The reason you hear everything when you pick the mike up is because you are
supposed to listen to everything before transmitting so you can avoid
interfering with other traffic that may already be using the channel.

Dave Head
K8DH

That's a nice theory, but it doesn't work. If we waited for those distant
agencies (we're talking 50 miles+) to stop talking before we talked, we'd never
communicate. Our local stations don't provide enough interference to keep them
from communicating and vice-versa, but it is annoying to pick up the mic and
try to talk to someone on their handheld when some other agency far north is
stepping on him (we don't use a repeater, it's all simplex). If PL decode was
active 100% of the time (instead of only when the mic is on the clip), we'd be
able to communicate with no problems since we'd only hear our other units and
we still won't be providing significant interference to the other agencies,
especially if they did the same.

With any luck, we'll be on the county's 500 mhz trunked system soon.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
73! de Andy KC2SSB - WPYI880 (GMRS)
Beachwood, NJ USA! Grid FM29vw
http://vhfradiobuff.tripod.com