Leaderboard

well i actually ended up getting 2 radios, a tk-860 and a tk-8160. both work good. the 860 is my base and the 8160 my mobile.i stayed away from midland. did allot of reading before i ordered. decided old kenwood commercial radios (which i've always enjoyed) would be a good fit for me.

We are using Asterisk as the server (running on a raspberry pi 3) and the RTCM made by micro-node. Cheaper hardware solutions vs the RTCM are available but require other configuration. I have not used any of the other hardware so I wont touch on that. I chose the RTCM for its single unit design and application specific properties. The interfacing with the RTCM is rather simple, I went with the MTR2000 repeater for reliability, full duty cycle and used market availability. Our group hosts its own local node server (Asterisk running on a raspberry pi 3) with 6 repeaters connected to it. This local node also allows us access to the MyGMRS national linking network hosted by the owner of this site. By entering commands in Asterisk or using DTMF, links to other systems can be connected or disconnected on the fly. Things like usage counters and the visual map show links with red lines as well as what site is transmitting by changing its marker from green to red, all of this in real time. Its not as hard as it sounds, Rich from MyGMRS was a huge help, you can also find a linking thread in the private section here. Along the way I found a company that was able to build a custom cable for interfacing the MTR2000 with the RTCM, it provides a reliable solution that's repeatable and works flawless. The MTR2000 repeater can be configured to work with the RTCM rather simply using the repeaters wire-line card to handle the audio and the 96 pin J5 connector to pull ctcss, core, ptt and power. We are using the RTCM and MTR at 6 sites with a stand alone MTR at a 7th and could not be happier. These machines are worth every penny, its not 2 mobiles in a box its a true full duty cycle, commercial grade repeater. Due to the simplicity I have several more RTCM / MRT2000 combos ready to go I just need to fined a few more tower sites with internet. Hope this answers a few questions.

They also used to (maybe the still do) sell radios preprogrammed with what they called "race channels" which were a mix of frequencies from the business and public safety pools. They did not make it clear to the consumerthat appropriate FCC licenses are required to operate, and that the risk of causing harmful interference was very high. Not a reputable company, in my opinion.

All gmrs repeaters are private. They operate at the sole discretion of the owner.

It can be about coordination. Though GMRS has no official coordination it helps others decide a frequency that might be open in your area. I know every repeater operator in the area and we do all things possible not to cause interfirance among though known repeaters. Several are not listed but we do our coordination on our own. This is no way stops someone from putting up one, but allows us to do it and not cause others problems. I recently was going to put up a .700 repeater but someone else did and decided to go to .675 as it was open in the area.