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This radio is a GMRS model and has 22 GMRS channels and 8 RPT channels. I have the frequencies/tones for nearby repeaters but not sure whether I need to put in the offset/direction. The manual says nothing about it being ‘baked in’. Would it hurt if it were manually input? Would it add another 5.000 to it?

Only thing I can say is it wasn't well hidden if it was that easy to find.

Don't worry about it. But you really should do a search on a topic or question before making a post. People do come up with new questions every day. But, there are also some things that have indeed been beat to death.

Good thing we agree or this thread would get hijacked.

No debate.... 45 all the way. In a 1911. Accept no substitute

You can do a not for profit and not be a registered 50x. The 'trick' is that anything you take in you keep record of. You put those funds in a specific account that's only for repeater maintenance and you don't pull / spend that money for anything outside of that. If you do that, and it gets questioned. You have records of the incoming and outgoing money and it's a mute point. If you are just dropping the money in your personal account or similar and spending money out of that account then you REALLY need to be careful about tracking what's coming in and what's going out. And if you aren't doing any of that, then if it's looked at, they will consider it for profit. But the first thing that would have to happen is someone get mad and file a complaint on you / the repeater owner. Now this does happen when someone gets told to get off a private / pay to play repeater. The user gets his feelings hurt and calls the FCC to inform on the repeater owner. Now, is that gonna bring the FCC to their door. Who knows. At this point, the FCC has said that they will ONLY respond to INTERFERENCE related complaints. Of course, this ain't that. So again, who knows. But is it legal to 'charge' for access to a repeater? And the answer is, it depends on what you are charging for. IF it's 'CLUB DUES' then yes 100%. If it's actual access and there is no club, then all the stuff above applies, records and such. And to have a 50x you about need a club or organization to have that tax status. Personally I just don't bother with fee's or due's because it's a pain in the ass. Trying to NOT piss off people while running a wide area coverage repeater is not worth my time. If someone hands me some money to support the repeater, I put it towards the electric bill, or tools, or other stuff for the repeater. And honestly, I have has the repeater on since 2021 or so, and the grant total of donated money has been 90 bucks. So again, not worth the hassle.

I have a better use for grass.

No profit, they just spend that to add more repeaters.. It's so easy on GMRS, evan a cave man can do it..

Haters gonna hate. The same guys hate other hams that use or don't use digital modes etc etc. As I've said before, the majority of active members in our local club are just into 2 way radios and don't care which license, band or transmission mode you are into.

Yah, that's what i thought.. I dont know if the OP as already installed the software, it had a driver issue, so now he's installing the drivers, or if he's just clicking willy-nilly.. When I installed the software the separate driver setup/install was not needed as you eluded to in your previous post. MrSig: Did you install the actual software, and ran into a problem with the drivers, and that is why you are trying to run the Driver Setup program?

The driver on the website is CH341SER.EXE - dated 10/6/2014 within the RAR file if that helps. I'm assuming that's what he is trying to install.

I dont know man, I am not such a petty control freak that i would care about something like that.. jeezus.. go outside and touch some grass.

So if it's "not for profit" do they have do the appropriate tax paperwork?

You can try just installing the software without the driver and it may or may not work. It's basically the driver for the USB to serial cable. Some cheap cables have counterfeit version of the USB to serial CH341 chip built into the cable and require a prolific driver to work. If it is a genuine USB to serial chip built into the cable Windows will autodetect the cable and install the drivers automatically. If it's not a genuine chip or a "cloned chip", Windows will show it as a unknown device. You can try plugging in the cable, bring up Windows device manager and check to see if the drivers installed properly by expanding the "Ports (COM & LPT)" and see if you have any new COM ports listed when you plug in the cable. If device manager detects it as a "prolific chip" with a triangle (triangle means no or bad drivers - Windows see's it as a counterfeit chip) next to it or "unknown device", then you need to figure a way to get the drivers installed. My guess is if they list the driver for download - it's probably a counterfeit/cloned chip and needs it to work but you might get lucky.

One can't charge money or prevent others from using public frequencies. What repeater owners can do is control who uses their repeaters since the repeater owners pay for the repeaters and associated maintenance costs. And repeaters are private property. It is common curtesy to join the local club that owns the area amateur repeater by paying dues it you plan on using it often. While joining and paying dues are not mandatory, most will willingly do so to help with repeater maintenance. Setting up good repeaters is not cheap, and proper maintenance isn't cheap either. While I don't agree with charging for repeater use, paying a minimal membership due that goes towards repeater maintenance is fine.

Charging for its use does not make it "commercially operated".. But, to (i think) answer your and the OP's question, it does not break any rules to charge for the repeater as long as its not "for profit" ..

If that makes you sad, you should set up your own repeater so everyone can use it for free and teach them all a lesson.

For the experts, is it even in accordance with FCC to have a commercially operated repeater?

yup, there a thousands of repeaters set up this way, And yes, they are making money, else they would not invest in dozens of repeaters under one license.. More and more get added each week

Often times there is no benefit to most people. When asked, I generally recommend to never bother with an update unless said update fixes some specific issue that you need to be fixed. "some people" often just blindly apply any update they come across and they sometimes learn the hard way that the risk of permanently brick'ing the radio is high.

Pardon my newbie question. What would the benefit/goal of changing the firmware? I have no intention of doing this. I don't have the experience to even consider it.

What is the name of the Executable file you are running when this happens?

This is what I get. Then when I click install I get.

Still getting when I go to install it "Driver install failure!"

I have Windows 7 not 10 Just rebooted and can not find CH341SER.INF any place on the computer so I will try to down load and in stall again. The program works not hooked to the repeater yet. Thanks for the help guys.