In article ,
Channel Jumper wrote:

The kicker is when even the FCC and the ARRL calls the FM repeater
frequencies - Channels!

With the exception of 60 meters - nothing we do as amateurs is
channelized!

Nothing that we do, except for 60 meters, has channels specified by
regulation and legally enforced by the FCC.

The repeater frequencies are "channels" in other, very practical
senses. They are treated in this fashion by most (I think) of the
repeater coordination groups in the U.S., in that these groups will
typically not declare a repeater to be "coordinated" if its transmit
and receive frequency bandwidths are not centered in one of the
"channels" that have been agreed to by that particular coordinating
group. Insist that one of these groups grant a coordination for a
145.276143 MHz frequency and they'll probably turn you down (while the
2-meter coordinator gives you an ugly look).

Also, a lot of the simpler radios these days (such as the ones you are
criticising) use PLL-synthesized oscillators, locked to a quartz
crystal reference. The PLL divider architecture effectively forces
the radios to tune only to frequencies which are integral multiples of
a fixed interval... often 5 kHz or 12.5 kHz... and so these radios
have a *physically* channelized RF design. Few if any of these AM/FM
ham radios have a RIT/XIT offset tuning capability, or
continuously-variable oscillators.

Yes, as a ham, you're perfectly free to operate in the FM repeater
band with odd frequency offsets or splits, ignoring the channels-
by-convention entirely. I'd guess that only a fraction of a percent
of amateur users of this frequency spectrum, ever do so.