TrailBand

Skunk River Restorations, LLC

About this app

TrailBand turns an FRS, GMRS or MURS channel number into the exact frequency and settings you need to program into a handheld radio.

It is built for offroad and overland groups, where some vehicles carry bubble-pack FRS walkie-talkies from the hardware store, others carry programmable handhelds, and nobody can work out how to make the two talk to each other.

Every channel shows what a radio actually needs to be told: receive and transmit frequency, the repeater offset and shift, bandwidth, tuning step, and which power setting keeps you inside the legal limit for that channel.

The tone screen solves the problem that sends most people looking for an app like this. The "privacy code" printed on a consumer walkie-talkie is not a frequency, it is a CTCSS tone. TrailBand shows the code number beside every standard tone, so when somebody says they are on channel 16, code 22, you know that means 462.5750 MHz with a 141.3 Hz tone.

When the whole group needs the same setup, export the set as a CHIRP-compatible CSV and program the radios over USB, or share a plain text programming card so everyone can key it in by hand. Agree the channel once in the staging area and every radio in the convoy ends up identical, instead of sorting it out over the air once you are strung out along a trail.

FEATURES

• All 35 channels: FRS/GMRS 1 to 22, GMRS repeater pairs 15R to 22R, and MURS 1 to 5
• Receive and transmit frequency, offset, bandwidth, tuning step and power setting for every channel
• 38 standard CTCSS tones shown with their bubble-pack privacy code numbers, plus 12 extra tones and 104 DCS codes
• Search by channel number, or by a frequency you heard and want to identify
• Favorites for the channels your group actually runs
• Export a CHIRP-compatible CSV to program a radio over USB, with the tuning step set correctly per channel
• Share a plain text programming card with the whole group
• Reference articles on FRS against GMRS, MURS, matching consumer radios, using a repeater, and choosing a trail channel

Frequencies, bandwidths and power limits follow the United States FCC allocations in 47 CFR Part 95, Subparts B (FRS), E (GMRS) and J (MURS).

TrailBand is a reference tool. No accounts, no ads, no tracking, and no network access at all. It works entirely offline, which is the point when you are out of signal.

A note on radios: a radio must be certified for the service it transmits in. The popular inexpensive handhelds are certified under Part 90, not Part 95, and TrailBand says so plainly rather than pretending otherwise. Receiving is always fine, and the frequencies are the same either way.

TrailBand is published by Skunk River Restorations, the same team behind LastDrive, TachoSpeed and RaceCarLogBook.

What’s new

First release.