Programming GMRS

[Radio Guy]

While I agree with most of what @Radio Guy helps with this is missleading in the fact of that may be the rules but we know all midland radios (mobile and portable) are narrowband on all channels. Until the MTX500 you could not program them for wide v narrow. I actually run a GMRS repeater in narrowband as the MTS275 works much better on the repeater now. We went round and round with midland in the past over this.

Most FRS units are all narrowband on all channels which now include GMRS. My T600 are narrow band on all channels. 1-22

You can legally program all GMRS and FRS channels as narrow band and the only issue will be lower/softer sounding transmit audio on the channels where wide band is used. Midland radios that are narrow band only would obviously be legal but their marketing and engineering people did make a mistake programming the entire radio as narrow band.

Personally I don't find myself using FRS radios but I do have a pile of radios programmed for GMRS and I have a GMRS repeater on air and a couple of spares for future sites. I would not program my GMRS repeaters for narrow band since everyone I know has wide band capability. GMRS and amateur are about the only two holdouts for wideband, most everything else has gone narrow and I prefer the higher fidelity of wideband.

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[sarguy1941]

Yup agree. I think it boils down to what your doin and who your talking to. In both my Jeep Jamboree's last year most of the group I was with had midlands or various FRS handhelds. One guy each day had a KG1000 set for wideband and he sounded horrible all weekend on our narrow band stuff. It was fine on my APX but the MTX275 was totally distorted.

I changed my one repeater to narrow as that was the complaint all the time that the midlands were very quiet. Being thats all the users on that repeater own it was a simple fix.

So for true GMRS yes wideband it is but I find many using narrow as they have no idea. Heck 905 of the crowd doesn't even get a license so....

 

[JTR178]

You can legally program all GMRS and FRS channels as narrow band and the only issue will be lower/softer sounding transmit audio on the channels where wide band is used. Midland radios that are narrow band only would obviously be legal but their marketing and engineering people did make a mistake programming the entire radio as narrow band.

Personally I don't find myself using FRS radios but I do have a pile of radios programmed for GMRS and I have a GMRS repeater on air and a couple of spares for future sites. I would not program my GMRS repeaters for narrow band since everyone I know has wide band capability. GMRS and amateur are about the only two holdouts for wideband, most everything else has gone narrow and I prefer the higher fidelity of wideband.

The newer 275s (USB C front port) can support wide band on repeater channels. If purchased recently it likely already does from the factory. If it was manufactured earlier and shipped with narrow band it can be sent into Midland for a firmware update. More here.

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