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Feel free to give feedback as these rules are expected to keep evolving
In short, imagine this thread to be a local community hall where we all gather and chat daily. Please be respectful to others in the same way
What’s GMRS (digital CB?). Went online for walkie talkies 1000 yard range - funny thing is it needs a SIM card from network provider- Verizon. ????? Come to find out that they they use - you can’t make this shit up…cell towers as repeaters😂😂😂 I couldn’t stop laughing/ so if cell towers are down it won’t work. Elon design a starlink phone quickly quickly please🙏🏻
It’s radio that works on local repeaters. My husband meet local people when he first got on the CB. The radio is small and portable. The only downside is you have to have a license from government. I’ve seen this talked about here before, most people don’t want to do Ham because of needing a license. I guess it’s a personal choice. It’s not like they don’t already know everything you do and where you go. The local GMRS group has started a radio club for the area. They don’t care if you are ham, GMRS, cb or all. It’s more about having local support friendship is a plus but the emergency aspect is a positive. Just today we had a tornado warning and if the storm developed it was coming right down our road. Hubby got on the radio and they were giving updates and checking on each other. Honestly it’s mostly a hobby for him or anyone. Glad to know it’s something we can use if grid is down. The radio expert in the group knows people from several counties and he says in case of emergency they can communicate messages from one area to the next. Most people on GMRS have ham license and could send messages through ham. It’s a hoot listening to these guys talk when it’s just chit chat. It’s not private! They know more gossip than I do. The radio is pretty inexpensive. I think you have to the local repeater or enter some code for each area. You can find them on YouTube.
I found these sites at the top of a search. I don’t know enough to verify if it’s good information.
https://forums.mygmrs.com/topic/5261-better-understanding-how-gmrs-repeaters-work/
https://www.baofengradio.com/blogs/news/about-gmrs-10-things-you-better-know
https://offroadpassport.com/forums/topic/5775-gmrs-for-beginners/
GMRS is analog, no cell towers involved. It's up in the 460 range (UHF). It requires a license, but no test.
Thank you