Leaderboard

If you have property and are in a prime location, an option may be to work out a deal with a tower company. I have a friend of mine who has a lease agreement with a tower owner. They put a 200' tower on his land in exchange for free use of the tower and a percentage of the tower revenue. He has 5 amateur radio repeaters on the tower, a GMRS repeater, and the revenues were enough for him to retire early. Something to think about if it's an option.

Howdy gentlemen, I thank each and every one of you for the information and suggestions. Jones, you’re not going to believe this, but that array of towers is actually the exact spot I had in mind if I ended up needing to go with the commercial tower option. That location is only a few blocks from my house which would make it very convenient when the need arises to perform general equipment maintenance or conduct any upgrades or repairs. I can’t thank you enough for the information and suggestions and am planning to take a drive to the site tomorrow during the day to see if I can locate the necessary information. Radioguy7268, thank you for providing me with all of the information that you included regarding commercial tower sites. The potential and likelihood that the level of required high end equipment along with the lease/rental cost could and quite possibly will out price this as an option. But one never knows for sure unless one investigates and confirms so I still plan on making contact and seeing where it goes. However, I won’t be doing so completely ignorant and hopefully knowing in advance some of the extreme cost possibilities, I won’t react to an extreme price tag if those are the quotes I receive, with total shock and disbelief as my jaw hits the ground. I really appreciate your suggestions regarding high rise roof tops and could beat myself over the head for not thinking about contacting a building’s owner. I actually know the owners of one of the beachside resorts in the Shores and plan to make contact with them Monday. If they aren’t able or willing to rent space on their roof, maybe they can put me in touch with another building owner that can & will. I’m a bit embarrassed that I never thought about this on my own. BoxCar, While I knew that towers over a certain height must follow certain protocols (I have always thought it was anything that exceeds 100’), I wasn’t familiar with the fact that the tower owner had to register the tower nor that the owner’s information would be available for me to access. I can’t thank you enough for the information. Again, thanks to all of you for taking the time to reply and all of the valuable information. While I’m not new into using two way radios, I am new into GMRS and the setup and maintenance requirements, proper grounding and so much more involving a repeater system. My background is 911 Communications and the Fire Service. We used the heck out of the radios and radio systems but programming, installing, maintenance and all the rest was handled by a different pay grade. I only thought I knew about this stuff and not until very recent did I find out the little bit of knowledge I actually did possess barely scratches the surface lol. I am excited about the possibilities and cautiously optimistic that a reasonable solution can be realized, if not now, possibly in the near future. For now I am still planning to complete my tower installation and try running the repeater off of that first. Maybe I’ll have exceptional good luck and realize a better coverage area than I’m expecting. But hopefully I’ll have a fantastic option already in place should the need arise. It’s refreshing to be associated with a group of folks so freely willing to answer questions and offer guidance to a newb and seemingly without judgement or attitude. I wish I could bottle that and share it with quite a few organizations I’ve been associated with in the past so that there new entries could have the same experience that I have had so far.

Don't feel too disenfranchised because of the MXT400. While the antenna is kind of cheap... the radio itself is (in my humble opinion) the best new, over the counter, out of the box, purpose built radio on the market right now. There are some shortcomings that can be overcome by using Part 90 radios, but frankly, I dont think that is a good start if you are getting into radio with no previous experience in commercial or Amateur Radio. Get your feet wet, enjoythe hobby and learn.