Hey everyone, I want to say first that I'm no expert but I thought I'd be able to answer some questions concerning radios, comms, or some other related categories. My name is Anthony (KQ4OEQ) and I am a private pilot part 91, a licensed UAS Pilot part 107, a licensed Amateur Radio operator (HAM), an Eagle Scout, and I worked in NM for 3 years at PSR handling radio traffic for medical and SAR ops. I am making this forum primarily as a place of discussion and getting y'all started on the right path for coms. Please shoot me with whatever questions you have and if I don't have an answer for you I'll do a little digging and see if I can't find an answer.
Joshua Lawson
There are many different radio services to choose from that have advantages over the others. The first category is all of the unlicensed radio services. The Family Radio Service (FRS), Multi-Use Radio Service (MURS), and Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CB). FRS operates between 462 and 467 MHz (UHF) and MURS operates between 151 and 154 MHz (VHF). These are line-of-sight communications, so if there's a hill, mountain, or city between you and the recipient it may be difficult or impossible to reach them. FRS is also more common than MURS but has 17 more channels to choose from. Both are limited to >2w power. CB is commonly used by truckers or your local redneck and can be useful. It is an HF frequency which means it can go beyond line of sight but it is low power so it's not likely.
The next radio services are General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) and Amateur Radio operators (HAM) and they are Licensed. GMRS is a simple fee for licensing (individual or group) but HAM is a test and fee (individual). The advantage of these licensing services is that fewer people are clogging up the frequencies and the use of repeaters allows you to reach out 3-4 further than just direct contact. GMRS overlaps with FRS but has 8 of its own channels and allows up to 20w of power (10x more than FRS). This is a line-of-sight communication but repeaters (depending on terrain and location) can reach out usually 30-40 miles plus, from the location of the repeater. You still need to be within line-of-sight and range 5-10 miles usually of the repeater. lastly, HAM (specifically Technician license) covers parallel to all of these services above. So they don't share the same frequencies but they are the same group. The advantages are you are opened up to many more frequencies and different communication methods. You can use voice or you can send emails, text, and other data over radio waves. If you want to know more just ask me or use YouTube to do a little research and HamStudy.org for HAM practice.
Tim Gauthier
If you were to purchase a DMR radio. What would you get and/or what would you look for?
I only have my GMRS license and that is cool for what I am doing now, but plan to get the HAM license.
I am also getting into Meshtastic a little.
DMR is a type of digital voice mode for amateur radios. The 3 main types of digital voice modes are DMR, Yaesu Fusion and D-STAR.
Before you buy one of these radios, you first would want to make sure people in your area actually use those. In my area, it's common to have Yaesu Fusion repeaters. DMR repeaters do exist, but are less common. I'm not sure how much traffic is on there because I don't have a DMR radio.
As a relatively new ham, my first suggestion is go to repeaterbook.com and look for the list of repeaters in your area. If there are no DMR repeaters, it may not be a good idea to spend the money on a DMR radio. I hope this helps.
Anthony Swogger
Get repeater book to look at all of the published repeaters in your area. That should be a helpful tool. It’s not always up to date but it’s pretty good. It’ll tell you the freqs and what other things the repeater has like D-star, fusion, EchoLink and emergency services.
I haven’t messed with Meshtastic yet but have done lots of research and have had conflicting opinions about it. I think Meshtastic is good for the individual if you wanted to set it up for home or caravan that works. But large scale comms like repeater use it’s not great. It’s slow and drops messages. It all depends