What Is GMRS?
In United States, the service designed for families who need a two way radio communication is called GMRS or General Mobile Radio Service. GMRS is designed for short range communication and works on FM band. Although GMRS is similar to Family Radio Service but transmissions over greater distances are allowed by it.
There are differences between GMRS and FRS. Apart from the difference in transmission range, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) must license GMRS radio. The license is mandatory and costs under $100 US Dollars and is valid for five years. Before buying radios that work on GMRS frequencies, you must be aware of the requirements.
You can say that GMRS is enhanced version of FRS radio because of number of reasons. The wattage of FRS radio is less than one while GMRS has wattage that ranges from one to five. The result is an increased range which however, cannot be felt always. Another difference is that FRS radios have internal antennas while GMRS have not. This helps the GMRS radios by increasing their effective ranges.
Although there are some frequencies which both GMRS and FRS share but there are still some frequencies which are exclusive to GMRS. All GMRS radios can share all frequencies which are available for use. But there should be enough open channels as per the licensing requirements in which there is possibility of exclusive two way communication. But it is advisable not to broadcast any personal information in any public radio service.
There are number of reasons for which licensing of GMRS radio is done. The first one being restriction of channels by the FCC only to those family members who need to communicate. The other reason is that in order to make sure that practical communication remains viable; the numbers of authorized individuals are restricted by the FCC on certain frequencies. Although FCC does not check the use of channels very often but users have to pay fines and can have possible criminal prosecution if they use GMRS radios without a license.
There are only 15 GMRS channels or channel configurations in reality, in comparison to claims made by various GMRS radios. So any genuine GMRS radio would be able to work on one of these 15 channels. 462 Mhz is the range under which these radios works. Under $100 USD is the cost of GMRS radios but based on different features, prices may vary.
Category: Technology