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I made the change to “unusual”.

AS others have stated, its about location, location, and location. Scadacore has tools that will allow you to see if there are obstacles, like hills, between your work and house. You can also use it to see which repeaters can be used (assuming you know where the repeater is physically located) between your house ad the repeater and your work and the same repeater. Of course, just listening for the same repeater at both locations also works. You'll need to test if you can reach the repeater using your handheld at your office and home as it may require either better antennas or more power at both locations. The key piece in any situation is the antenna used. My recommendation is for a small (20-25W mobile at the house with an external antenna and not a handheld. Two handhelds are great for unit to unit conversations when you are outside, but can be iffy in connecting to repeaters because of the lower power/

I get more pleasure taking a crap.

i've been using Midland antennas on my mobile's for about 4 years now and won't use anything else. To the guy that calls Midland 'junk'. I challenge you to prove to me that you are correct. With all the actual test i have done using numerous other antennas, i can promise that Midland antennas outperform many others.

I think the only profit to be had is going to be barely enough to recoup the investment, if even that.. A guy i recently met whom is also a HAM operator had over a dozen GMRS repeaters. And he wasn't using cheap equipment. He admits to charging membership fees to make money. His membership numbers aren't that great to make him a fortune. My math tells me he was barely scraping the barrel to pay for the operation. The guy is a 'radio nut' he enjoys radio and nothing else. He is obviously doing what he does to keep himself occupied and happy. He was linking all his repeaters and he believed he was operating his repeaters within the rules, but after the FCC clarified the rules on GMRS linking he is in process of decommissioning.. I bought one of his repeaters and it's a damn nice piece of equipment. Some of his sites, he does pay tower lease so even an added expense. I still scratch my head why someone will spend the amount of money they do. I finally concluded, it doesn't matter to me,, it's there 'business'

If you’re just using it in a park do you really need a repeater? An ht does 3-5 miles minimum, some times up to 60plus. Why would you need a repeater in a park.

I'm sure that you can get at least a couple of people from the local amateur radio club to help. Most enjoy helping especially when it comes to putting antennas up. And if they do help and try talking you into getting our amateur license, you can always tell them that you want to get your feet wet first with GMRS. We have a couple of members that struggle to get their amateur license due to health issues. We haven't pushed them into it and have suggested they start with GMRS. They have all taken our advice and are on the air and using the GMRS repeater.

I guess it's all in perspective to each individual. I personally would not want to go drilling into any Corvette for a NMO mount. The bodies are still primarily made for either fiberglass or carbon fiber or a mix of the two. Just me, but any type of antenna mount other than a glass mount would look out of place on an expensive sports car. I generally don't care for glass mount antennas but that would be what I would go with in this situation.

I once had a "channel saver" repeater set up to scan on 5 UHF trunked channels. The concept was that the system needed to be operational within one year on all 5 frequencies in order to file a Construction notice with the FCC. In order to do that, we built up a 5 channel scanning repeater (all the frequencies were fairly close together in the 451/452 range). A portable could key any of the 5 licensed channels, and carry a short conversation to prove operation - just not on all 5 channels at once. A split antenna system was already in place, and we just used a widely tuned bandpass cavity on the transmit side. We got the idea from Nextel, who was doing a similar thing on 800MHz analog channels they had acquired, but not yet transitioned into their iDEN system. Unusual, yes. But not bizarre But ultimately a waste of time and material.

I don’t know about the RT97L, but not all radios display changing channels when scanning. That was one of the original main complaints about the Yaesu FT5DR. It showed the new channel when it paused, but not until then. A firmware update has partially fixed the problem. But it could be that scanning only works when you’re in base station mode; a scanning repeater would be kind of unusual.

I think it would be fairly easy to show that a person is profiting, if it’s true. Because a GMRS repeater is not allowed to be operated commercially, placing your own repeater on your own land would not include an assumption that rent is entitled. The IRS would eagerly participate if a person were not declaring income and if the person were declaring income the FCC would have a case. The owner of the repeater would be expected to have records showing that every dollar of income went to a reasonable expense. But, it can cost a lot to own a repeater and folks who provide them for the rest of us should not have to bear the full burden; they just can’t profit.

I think you’re probably kidding, but just in case someone takes you seriously intentionally submitting an incorrect address is something the FCC does actually pursue legally. They don’t care if a person uses a mail forwarding service or a PO Box; in fact they even encourage it for people concerned about privacy or physical security. But you must submit an address where you can be legally served. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-122A1.pdf

I think it would be very hard to prove that someone is profiting by operating a repeater. Not to say it doesn't happen, but it would be hard to prove. For example, if the tower is on his property, he could possibly plausibly argue that he's entitled to some rent. After all, commercial entities rent their towers to repeater owners. I think subscription repeaters is one of those things that we will grumble about, but ultimately, we'll just have to accept it.

