What GMRS is (and isn't)

GMRS - the General Mobile Radio Service - is a licensed UHF service for families and small groups. It lives in Part 95 Subpart E of the FCC rules and shares its 22 channels around 462 and 467 MHz with FRS, the unlicensed bubble-pack radios you can buy anywhere.

What the licence gets you

• No exam. You apply, you pay, you get a callsign. Usually within a day or two.
• $35 for ten years. One licence covers you, your spouse, children, grandchildren, parents, siblings and in-laws.
• Power. Up to 50 W on the main channels (15-22) and 5 W on channels 1-7. FRS is capped at 2 W and can't be modified.
• Repeaters. This is the big one. GMRS repeaters sit on hills and towers and turn a 5 W handheld into a radio that covers a county. FRS radios can't use them at all.
• Removable antennas and mobiles in the truck. FRS radios must have fixed antennas.

What it isn't

• Not ham radio. No HF, no experimenting, no building your own transmitter. GMRS radios must be FCC-certified for Part 95.
• Not for business. A GMRS licence is for an individual and their family. Companies use Part 90 (business band) instead.
• Not private. Anyone with a scanner or an FRS radio hears you. Privacy codes (CTCSS/DCS) only stop your radio from unmuting for other people - they don't hide anything.
• Not for linking across the internet - at least not clearly. The FCC's 2017 rules prohibit interconnecting GMRS with the public network for the purpose of relaying, and the linked-repeater question is still contested. ChatterBack lists a repeater's network as information, nothing more.

The channels, in one table

The one thing to remember: a repeater listens on 467 and talks on 462. Your radio has to do the opposite. That +5 MHz "offset" is the whole trick, and the next steps walk you through it.