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FRS:Ran across a “big one” down south.

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Hatchett

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I could mention a person I heard a few days ago on C19 CB to the west of me I heard talking about his amp that was putting out about 1800 to 2000W, but that isn't the point of my post...

More notable to me is what I ran across while heading down south the other day.

The radio started picking up a person talking on FRS ch12. As I kept driving, it kept getting stronger and clearer. Finally I got close enough to hear some of the other people he was talking to. They were having a round table about the rainy weather they had been having. I had already traveled several miles and they kept getting stronger.

I grabbed my moto talk about and did a pl scan. They were running without a pl tone. So I tried getting their attention. They couldn't hear me. Another mile, and one of them finally heard me. I ask them what equipment they was running because it was blasting me out of the car.

The “big one” said he was running a Syntor 110W mobile into a 15db gain yagi up about 46 feet on a hill top. It was pointed in the direction of the small town near by. A couple of the others said they was running 40W/50W modified ham rigs into a ground plane or diskcone scanner antenna. One 25w moto radius. One other was on a relm 25W mobile in his car. There was a couple others on channel that were evidently running FRS/GMRS radios but I could just barely hear some of them. There was a few that were strong that didn't want to say what they was running.

On of the others kind of blabbed on them by saying the reason they didn't want to disclose what they were running is they were hams and didn't want to “advertise” aka “stick their neck out”. But there was a possibility that one of the hams was running something more powerful than the “big one”

They said some of them was also on CB, and VHF MURS if I wanted to get a hold of them that way.

I drove about another 18 miles in the rolling hills before their signals started to drop off. The “big one” dropped out first as I drove out of the direction his antenna was pointing.

All in all, non of them appeared to be running any “noise toys” the only roger beeps I heard was on the FRS radios that were on frequency.
 
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Hatchett

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I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I finally ran into a clustered group of higher (illegal) power FRS users considering the most liked review of the TH-9000D UHF radio on amazon is...

https://www.amazon.com/TYT-TH-9000D-UHF400~490MHz-Transceiver-Programming/dp/B00MWQDKP2

“NOT A BAD RADIO I LIKE IT FOR FRS AND GMSR. POWER NOT BAD PUTS OUT 35W IN THE FRS/GMRS BAND THE 45W IS ONLY FROM 400-440MHz and can program on chirp which is nice”
 

KB0VWG

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Almost any uhf radio will do frs or gmrs frequencies. Single band, dual band or tri band, the cheap Chinese ones are all wide open but the kenwood and yaesu radios have to be modified to talk on those frequencies unless they are made for the that band.
kb0vwg
wqoi992..
 

gewecke

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I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I finally ran into a clustered group of higher (illegal) power FRS users considering the most liked review of the TH-9000D UHF radio on amazon is...

https://www.amazon.com/TYT-TH-9000D-UHF400~490MHz-Transceiver-Programming/dp/B00MWQDKP2

“NOT A BAD RADIO I LIKE IT FOR FRS AND GMSR. POWER NOT BAD PUTS OUT 35W IN THE FRS/GMRS BAND THE 45W IS ONLY FROM 400-440MHz and can program on chirp which is nice”
. Everyone is Legal on Gmrs/Frs and Murs in my area for the most part, and that's the Way it needs to Stay. That's the beauty of Uhf. What's down south, Stays down south... :wink: 73, n9zas
 

Hatchett

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. Everyone is Legal on Gmrs/Frs and Murs in my area for the most part, and that's the Way it needs to Stay. That's the beauty of Uhf. What's down south, Stays down south... :wink: 73, n9zas

Yes.. It's in an area where your alcohol usually comes in mason jars. So they are not too predisposed to following the letter of the law.

Then again, just north of there in the southern part of Illinois(your home state), I have ran across some pretty strange and interesting stuff on the radio over the years.

Northern Illinois (Chicago area) and southern Illinois are two totally different cultures. People in Southern Illinois have a lot more independent nature (distrust of the government) as I have found over the years.
 

jonwienke

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Don't knock alcohol in mason jars until you've had a chance to try it..
 

K4DPA

Dawson A
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Who Cares?

Nobody cares if you use higher than "allowed" transmission power on FRS, GMRS, MURS, Ham Radio, CB, or any of the radio services. The FCC isn't interested in enforcing these useless regulations and their budget was cut drastically a few years ago thus making it even more impossible to enforce regulations. On top of that, if you don't use a higher power than what the FCC says then your radio is useless. Honestly, I use as much power as I want and it hasn't hurt anyone yet. I mean, I've been involved in this field since 2005 and this topic never seems to go away. What amazes me is that people take the power restrictions so seriously. Like they're going to be whisked away to radio prison the moment they key up with five watts of power on FRS instead of the allowed half a watt.
I don't want to start an argument, but that's my opinion. I know I'm going to have the occasional ham tell me they've been doing this longer than me but I don't care. Common sense is common sense.
 

K4DPA

Dawson A
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I wonder why they would bother talking on FRS when they can talk on the 440 ham band.

I don't know why. There are many different reasons why someone would use FRS instead of another radio service. Ask the National Guard during Hurricane Katrina, they were using a lot of FRS at the time. They have their own encrypted communications.
 

jonwienke

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It's not that at all. It's not hurting anyone to use more power and it makes sense.

