Going Feral: Emergency FRS/GMRS Channels

Going Feral: Emergency FRS/GMRS Channels: 

Emergency FRS/GMRS Channels

I thought I'd posted something on this, but I hadn't.  

If you spend quite a bit of time in the outback, you should pack along an FRS/GMRS capable radio, or at least a FRS one.  I.e., a "walkie talkie".

I like radios, and it's really easy to geek people out on the topic, or for that matter to get arrogant in regard to them, which is a frequent problem in radio communities.  What I'm going to start off noting is something that goes down the rabbit hole in GMRS communities, but its easy to set yourself up with these sorts of small handheld radios.  Midland in particular makes good sets for regular people.

Everyone has seen these sorts of radios, and a lot of children actually use them, particularly the FRS ones.  When you buy a "bubble pack" radio set at the sporting goods store, that's what you are getting.

Okay, for some technicalities.  From the FCC website:

The Family Radio Service (FRS) is a private, two-way, short-distance voice and data communications service for facilitating family and group activities. The most common use for FRS channels is short-distance, two-way voice communications using small hand-held radios that are similar to walkie-talkies. The service is licensed-by-rule so the general public can use the devices without having to obtain a license and channel sharing is achieved through a listen-before-talk etiquette.

Other services that allow similar communications include the CB Radio Service, General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) and the Multi-Use Radio Service (MURS).

The FRS is authorized 22 channels in the 462 MHz and 467 MHz range, all of which are shared with General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) which requires an individual license for use.

That's frankly a little deceptive, for reasons we'll discuss in a moment.

A lot of the the radios you buy now have the GMRS bands on them, and lots of people, as we'll see, buy GMRS radios intentionally, which require a license, as noted.  Regarding GMRS;

The General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) is a licensed radio service that uses channels around 462 MHz and 467 MHz. The most common use of GMRS channels is for short-distance, two-way voice communications using hand-held radios, mobile radios and repeater systems. In 2017, the FCC expanded GMRS to also allow short data messaging applications including text messaging and GPS location information.

Services that provide functionality similar to GMRS include the Citizens Band Radio Service (CBRS), the Family Radio Service (FRS) and the Multi-Use Radio Service (MURS).

The GMRS is available to an individual for short-distance two-way communications to facilitate the activities of licensees and their immediate family members. Each licensee manages a system consisting of one or more transmitting units (stations.) The rules for GMRS limit eligibility for new GMRS system licenses to individuals in order to make the service available to personal users. (Some previously licensed non-individual systems are allowed to continue using GMRS.)

In 2017, the FCC updated the GMRS by allotting additional interstitial channels in the 467 MHz band, increased the license term from 5 to 10 years, allowed transmission of limited data applications such as text messaging and GPS location information and made other updates to the GMRS rules to reflect modern application of the service.

I"m not going to bother with MURS, which you don't run into that often.

GMRS is a far more capable two-way radio system than CB is.  If CB's are down in their legally restricted power range, they really only have a about a three-mile range, which is also pretty common range wise for FRS.  GMRS varies by terrain and is line of site, so it can be quite short as well, although it can be quite long.  I've hit a hand held gmrs from a 5 Watt gmrs radio from a distance of 20 miles away, and the other day I was picking up the local repeater from over 30 miles away when I actually quite listening to it.

Channel 3 is a FRS channel that doesn't require the GMRS license, and it's the channel that seems to be getting adopted for emergency radio use.  Colorado Search and Rescue has adopted it:

You can read more about that here:

FRS3 For Colorado Backcountry

Wyoming Search and Rescue has as well, but there's an added wrinkle with them.  Riffing off of the widely held weird belief in Wyoming that the area code is somehow cool, they've added the suggestion that people program in privacy code 7.

Colorado specifically asks that people not program in a privacy code.

Privacy codes are really easy to program into any of these radios.  It's just done with the keys.  What a privacy code does is filter out all the radio traffic not using it, so if you have it programmed in, you'll only hear transmissions using it.  People not using the code can hear everything, but they can't talk to you.

As noted, I like radios and I carry a hand held Midland GMRS radio (usually a Midland) out in the sticks all the time.  Both of my regular 4x4s have vehicle mounted GMRS radios as well.  One of those is the most powerful one you can have by law, which means it should be able to broadcast at distance, and it also allows the user to program in "split tones", which are useful for privately maintained repeaters.  Northern Colorado is jam packed with a really good repeater system, and it now extends as far north as Cheyenne which is linked into it.  The Torrington area has a repeater as well, but I've never been able to hit it.  Casper has a very good repeater which is part of the GMRS Live system, so through net linkage, you can hit all the way up into Montana on it.

Not that most people want to do any of that.  But the recommendations are really good ones.  The hand held radios can be bought fairly inexpensively (although you can get a really expensive one if you wish) and if you are lost, or hurt yourself out in the sticks, and much of the sticks in Wyoming is without cell service, it could be a life saver.