What Are The GMRS Wilderness Protocols?

[vagrant]

What Are The GMRS Wilderness Protocols?
Carry a whistle. Three blasts at a time. There may be significantly more people near you without a radio. They are inexpensive and do not require batteries.

 

[mmckenna]

What Are The GMRS Wilderness Protocols?
Carry a whistle. Three blasts at a time. There may be significantly more people near you without a radio. They are inexpensive and do not require batteries.

Yeah, relying on one electronic device in an emergency isn't a good idea.

We have VHF radios on all our UTV's. When I'm riding my dirt bike, it's a VHF hand held. We're also carrying one PLB and one Garmin InReach. I know two of the UTV's have flare guns in them. Everyone has a cell phone (there is some coverage in the areas we ride). Plus a lot of other miscellaneous stuff that could be put to use.

But for simple 2 way communications, I think the default standard you'll find will be:
CB radio
FRS/GMRS
Maybe MURS
and if you were really riding with the Racing Radio crowd, 151.625.

 

[T0matoPaste]

Tell me about Racing Radios/Rugged/PCI since I (honestly) have not heard of these companies. Do they mainly stick with the business/itinerant frequencies? (Common Itinerant and Business - The RadioReference Wiki) 151.625 is red dot, which is almost always unused here in Vancouver, WA. There used to be a dispatching company in Portland that used it (a patient transport service I think) but I haven't heard them in a few years.

We mainly use MURS and CB riding, especially in the gorge and Gifford Pinchot. UHF FRS/GMRS often doesn't stand a chance in the heavily forested Cascades or Clark County midlands/highlands.

 

[mmckenna]

Tell me about Racing Radios/Rugged/PCI since I (honestly) have not heard of these companies.

They are companies that sell (among other things) communications equipment to small racing teams.
At some point they found a market with ATV/Dirt Bike/UTV/Sand Rail/off road folks who had more money than brains.
Originally they were selling commercial mobile/hand held radios to people to use while racing.
Sometimes it would be a couple of hand held radios for short track stuff. Sometimes it was a couple of hand held radios for the pit crew and a mobile for the car.

Then they discovered the off road hobbyist market. Since most of them were individuals that had no way of qualifying for a commercial license, they started selling radios 'pre programmed' with channels used by large racing teams. The buyers didn't have permission to operate under those licenses, but that didn't stop them. At one point, some of the companies started adding VHF marine channels to the radios. Some of the UHF radios were getting FRS and GMRS channels pre-loaded. Some of the larger racing teams didn't have nationwide licenses, so users would end up on repeater inputs or outputs of other legit users. General RF stupidity carried out by people that had no clue what they were doing. They wanted radios to communicate and were suckered into buying things without understanding what it was.

151.625MHz was a channel that was being used in Baja Mexico for that race. "Weatherman" was a guy that set up on that channel on a high peak and would act as a relay for traffic. It's an itinerant in the USA, so most of the time it didn't really interfere with any serious users. Still common to hear this channel used by off roaders in some areas. They'll refer to it as "weatherman" and it's labeled as such in the radios.

Where it started to get weird is that they realized that the people buying the radios had no clue how radios actually worked. At one point they were selling 100 watt Kenwood TK-790's or TK-890's to guys on UTV/ATV's. Kind of stupid to be running 100 watt radios that close to the riders, but to the people buying the radios the idea was "If 50 watts is good, 100 watts must be twice as good!" That was usually connected to a poorly installed antenna (remember, these were people with more money than brains).

FCC came along last year and cited one of the companies for selling radios pre-loaded with frequencies the end users were not licensed for. They were also selling non-type accepted radios (rebadged Baofengs) to some.

 

[K6GBW]

I've been a backpacker for many years. I've just used FRS/GMRS radios in our group because we usually split into a two, the ones that like to hike ahead and the slow and steady group that comes along behind. We always worried that if someone in the slow group got hurt we wouldn't be able to stop the fast group. We found that good old fashioned FRS radios work well enough. When we head out we put in our itinerary our route, dates of return and the fact that if anyone comes looking for us we'll be monitoring 462.XXX every hour on the hour.

Since we stay on trails its not likely we'll ever need it. But if we make a wrong turn....

 

[KC3ECJ]

There is none. I would suggest FRS channel 1 tone 0 (CSQ). You will hear a lot of folks by default there. There does need to be a protocol but how would one do it and be sure that the unwashed masses use it?

462.562 with a pl of 67.0, tranmitt anyways, seems to be the default PL and frquency most anyone uses out of the box.

 

[ecps92]

actually 462.5625 but yes is Channel 1 of most Bubble pack radios as is Tone 1 being 67.0

462.562 with a pl of 67.0, tranmitt anyways, seems to be the default PL and frquency most anyone uses out of the box.

 

[KK6HRW]

Yeah, relying on one electronic device in an emergency isn't a good idea.

