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There's obviously not one fixed price throughout the country, but I wonder ballpark what I'd be looking at to set up a repeater at a commercial tower site. I happen to have an R1225 repeater (50W UHF) sitting around from a lot of equipment I bought, but I live in a valley and in a condo, so setting it up at home would be borderline useless. There's a big hill / small mountain not too far from here with a number of towers on it, and while hiking in the area I noticed one of the equipment sheds has a sign mentioning that they have space available on a combiner/multicoupler system. I have absolutely no concept of what renting space at a place like that costs -- am I looking at a $50/month type deal, or more like $500/month?

Not GMRS but still UHF radio related and I know several other members own or service licensed part 90 systems. So I thought I would share a few photos from this weekends tower site repair on my business system. Last year I added this site to my Mototrbo IP site connect system, because of costs I cut a few corners and paid the price with an under preforming site. Today's project included installing the new repeater system, replacing the antenna, upgrading from 1/2 to 7/8 feed line and swapping out the 2' standoff for a 4'. Big thanks to my climber, he braved the 29 degree temps and completed the entire project in 4 hours. Yes that's him sitting out on the end of the 4' side arm installing the new antenna. I guess the side arm is now climber tested and approved! Not even with his 50 lbs of safety gear would you catch me sitting out there at 150'. I did some testing on the 50 mile ride home and the site is no longer under preforming. It has exceeded my predictions with15 miles of portable coverage, up from 2 miles.

Night before last I drove to the far north side of Chicago to the town of Glenview, IL to attend the bi-monthly meeting of the NSEA (North Shore Emergency Association), a GMRS organization that was founded in 1966 (that's 50 years!) by P. Randal Knowles, a practicing attorney who is still very much active today. He has long been a champion for GMRS and has authored many cogent and factual submissions to the FCC's various NPRM's that threaten GMRS licensees. I invite interested parties to read them closely at this link: http://www.nsea.com/fcc/WHAT'S%20COOKING.htm I have to add that I was very impressed with the professionalism of NSEA and hope to visit with them as often as possible. They have graciously offered to assist me in my attempt to promote such an association of GMRS licensees here in Northwest Indiana. I also met Marc Drazin who owns the two repeaters that were until last February located at the top of the Hancock building. He told me that he hopes to have them both back on the air within the next few months. The antennas are not located in the gallery, but are in fact on the roof.

I just want people to see that choosing a condo is not the end of any radio hobby. I have a few more things I plan to put in the attic. I recommend reading any of the owners agreements before installing an antenna farm in your condos attic and if you decided to be quiet and don't tell other residents. The best part is you can remain stealth.

This would only add resale value to the property. Smart homes are in. and the wiring is the most important part.

If you can find an owner that will work with you. If your only options and towers owned by American Tower or Crown Castle, forget it. I had quotes in the $3.75 per foot of height with a 100 foot min. Try to find a locally owned tower or building top. I have some commercial gear on a commercial tower and pay $75 for 150' plus another $30 for internet per month. My GMRS tower was gifted to me on a long term lease for almost nothing. I have full use of the 150' and secure space with power for my gear.

I was able to pull all of this off with access to the attic. Home Theater, Computer Network, Wireless Access Points (the flying saucer thing) and cable. I also installed cable, network and power behind the wall mounted TV in each bedroom. I own my place and nothing in the agreement stopped me from doing what I did.

Line of sight. UHF in the 460 range is roughly LOS range plus 5-10%. Money is better spent on receivers, antennas and location versus power amplifiers. Coming from a guy who's shooting 500 mW 19 miles at 5.5 GHz and still delivering 60 Mbps over it…

My GMRS repeater is a Motorola MTR2000, Part 90 and widely used by HAM's around the world. I welcome the results of the person that has written an inquiry to the FCC for clarification as i am guessing more then 50% of the radios and repeaters in use for GMRS are part 90. That's just my $0.02 Corey

That's what I figured. Thanks! That has been on my To-Do list for a while. Now that I have radios I'll go ahead and get my HAM license. Thanks Rob