Amateur radio has its place as a hobby dealing with the technical end of radio. GMRS is for those who are not a business but want the ability to communicate over a large area but only need to communicate. I've been going through this issue with ham operators telling me to get my wife to get her ham license so we can communicate. I refuse to because I am lucky enough to have her agree to at least use it for communication where needed. I even had to purchase a smaller antenna so she didn't have to deal with this big antenna hanging off the radio. She is happy, I am happy, we compromised and are fine with what we have and it works. A lot of hams just want more people on the roster of ham radio as a way to keep the hobby from dying and I think that's wrong. Hams need to stop with what they really do with ham radio and make FULL USE of ALL the bands and maybe they wont have an issue. My wife and I just need communications, not a hobby. Ham radio has its place and I enjoy some of it. GMRS has its place providing a means of communications over a larger area without having to be public safety, business, or ham. Each service should be used for what it was intended for and one should not be exalted above the other. I think linking on GMRS should be allowed especially seeing as how, in my area most GMRS repeaters are on peoples roof tops or on a lower elevation on a tower. None of them cover a wide enough area. Plus, my area works better on VHF high band than UHF just because of the terrain.