We have VHF radios on all our UTV's. When I'm riding my dirt bike, it's a VHF hand held. We're also carrying one PLB and one Garmin InReach. I know two of the UTV's have flare guns in them. Everyone has a cell phone (there is some coverage in the areas we ride). Plus a lot of other miscellaneous stuff that could be put to use.

But for simple 2 way communications, I think the default standard you'll find will be:
CB radio
FRS/GMRS
Maybe MURS
and if you were really riding with the Racing Radio crowd, 151.625.

RE: Garmin inReach, would antenna performance of an Iridium connected unit such as this benefit from a ground plane? For example, when stopped in an area where the uplink is slow, place the inReach device on top of the metal roof of a vehicle?

 

[mmckenna]

RE: Garmin inReach, would antenna performance of an Iridium connected unit such as this benefit from a ground plane? For example, when stopped in an area where the uplink is slow, place the inReach device on top of the metal roof of a vehicle?

I've never noticed a difference when trying that. I'm not sure what type of antenna is in the units, but I think it might be some sort of circular polarized design that would have the ground plane/reflector in the base.

 

[KB2GOM]

I've been a backpacker for many years. I've just used FRS/GMRS radios in our group because we usually split into a two, the ones that like to hike ahead and the slow and steady group that comes along behind. We always worried that if someone in the slow group got hurt we wouldn't be able to stop the fast group. We found that good old fashioned FRS radios work well enough. When we head out we put in our itinerary our route, dates of return and the fact that if anyone comes looking for us we'll be monitoring 462.XXX every hour on the hour.

Since we stay on trails its not likely we'll ever need it. But if we make a wrong turn....

That's a darn good plan.

 

[K6GBW]

Thanks KB2GOM!

Yeah, back when I started backpacking in the late 70's we learned to be completely self sufficient. We had no communications and pretty much no hope of getting help if we got into trouble, so we did everything very carefully and didn't take chances. Flash forward to today and apps like AllTrails and companies like REI make it seem like heading twenty or thirty miles into the back country is like going to a park. Then comes the little satellite gizmos and the National Park Service and local SAR teams are going bananas "rescuing" the people that don't have any common sense. So I guess it's a double edge sword. I've never carried a satellite phone, PLB or any other signaling device because in almost forty years I've never needed it. I did add the little FRS/GMRS radios about ten years ago when my hiking group morphed into two distinct styles. I'm in the slow and steady group (turtles) and my sisters husband is in the fast and furious group (rabbits). We all know who wins the race! But seriously, the basic GMRS/FRS radios work just fine. I have noticed that the ones that run on AA batteries are disappearing though. I like those because you can easily change batteries rather than having to deal with the whole charing issue.

I figure if we do make a wrong turn and we end up list in BFE long enough to launch a search for us, then the people that report us missing will tell them our plan.

 

[KB2GOM]

Thanks KB2GOM!

Yeah, back when I started backpacking in the late 70's we learned to be completely self sufficient. We had no communications and pretty much no hope of getting help if we got into trouble, so we did everything very carefully and didn't take chances. Flash forward to today and apps like AllTrails and companies like REI make it seem like heading twenty or thirty miles into the back country is like going to a park. Then comes the little satellite gizmos and the National Park Service and local SAR teams are going bananas "rescuing" the people that don't have any common sense. So I guess it's a double edge sword. I've never carried a satellite phone, PLB or any other signaling device because in almost forty years I've never needed it. I did add the little FRS/GMRS radios about ten years ago when my hiking group morphed into two distinct styles. I'm in the slow and steady group (turtles) and my sisters husband is in the fast and furious group (rabbits). We all know who wins the race! But seriously, the basic GMRS/FRS radios work just fine. I have noticed that the ones that run on AA batteries are disappearing though. I like those because you can easily change batteries rather than having to deal with the whole charing issue.

I figure if we do make a wrong turn and we end up list in BFE long enough to launch a search for us, then the people that report us missing will tell them our plan.

It was Colin Fletcher (I think) who said (in effect) file a flight plan -- tell people exactly where you are going, the exact route, and when you will be back. Then make sure -- helenhighwater -- that you make it on time . . . because (you tell the folks you trust), if we don't make it, we're in trouble!

I read a lot and there are some weird tales from the National Park Service . . . folks firing up the cell phone and asking for a rescue because they are tired. No kidding.

If you enjoy reading, I recommend Deep Survival by Lawrence Gonzales. It's not about specific survival techniques, but about who survives and why. He relates several stories that impressed me: the young girl who fell 14,000 feet from the breakup of a Peruvian airliner into the Amazon jungle and walked out two weeks later . . . the army ranger who waved off rescue after falling out of a white water raft, got sucked into a hydraulic and drowned . . . and Gonzales himself who nearly got himself in very deep trouble after setting out on a "simple" hike on a nature trail in t-shirt and shorts and got caught in a snowstorm.

So, yeah, I applaud your plan.

 

[N9DCW]

Just don’t become one of the Missing 411‼️Go prepared, and leave a plan!