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I'm still on the porch and looking forward to playing with all of you "Big Dogs" some day. Home base installation is nearly finished and almost ready for a maiden voyage. "Big Brown Truck" is expected tomorrow which will most likely get me overwhelmed with radio programing. Installed is a KB9VBR J-Pole and a Ed Fong J-Pole and separated by approx 10 feet. Both install in my attic which has zero construction foil attached (only Styrofoam insulation panels) and is approx. 30 ft above GL at an altitude of 1,120 ft. Very hilly and heavily wooded topography. Both installed per given instructions and It will be interesting to see which of the two will produce the best SWR and overall performance under same cabling and overall conditions. Happy Easter to All! pfactor

ARGENT DATA SYSTEMS makes a simplex repeater for 89.00 and sells the cable for the baofeng for 7 bucks. cheers folks. and im sure the FCC did NOT cite no simplex on gmrs but most likely said not a snowballs chance in (*&%^(*& on the MURS band. there is nothing that prohibits simplex in the 95a wording that i have found. in fact simplex is used only ONCE IN THE ENTIRE PART95A SECTION AND ITS HERE IN 95.29 (f) and does not represent anything exclusive or prohibitive. following the law of the "letter", it says : "FOR" not that "a GMRS station [MUST] be transmitted in duplex. this paragraph is simply stating that for a GMRS station that will be simultaneously re-transmitting A transmittion of another, that licensee must select the frequency pairs and then points to where to find those pairs, i.e. 95.7(a) (a) For a base station, fixed station, mobile station, or repeater station (a GMRS station that simultaneously retransmits the transmission of another GMRS station on a different channel or channels), the licensee of the GMRS system must select the transmitting channels or channel pairs (see § 95.7(a) of this part) for the stations in the GMRS system from the following 462 MHz channels: 462.5500, 462.5750, 462.6000, 462.6250, 462.6500, 462.6750, 462.7000 and 462.7250. ( For a mobile station, control station, or fixed station operated in the duplex mode, the following 467 MHz channels may be used only to transmit communications through a repeater station and for remotely controlling a repeater station. The licensee of the GMRS system must select the transmitting channels or channel pairs (see § 95.7(a) of this part) for the stations operated in the duplex mode, from the following 467 MHz channels: 467.5500, 467.5750, 467.6000, 467.6250, 467.6500, 467.6750, 467.7000 and 467.7250. as shown above in red, this is an "option" not a mandate. the only requirement is that you use the chanel pairs if you're to re-transmit simultaneously or you select the chanels to use form the list. i identify this chanels to mean a multiple of choice not that you need to use a pair only, otherwise the following phrase channel pairs is now redundant and not necessary. Also, you cant transmit on more than one channel at a time anyway. ©–(e) [Reserved] Here the wording is MAY use simplex for transmissions but they must be in voice, and NOT unidirectional. and cannot be any more than 5 watts on a simplex freq. there is ZERO language here that prohibits simplex repeaters. (f) Except for a GMRS system licensed to a non-individual, a mobile station or a small base station operating in the simplex mode may transmit on the following 462 MHz interstitial channels: 462.5625, 462.5875, 462.6125, 462,6375, 462.6625, 462.6875 and 462.7125. These channels may be used only under the following conditions: (1) Only voice type emissions may be transmitted; (2) The station does not transmit one-way pages; and (3) The station transmits with no more than 5 watts ERP AS FAR AS PAGING this is the definition. § 95.27 Paging receiver description. A paging receiver is a unit capable of receiving the radio signals from a base station for the bearer to hear a page (someone’s name or other identifier said in order to find, summon or notify him/her) spoken by the base station operator. so by this definition this should answer your question about a PAGE

UPDATE:I called the FCC to ask this question and they said its NOT elegal. Only if you connect a phone to the repeater. zello is considered data that is a gray area and their are NO rules on that at this time. So until they come up with some kind if law on it it's perfectly legal to link Zello with GMRS repeaters says the FCC.

I was gonna go with an upside down 5 point star and red lights.

If I had a 100' tree, I wouldn't have spent so much money

I have not doubt of that, when I hook my 4watt HT to my feedline, I easily get 15 plus miles. Height truly is King.. I think it could be done with a lot of forethought. I have deployed Cameras and DD-wrt routers like this. I have a collection of other enclosures none of them big enough for anything above a Parrot or two uv5r's and a rick. If you have 100' tower, try 2 HT's with a controller and separate antennas, at 4 watts and no duplexer, should fit in a standard demarcation box, I bet you get good propagation. Now you got me thinking of some testing of my own. hmmm...

I have two of these radios and have done some preliminary testing. I am a ham operator, and a member of our local ARES/RACES and NET/CERT organizations. Baofeng has taken their UV82 radio and repurposed it for GMRS use. UV82 accessories, including the high capacity battery and AA battery pack, all work with the GMRS-V1. The radios are pre-programmed for the GMRS/FRS and GMRS repeater frequencies, with the repeater offset already set. The radio will also scan the ham VHF/UHF bands (there are approximately 100 channels available), has a FM radio, dual watch and the rest of the UV82 and UV82HP features. Advertised power is 1W/5W. The radio is programmable through the keypad and CHIRP; I highly recommend the latter. Before testing the radios, I cloned one using CHIRP, and made some modifications, including adding the VHF/UHF emergency communications channels for my area. Note that the pre-programmed GMRS frequencies/offsets can not be changed and the radio cannot be programmed to transmit on any other channels. The GRMS PL tones, channel names, power level, and scanner inclusion can be programmed. Programming is straightforward, as is cloning a CHIRP image from radio to radio. In my test rig, I used an inline power and SWR meter and tested the units with both the stock antenna and a J Pole that that I with my VHF/UHF rig. VHF power: 2W/5.4W, SWR (with J pole): 1.1 to 1.5 across the band UHF power 1.75W/5W, SWR (with J pole) 1.1 to 1.7 across the band Using the stock antenna, low power performance in an treed, hilly urban environment is, as expected, less than a mile. High power performance was between one and two miles. I need to do more testing, with a j pole and a whip antenna to get better numbers. I don't have a local repeater to test against. YMMV. The audio is clear and undistorted. Features like dual-watch, two line display, transmit timer and scanning are handy to have, especially if you are used to using them on a ham HT. If you have UV82 equipment, the ability to swap batteries, antennas and the like is terrific. Scanning, like on all Baofengs, is usable but not fast and when scanning, the two line display does not stay synchronized. What I really like about these radios, other than 5W, interoperability with the UV82 and FCC compliance, is they can be set up, the keypad locked so the unit can't be accidentally reprogrammed, and handed to someone without a lot of experience. I am looking at them for NET/CERT team use and they will certainly become part of my family go bag. And for less than sixty bucks, including charger, microphone and battery, they are a real deal.