Thank you.  I'll have to edumacate myself a little in these.

There are easy solutions and best solutions that are not always the same.

I am compelled to repeat—as I mentioned in our nukes discussion—that evidence is accuмulating that even non-ionizing radiation (e.g., ham, cell, and other radio) is damaging to human tissues.

Hence… both "power" and "antennas" have some risk.  It behooves you to be a bit distant from the actual radiation (exposure intensity changes with the square of the distance, r², and absorbed dose with the cube of the distance, r³). As with so many things, there is a trade-off; getting distance from the radiation means longer cables, so more signal loss. That means you have to weigh the cost of more expensive low-loss coax cable.

I am not intending to be obtuse, but it goes on and on. It's the ham radio equivalent of the theological "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin."

Hi,
I know many here are knowledgeable in Ham radio. I often use walkie-talkies for hikes or when I go out fishing to a small lake with my son and while I'm there I hear interesting conversations on the radio. It seems like I can always get to hear the same guys, however, I cannot communicate with them.
Is it possible to do so using a walkie-talkie?
Could I have tuned in to a frequency very close to theirs but not exactly their frequency so while I can hear them they can't hear me?

Thank you

I don't know if it makes a difference but I hear something that I think is a repeater, some times I hear it identify itself in a robotic voice and sometimes I hear is as Morse code but it may be doing the same.

So there’s a couple of things to take into account here.

The first is bandwidth. The radios you have are more than likely Family Radio Service ("FRS") radios.  According to part 95, FRS is narrowband (12.5kHz) on all 22 channels. General Mobile Radio Service ("GMRS"), on the other hand (which requires a family license to operate) is supposed to be “wideband” 20kHz bandwidth on channels 1-7 & 15-22 and 12.5kHz on 8-14. More about this a bit further down.

The second thing to know is the fact that the frequencies for channels 1-7 are interstitial 462 frequencies that sit in between the main 462 frequencies in use by channels 15-22.

Now if we bring bandwidth back into this…

Many, many people use radios and repeater units for GMRS that aren’t actually Part 95 certified. So in order to do the wide bandwidth that is called for in GMRS, they end up setting the channels to 25kHz bandwidth because many of these radios are not capable of 20kHz bandwidth.

The frequency for channel 3 is, for example, 462.6125MHz. This sits right in the middle between 462.600 and 462.625MHz for channels 17 & 18 respectively. All the frequencies in use by 1-7 and 15-22 are only spaced 12.5kHz apart when placed in order according to frequency.

Now the radio you are using is only listening to 12.5kHz total bandwidth (6.25kHz to either side of center) and you may have been hearing someone on a GMRS repeater using the pair for either channel 17 or channel 18. This would also explain why you can't hear anything from them as you (1) would most likely be out of distance, and (2) your radio is capable of simplex-only, so you could not hit the repeater even if you were in line-of-sight of the repeater tower.

BTW... FRS is not always limited to 0.5W transmission; it can legally go up to 2W, depending upon the channel.  And up to 50W for GMRS.  See below table.  However, most FRS radios (including the ones you have) only go up to 0.5W of output. I have a set of GMRS hand-held mobile radios, and they have a max output of 5W.  But even with the greater power, and their limited antennas, range may be quite limited depending upon terrain and obstacles.  I live in a hilly neighborhood, and going on a walk to test my radio, wherein my wife stayed behind in the house, range was less then 1/4 mile after there was a huge hill in between.

If one is serious about setting up family radio comms, but doesn't want to deal with everyone in the family having to get an amateur radio license, GMRS is the way to go... One license covers the whole family, is immediately obtained online from the FCC, and costs $35.  Outfit the vehicles with some 25-50W mobile radios, set up a repeater, and you've essentially got your own private comms network.



One final thing: It can be almost positively ruled out that what you were hearing came from a "HAM" or amateur radio band, as all those frequencies, even on the UHF/VHF bands, come nowhere near the frequencies of the FRS/GMRS bands.

See below.

…BTW... FRS is not always limited to 0.5W transmission; it can legally go up to 2W, depending upon the channel.  And up to 50W for GMRS.  …

I thought that only GMRS repeater frequencies were allowed to exceed ½ watt. I stand corrected. Mea culpa.

Did I mis-remember completely? Or did I miss an update in the FCC power restrictions?

If one is serious about setting up family radio comms, but doesn't want to deal with everyone in the family having to get an amateur radio license, GMRS is the way to go... One license covers the whole family, is immediately obtained online from the FCC, and costs $35.  Outfit the vehicles with some 25-50W mobile radios, set up a repeater, and you've essentially got your own private comms network.

One final thing: It can be almost positively ruled out that what you were hearing came from a "HAM" or amateur radio band, as all those frequencies, even on the UHF/VHF bands, come nowhere near the frequencies of the FRS/GMRS bands.

Thank you for all that information. I started looking into GMRS after I read your reply. GMRS seems more approachable while ham radio would be a deep dive for me, at least for now.

Can someone just listen or scan the airwaves just for fun using GMRS like ham radio enthusiasts do? I know I would be limited by frequency range but is that still possible with GMRS?

Thank you for all that information. I started looking into GMRS after I read your reply. GMRS seems more approachable while ham radio would be a deep dive for me, at least for now.

Can someone just listen or scan the airwaves just for fun using GMRS like ham radio enthusiasts do? I know I would be limited by frequency range but is that still possible with GMRS?

Sure you can do it, but not likely it will be productive enough to be "fun." Depending on where you live, you might pick up some hikers or hunters. Even scanning the ham bands is not that exciting—ham is about as nerdy a hobby as possible. About half of ham traffic will be old guys talking about their health problems and the other half will be hams talking about their antennas and radios. Then there are the software Digital Data (DD) modes. We pursued the gear, licensing and experience for the utilitarian aspect—TEOTWAWKI "comms down." I am glad we did it to have another "tool" in the box, but I hope never to be so house-bound as to make it a regular part of my day.

Can someone just listen or scan the airwaves just for fun using GMRS like ham radio enthusiasts do? I know I would be limited by frequency range but is that still possible with GMRS?

Yes, but realize that (1) there are much, much fewer GMRS repeaters than there are, say, 2M or 70cm repeaters (...and we're talking analog, not digital--in my AO, there are dozens of both 2M and 70cm analog repeaters, but they are mostly quiet as the cranks all transferred to digital repeaters), and (2) the range of of GMRS repeaters is much more limited than a 2M or 70cm repeater, the latter of which IIRC can easily transmit at 100W (maybe more) whereas a GMRS repeater is limited to 50W. 

And don't forget... you can get yourself a cheap Baofeng dual-band radio capable of both 2M and 70cm operation, and you only need an amateur radio license to transmit. IOW, it is neither illegal to own and/or listen to the UHF/VHF amateur repeaters.  This is what I did before getting my amateur radio license a decade or so ago.  

Thank you all for the tips.