GMRS 'Travel Channel' / National Simplex Channel?
/A frequent question on GMRS groups on Facebook and Reddit is “What’s the national ‘travel channel’”?
tl;dr There isn’t one
but there could be, and I’m going to suggest Channel 20, not Channel 19
This question is asked by GMRS ops who drive over the road or are taking a trip, and would like to find other GMRS ops randomly along their route.
Many are thinking about CB Channel 19, where, at least back in the day, every truck and many cars had CB, and they were all on Channel 19 when on the road. Chatter was constant (if sometimes pretty gross and annoying), even in rural areas, and if there was a speed trap or accident ahead, you heard about it miles before you got there. Today, CB Channel 19 is pretty quiet, but I do hear some announcements about road issues.
When the question is asked about GMRS, it usually draws a flood of responses, with a variety of answers - many of them contradictory, yet made with great confidence and authority.
The most common answer is ‘Channel 19’ (462.650 MHz), probably because it is ‘19’. Other than the number ‘19’, it has no association with CB Channel 19, but the number itself is enough to make it almost the default answer.
Old timers remember when the FCC designated Channel 20 (462.675 MHz) as the ‘emergency and traveler assistance’ channel, and it was the only place GMRS users could talk to each other outside their license groups. That ended in 1999 (and now GMRS users can talk to anyone about anything, which triggered the hobby use of GMRS), but it’s still something of an argument for Channel 20 just by legacy.
I have read that Channel 16 is frequently used by off-road groups. That’s a good enough reason not to suggest it as a general simplex channel.
The correct answer is ‘there isn’t one, but there could be’.
Now and then I come across a post where somewhat has actually taken a cross-country drive, monitoring all the GMRS channels, and found nothing. Most found repeaters, but never a random simplex contact with someone nearby on their route. When they post that, they are then flooded with the same declarations that 'It’s Channel 19’; ‘it’s Channel 20’; and the occasional ‘there isn’t one’. All that, despite the evidence they just presented.
I’ve made some of those cross-country trips myself, from home near Charlotte to central Illinois, and to the Dayton Hamvention. On those trips, I was specifically looking for GMRS simplex operation. I heard a fair amount of FRS traffic, from businesses, schools and families as I passed by. I heard a ‘caravan’ or two that I tracked for several miles as we were going the same directon (no, I didn’t try to break in and talk to them). I talked through several repeaters that I’d pre-programmed my radio for, and listened to many more (but yeah, most places it was kinda quiet). And I never heard anything I could identify as a fellow traveler looking for a GMRS contact.
I also made some transmissions looking for contacts. We call them “CQ” calls in ham radio, though we don’t use the term CQ on repeaters much. I tried on Channel 19 and Channel 20, making fairly long calls with my call sign and name, and noting the highway I was on, with mile-marker and direction, and that I was looking for a contact. Only problem was, I didn’t do that a lot. Just a few times. So I may have missed someone.
My wisdom
There are no ‘good’ answers, but there is one ‘better’ answer: Channel 20. Here’s why…
First, we need to develop consensus and land on one channel that everyone agrees on and uses. And someday we may reach the critical mass where there are enough of us out there that we can find each other just by announcing our presence on that channel.
What makes Channel 20 ‘better’? Well, Channel 19 would have been my suggestion because ‘19’, but there’s a legal issue. The US has a treaty with Canada that includes something called Line A. Line A is a line that runs along the northern US, approximately 100 miles in from the Canadian border. And, among other things, the treaty includes a prohibition against using GMRS Channels 19 and 21 north of that line. That includes large cities in Washington State, Michigan, and New York State, and lots of other small towns.
What’s the deal with Line A? I just spent over an hour trying to dig out specifics, and I can’t find them 😯. I find plenty of references to ‘Conditions’ that, apparently, one agrees to when applying for a GMRS license, but nothing in any FCC rules. Those ‘conditions’ are: don’t use Channels 19 and 21 above LIne A (100 miles of the Canadian border) (and OK, for the record, the FCC doesn’t assign channel numbers. They just list frequencies. The channel numbers are widely recognized).
So here’s the background. For a long time, Canada and the US had different allocations on those two frequencies - different radio services that were potentially incompatbile because in Canada those channels received ‘interference-free coordination’ - so any use required specific coordination based on location. It’s impossible to coordinate random GMRS use, so the frequencies were just prohibited to US GMRS operators near the border.
Now, Canada has allocated those channels to their own version of GMRS, so there’s no real conflict. Canada does have significantly different GMRS rules (max 2 watts, fixed antennas, no base/mobiles, no repeaters), but that shouldn’t be an issue with US stations operating near the border, except a 50 watt station might romp and stomp over a Canadian handheld (or a US handheld, for that matter).
So, will that prohibition (that I can’t actually find) ever be recinded? Maybe. It’s pretty buried, but maybe some bureaucrat will surface it in a treaty negotiation somday. I saw a letter someone wrote asking the FCC about that in 2024, and the reply they got said the FCC is ‘working on it’. But don’t hold your breath 😤. Line A is part of a very extensive set of negotiations covering many radio services, because radio signals don’t respect national borders, and we all just want to get along. GMRS is a flyspeck in all that.
But hey, it’s easy enough to just use a different channel. So maybe Channel 20?
Other issues?
So I said a few paragraphs ago that there are no ‘good’ anwers. What’s the problem with Channel 20?
The big problem is that there are repeaters on Channel 20, and of course all the other 50-watt channels (15-22). Both simplex and repeater operation is permitted on those channels, along with pesky FRS operation. Really, who planned this?
So your random, cross-country mobile operation can run into the territory of a repeater now and then. And if you are having a simplex conversation, the repeater may suddenly come on the air and cause interference. It’s not malicious - that repeater user may be too far away to hear your mobile signal. You could switch to the repeater, if it’s an open repeater and you know the tone/DCS code. A lot of ‘ifs’ for a low-tech radio user trying to drive safely.
Or it could just be an annoying issue of being on the fringe of the repeater, so it’s a noisy signal holding your squelch open for miles. I ran into that several times on trips. Tone would solve that if we added the stipulation that our ‘National Simplex Channel’ specified tone (the pretty universally known ‘travel tone’ of 141.3 Hz). But we’re barely getting a consensus on a frequency, and now we’re adding ‘mandatory’ tone? 🫤
So no repeater channel will be perfect, but any can be mostly workable, and 20 has that legacy (and it’s legal in Detroit). So again, I hearby declare… I mean suggest, Channel 20.
Another alternative?
Do we need a 50-Watt channel? GMRS mobiles can operate on channels 1-7 in Wide FM with 5 Watts, and no repeaters. 5 Watts might just be enough for our random operation (remember, CB channel 19 was just 4 watts… 😁😁😁⚡💥). You get pretty decent range with an outside antenna (forget using the rubber duck inside the car - that’s never a good idea).
Awesome as that idea is (I’m glad you like it) nobody’s suggesting that, and we’re looking for consensus. We don’t need another left-field suggestion (but if I were to make that a suggestion, I’d suggest Channel 1… ‘change my mind’). Why did I even bring it up? Because someone was going to, and I needed to quash it in advance.
How will we get to consensus? Every time you run across the discussion, link to this article, or write your own reply, suggesting Channel 20, including transmitting 141.3 tone but not decoding it (yet). Then duck 🦆. Cuz you’re gonna get some flack.
Incoming! 💥