That's not necessarily true. If you're rocking 50 watts on FRS, there's likely to be a lot of people who can hear you because they are in range of your 50W TX, but you won't be able to hear them because you are out of the range of their 0.5W TX. Unless you're way out in the sticks where there is no one else but you and your contact, it's a douchebag thing to do, legalities aside.

If you need to run a lot of power, the GMRS channels are only 12.5KHz away and are allocated for high power. It's the polite thing to do.
 

WPXS472

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Those folks run higher power because they can. They have little fear of the FCC because there is little chance they will get caught. Years ago, I used to listen to the folks who operated between the CB band and 10 meters. They were blatantly illegal but were giving their address over the air so they could exchange QSL cards. I remember thinking that the FCC must not really care because all they would have to do is take down the address and mail the forfeiture letter. I cannot even count the times I have heard businesses using radios without licenses, for years even. Yet there is enforcement. It does seem very inconsistent though. I once swapped base and mobile frequencies for a taxi company because of paging interference and they got a letter from the FCC almost immediately saying they couldn't do that. They weren't hurting anyone. They were licensed on both frequencies. I thought "What difference does it make which frequency they use?" Seems the FCC didn't agree. I swapped back and everything was cool afterward.
 

Hans13

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it's a douchebag thing to do, legalities aside.

If you need to run a lot of power, the GMRS channels are only 12.5KHz away and are allocated for high power. It's the polite thing to do.

+1

I'm licensed for GMRS and I agree. Any of us who are usually realize when someone is pirating one of the frequencies. Please leave the clueless kids and families running low watt bubble packs on FRS alone if you're going to run 50 Watts.
 

K4DPA

Dawson A
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Those folks run higher power because they can. They have little fear of the FCC because there is little chance they will get caught. Years ago, I used to listen to the folks who operated between the CB band and 10 meters. They were blatantly illegal but were giving their address over the air so they could exchange QSL cards. I remember thinking that the FCC must not really care because all they would have to do is take down the address and mail the forfeiture letter. I cannot even count the times I have heard businesses using radios without licenses, for years even. Yet there is enforcement. It does seem very inconsistent though. I once swapped base and mobile frequencies for a taxi company because of paging interference and they got a letter from the FCC almost immediately saying they couldn't do that. They weren't hurting anyone. They were licensed on both frequencies. I thought "What difference does it make which frequency they use?" Seems the FCC didn't agree. I swapped back and everything was cool afterward.

I agree with you 100%. The FCC really is a laughing stock of an agency. They attack only big business and those that have money to pay outrageous fines. Speeding tickets are not that much for crying out loud and it's more dangerous to speed than use a radio illegally. If you look at the entire agency of the FCC you can clearly see that it is completely corrupt and a waste of resources.
 

K4DPA

Dawson A
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That's not necessarily true. If you're rocking 50 watts on FRS, there's likely to be a lot of people who can hear you because they are in range of your 50W TX, but you won't be able to hear them because you are out of the range of their 0.5W TX. Unless you're way out in the sticks where there is no one else but you and your contact, it's a douchebag thing to do, legalities aside.

If you need to run a lot of power, the GMRS channels are only 12.5KHz away and are allocated for high power. It's the polite thing to do.

Dude give me a break. It's not harming anyone because they can switch to a different channel or use a cell phone. If I'm close enough to hear anyone else using the channel I will volunteer to move to an alterant channel.
If I'm "rocking" 50 watts or more power on FRS. Then I'm clearly trying to talk to someone that is too far away for the ridiculous 0.5 watts to reach. That's my reasoning and mostly everyone else. I have a GMRS license as you can see from my profile. I do license myself to use the radio services that I choose. However, if I want to use more power so I can talk to a friend like myself than I will. It's not hurting anyone, they can switch to a secondary frequency or go to the phone, or if I am able to hear them I will politely move to another channel. It's simple.
 

RFI-EMI-GUY

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Running illegal power on the FRS channels will annoy the hell out of licensed GMRS operators. The reason for low power on FRS is that GMRS are afforded a full 25KHz channel and FRS into those channels.
 

RFI-EMI-GUY

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Dude give me a break. It's not harming anyone because they can switch to a different channel or use a cell phone. If I'm close enough to hear anyone else using the channel I will volunteer to move to an alterant channel.
If I'm "rocking" 50 watts or more power on FRS. Then I'm clearly trying to talk to someone that is too far away for the ridiculous 0.5 watts to reach. That's my reasoning and mostly everyone else. I have a GMRS license as you can see from my profile. I do license myself to use the radio services that I choose. However, if I want to use more power so I can talk to a friend like myself than I will. It's not hurting anyone, they can switch to a secondary frequency or go to the phone, or if I am able to hear them I will politely move to another channel. It's simple.
If you need 50 watts, do it on a GMRS channel, not FRS.
 

tampabaynews

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As others have said, there are specific reasons why the rules are in place.

Best case scenario, you might interfere with users who are following the rules (even if you're not aware of it).

Worst case scenario, the FCC investigates for a change and this thread is called into question (I won't hold my breath).

Makes me wonder why you bothered getting a GMRS license in the first place with the "who cares" mentality.
 

tj20

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I wonder why they would bother talking on FRS when they can talk on the 440 ham band.

Too many restrictions on ham. I can talk about anything I want on frs and there aren't as many radio cops. As long as I use frs I don't have to worry about ID ing every 15 minutes
 
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