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I'd tell you that an "inexpensive amplifier" is really just a broadband noise generator. Yes, your meter might now read 50 watts - but it won't show you that you're not only putting 50 watts out on your desired frequency - you're also putting out some unknown amount of spurious energy out on adjacent frequencies (and multiples of your frequencies) - potentially interfering with other systems. Worse yet, those cheap amplifiers put out enough spurious noise that it will probably interfere with your own receiver - making that alligator system even worse. You might find some used TPL or Henry amplifiers in the less than $200 range. There used to be a ton of Motorola vehicular repeater amps being sold on eBay that would do 40 watts - but most of them were VHF. I'd be very wary of using any amplifier with a CCR radio. There's 100 ways to make your system talk better, and 98 of them don't involve an Amp.

You can bury all ground radials. They work better under ground a couple/few inches. It helps improve ground performance by increasing the radiation pattern (more surface area in direct contact with the earth) and it gets the leads away from lawn and turf surface care. The biggest benefit is it reduces the noise floor from electricity and electronic devices nearby.

We're working on a new website and this will be one of the first "new" features once it's rolled out. There will be a voting system where people can indicate whether a given repeater is online or not. Using this information, we can get rid of the offline and outdated systems. Right now, we hide anything older than a year from the map page, but that's not perfect. There are systems that haven't been updated in a long time that are still on the air, and some that were listed more recently that are already gone. I think this voting system will be the better way to handle it unless someone has better suggestions. I think requiring someone to log in every year to update the listing is difficult to do, and risks hiding good stuff out there. We could also handle signal reports through this system so you can get feedback on where people are reaching it from and the signal quality.