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I have mine setup the same way at a couple of sites, for the reason of the illegal users that were continually using the repeater both unknowingly and knowingly. After 6 months of trying to keep the bubble pack and other folks off the repeater I changed to a DPL and PL mixed configuration. All my commercial gear allowed this and it stopped interference. I spent alot of money on a repeater, tower, hard line, antenna, electric and other associated costs to be at a tower. Its for me to decide who get to use my repeater. On similar subject I have another repeater that was at a county park. I got tons of complaints on how it worked. every time I did a PM it was rock solid. One of the complainers was a ski patrol guy from a mountain nearby who liked to use that cause there radios didn't work. after 3 trips to the repeater and doing all sorts of testing I asked to meet him and look at his radio. He had the midland mobile (dont remember model) and a handful of bubble pack radios. I explained to him this was indeed the issue and as i explained that also realized other than him no one else was licenced. I attempted to educate him on the issues with the "junk" he bought however could not convince him.I volunteered to leave him one of my older HT's to use that weekend. Everything was fine. The following week when i picked up the radio he said he planned to get one..until he found what it costs. He was bewildered he had to pay $100 for a radio to use the repeater when he could buy a 2 pack on amazon of some other radio for $35.00.....At this point I gave up. Repeater has since been removed due to said group of non compliment users,. Sad part was this was installed at the county park for users of the park. At my new house I have 2 repeaters. I specifically have one in NB mode as my parents have a Midland radio. Its still not ideal but it works for them.I run my channel in WB and still use my commercial gear. In the end its what works for the users of the system, and who maintains the system.

If it can work a repeater, it is not FRS. This thread is under the wrong topic.

I wouldn't say changing from WB to NB is an easy way to get rid of GMRS. The real question is just how many people are running NB now and don't even know it? I see frequent questions about Midland equipment which seems to be NB only. Apparently they sell enough of them. If the FCC switched to NB those users wouldn't notice and most likely wouldn't care since their radios would continue to work reasonably well after the switch. The question of how it would impact repeater owners and users all depends on what equipment they use. If the repeater owner used old Part 90 radios that have both WB and NB capability the switch wouldn't be all that big of a deal. Same for ordinary users. In my particular case most of the HT's I have include both WB and NB functionality. All I need to do is fire up the computer, dig out the programming cables, read the codes plugs, switch bandwidth and then writing them back. Done. A bit of work but not a show stopper. Most of my radios already have dual sets of memories programmed, one for WB and another for NB. Yes it's a pain to flip from one to another depending on bandwidth but I can do it when necessary. Your last point is an excellent one. Sooner or later the FCC is likely to address this with another rule change "tweak". Expecting FRS radios to disappear to solve the problem isn't realistic. There are far too many of them. Perhaps as a group we could start a move towards NB operation for those that have the equipment. After a period of time, with enough GMRS users have switched, any potential forced switch by the FCC won't be so painful. Also a suggestion by others changing the rules to make GMRS the primary service and FRS secondary likely will fail too. People purchased the old combo FRS/GMRS radios, never read the instructions advising the necessity of getting a GMRS license, or just didn't care and used all the channels anyway. Expecting those kinds of people to respect, understand or yield the frequency to the primary user will result in about the same compliance experience, little to none.

There are 1659 repeaters listed at myGMRS.com and assuming that 20% are inactive and or otherwise not on line, that still leaves 1328 repeaters. How many of those are WB versus NB? I would submit that most of them are surplus WB "legacy" repeaters. Many owners have a ton of money invested in them, so if GMRS were required to go NB only, I'd bet that many of them would simply pull the plug, thus impoverishing the utility of the service.