VHF Frequencies for the GMRS? | TWRS 210 Clip

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Yeah, this this proposal to the FCC was made by um National Capital Communications and Mid-Atlantic React and uh what they reference in their proposal is this hurricane Helen that came through North Carolina and uh that hurricane knocked out all the communications and basically in their proposal they're saying look it would have been very handy to have some VHF frequencies on GMRS because you have nonateurs that um need to communicate and um all the other communications in this scenario were down >> and um I think it's so that's a reasonable scenario >> and what they've done is uh they actually went through >> and um found that there's frequencies in around 40 to 50 megahertz that were allocated to baby monitors and um 900 or and cordless phones that aren't really being used anymore. They came up with a concrete proposal that's like here are the exact frequencies, here's how it would work. Um and uh I guess we should get into a few of the details of of what they're proposing.

[00:01:17]>> Mhm.

[00:01:18]>> Um >> yeah, >> it would allocate 17 new frequencies to GMRS. that includes 10 repeater pairs.

[00:01:29]Channels 1 through 10 would support 100 watts. Frequencies 11 through 17 would support 200 watts of power. You know, there there's two different places they're getting these frequencies from.

[00:01:43]>> The um 11 through 17 are coming from the baby monitor pool and 1 through 10 is coming from the cordless phone pool. So, I guess maybe that has something to do with the wattage that they're >> allocating. They also propose that channels one through five be allocated to FRS as well >> for two watts of power. So, the supporters are basically saying that it would really improve the communications uh for rural users and uh and and for off-road enthusiasts uh people who operate in places where um the you know there's some rough terrain sometimes and the UHF signals just don't don't get through very well.

[00:02:25]>> Communications on these frequencies they kind of they would carry further over distance outdoors. They're not going to penetrate buildings and things like that very well, but the uh lower the frequency they the radio waves sort of hug the ground a little more. So, they're going to travel further. This would be >> in addition to >> the GMRS we have. Basically, we would be adding 17 new frequencies to the GMRS.