Yeah, I had the chance to buy an original Automag for $350 back in the 70s, but I was a poor college student. The “Automag V” from AMT was nothing like it. It was a poor man’s alternative to the Desert Eagle, which was a much better pistol. I’ve also fired the 50 BMG cartridge in a bolt action rifle. That was more enjoyable than the “Automag V”. At least nothing hit me in the forehead. Good luck finding a Webley-Fosbery.

Don't forget the school class rooms that were built way before the 70s laden with lead paint and the asbestos in the acoustical tiles on the walls and ceilings. Also, I think the floor tiles had some toxic materials and elements. I could very well have some disformities, but I wouldn't know that since I am my normal self.

I played with mercury in my bare hands (twitch). Used leaded gasoline for the first 20 years of my driving experience (twitch twitch). Probably been exposed to asbestos when I removed the 480 sf of vermiculite insulation in my attic (twitch) Nothing wrong with me yet (twitch twitch)

I liked shooting 500S&W better than 50AE. The DE was never comfortable in my hand. 450BM is enough of a beast in a rifle, though I do want to own something .50 at some point.

Even the FCC doesn't seem to care about type-approval, although technically it's required for a radio to be approved for the frequencies upon which you transmit. What people DO care about is being a good and considerate user of the airwaves. As mentioned, on the "interstitial" frequencies (channels 8-14) you're operating very close to the repeater inputs and could potentially cause interference. Besides, it's a jerk move to jack up the power and walk all over everyone else trying to use the frequency. I set my...err...I mean...if I were programming an AR-5RM to operate on GMRS/FRS frequencies, I'd set channels 8-14 to receive only. If there's a genuine emergency (defined by the FCC as an immediate threat to life or property and no other means of communication is available, it takes only a few seconds to turn on the transmit feature if you know what you're doing. If you don't bring attention to yourself by being a jackwagon, nobody will know and few will care which flavor of 5RM you're using. However, unless you plan to eventually get an amateur radio license, most of the features of the ham variants will mean nothing to you and you'll get no use out of them. The wacky part is that sometimes it's cheaper to buy the ham version than the GMRS version, which is probably why a lot of people do it. Others do it because with some radios, the ham version will store 999 channels and the GMRS version will only store 30, which means you can only have 8 repeaters in the radio at a time. Apparently, the manufacturers think GMRS users don't travel and won't need more than a few repeaters programmed in. However, the UV-5G Plus claims to have the capability for 999 channels just like the AR-5RM. I have a couple of AR-5RMs, and I like them a lot. I'd probably like the GMRS version too. I don't think you could go wrong with it.

Any way you approach it, what you want to do is going to involve a good antenna with a lot of elevation, either your own or a repeater. You simply can't reliably get communication at 12 miles without it. I have occasionally, when all the stars aligned and the radio gods were smiling, gotten ~20 miles HT-to-HT, but we were both on elevated terrain features. Most of the time, you'll be lucky to get more than 3 miles. I have no idea what the terrain is where you want to communicate, but there's no harm in taking two HTs and trying. If it's hilltop-to-hilltop, you might pull it off. If there are good repeaters in your area, that's probably your best bet. I can hit most of the local GMRS repeaters with a handheld from about 15-25 miles away because they're on elevated terrain features and have tall antennas. In CA, you have to expect that repeaters may be extremely busy. That doesn't mean you can't make it work, but you have to be aware that at any given moment, the repeater may be busy. Depending upon the terrain, you might be able to get the distance you need with a base unit and high antenna at your house -- the higher the better. I live on an elevated terrain feature and have a really good antenna on a 30' flagpole at my house, but my repeater's performance is still a bit lackluster. I hope to get another 20' of elevation in the reasonably near future, but as you may guess, there are technical issues to be overcome.

I did read it & I have the speaker mic plugged in to the DB-9 and I do not see the channel's changing or scanning.

And let's not forget paint with lead in it. Many children grew up healthy as hell even though they used the window sill as a teething ring. And don't get me started on the asbestos scam. I believe long term exposure to airborne asbestos poses a health risk, but floor tiles don't. Same with lead.

Boy is the new owner gonna be PO'd when the FCC swat team raids his house at O Dark Thirty.

Personal opinion only. But with the billions (possibly trillions) of gallons of leaded gasoline that was used you'd think we would all be dead. But strangely lead poisoning is quite rare. Yea, we wore protective gear in the tetraethyllead house, but the concentration was so far above what the average person would ever be exposed is enormous.

Oh how I lusted after an original 44 Automag. But alas, two kids a wife and a mortgage came first. However if anyone knows where a Webley Fosbery can be found fairly reasonable, let me know.

Of course if you thought about this being an issue in the first place, then simply list an old address you no longer reside at . If the commission needs to send you mail, leave your email for correspondence. It works for me.