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How dare you sir! You think that making fun of the internet "experts" is funny??! Good.. Because it is! Just beware the butthurt.

I like it, and like marcspaz - I just had a simplex 2M (146.520) SOTA contact with someone atop Mt Mitchell, NC. My local Target (I think it is the Target) keeps making some odd "CQ" on MURS, and the local kids have been having fun with FRS. Run it up the flagpole and see who salutes! Get more people "radio-active" with their basic kit.

On March 23 2022 the FCC announced the new fees for GMRS and Amateur radio will become effective on April 19 2022. https://www.fcc.gov/document/effective-date-wireless-application-fee-rates

Lol. For sure. I am not a fan of heights, but I’ve re-roofed a couple of houses before. Fortunately it’s a pretty low pitched roof, only about 4:12. I won’t get up on roofs if they are steeper than 5:12. For attics, I’ve spent too many scores of ours in attics working on electrical, HVAC and insulation. Doesn’t mean I haven’t almost put a foot through the ceiling a couple of times. But not yet ? my Dad did go right through the ceiling of my brother’s room when I was 12. Almost broke half a dozen ribs hitting the joist as it went down. Fortunately he didn’t go through over the entry way foyer. That would have been a 16 foot tall, not an 8 foot tall. My house is only a single story. Which doesn’t mean I can’t get pretty hurt still. what is sad is I am still years away from retirement (and more than a year till I hit 4-0. If maybe not much more than a year). I am already thinking things like “hmm, make sure the property I find (I prefer to build my retirement home) is a high point and not in a valley”.

ahhh. Thanks. I thought my License only covered immediate family (spouse and children). Good to know, thanks! (I’ll still encourage him to get his own license at some point). Also because I was interested I didn’t some roof top testing this afternoon. I slapped my UT-72 on a cookie sheet and took it up on my roof with my DB-25g and battery pack. Man, reception to the repeater is VERY dicey and only in small spots. Like move the antenna a foot and nothing sometimes. Just like my testing in the attic with that HYS 350-500Mhz 6dBi antenna. What is interesting is I am guessing I am getting a ground plane boost off my roof deck, despite being tar shingles and plywood, unless it is the residential wiring run under where I was testing (most of the house electrical runs about 2’ under the leak off the roof and then down the spine of the house and then branches out to its respective circuits). At any rate, I found generally lower reception by trying to hold the antenna/cookie sheet up high vs just sitting it on the backpack I was using for the radio and battery pack. I managed to catch some guys chatting on the repeater for a bit which helped me test. Like I said, move it a foot and reception can drop out… Interesting I got down on the ground and though the reception was spottier standing there with the antenna, it wasn’t by much to the repeater. In fact the best reception of all was wandering down hill from my house about 50ft, I found one small spot with about as good reception as I was hitting with the higher gain antenna in my attic (31 or so Rx strength and the chatting came through nice and clear with hardly any hints of static). though trading up to VHF and completely different. From my roof top I was getting I think 5 weather stations. From the ground I was picking up 1.5 (station 2 well as usual and I think it was station 5, barely). FM radio was also cleared on the roof than on the ground. my guess is this is an NLOS behavior with the repeater why 20ft of altitude didn’t seem to help much. Same with further from the roof deck. It’s hitting diffracted radio “hot spots” from the GMRS repeater. With VHF that is seeming to matter a lot less. Altitude is long and moving around on the roof didn’t impact the weather station receive much at all. Getting the antenna on top of the chimney cap had slightly, not noticeably better reception on FM radio and weather radio bands than sitting it on the roof peak 6’ lower. for my next trick I grabbed my HYS 6dBi antenna out of the attic and roamed the roof with it. It took me a bit to notice I knocked the top element back in, so I had to fix that. Once I did I started getting reception again…but not as good as that sweet spot in the attic and not quite as good as the best reception I could get with the Ut-72 on a cookie sheet. Then again I had to handhold the HYS antenna which may have been having some impacts. The Ut-72 I saw about 28-29Rx power according to my DB-25g radio from the best spots on the roof, about 26-28 on the HYS holding the antenna. Best spot IN the attic is 32 or 33 which is about the same as I saw with the UT-72 (that was 31 or maybe 32) on the ground holding the cookie sheet and antenna in that one sweet spot. Generally anything at 30 and higher appears to come through with minimal static on GMRS (weather radio doesn’t seem very clear until at least 40). About 25 has static, but is mostly intelligible if the person is walking clearly and loudly. 20 appears to be the limit to break squelch with it set to 1, but I doubt you could Use it for anything except Morse code. No idea if the radio is using any kind of logarithmic scale or not (maybe/probably, it doesn’t seem linear). So I have hope. I have 35’ of KMR400 cable showing up today. If I comes early enough I’ll reinstall the antenna and hook it up with my SWR/power meter to double check the tuning on antenna length and install with the 35’ of cable attached and see if I can drop the cable down to my basement. Fortunately I’ve got a conduit for AC attic units so it’s easy to drop the cable down. I just need to poke a hole through the spray foam, drop it down and reseal it (I’ll probably use rope caulk for now as I am Not sure the antenna is in its permanent spot). I am hoping I can crash one of the repeater net check-ins one week and head back up to the attic so I can try moving the antenna all around again to see if there is a better sweet spot for it. Though first I’ll probably hop on the GMRS local facebook group and see if I can arrange to test with someone with it installed where it is. If it works okay, I’ll probably call it a day.

I have had this idea running around in my head for awhile and I am wondering if it has any merit or not. I call this idea LOTA, Locals of the Air, and it is a rip off of POTA and SOTA. Both POTA and SOTA for all intensive purposes are HF activities. I was wondering is something similar could not be done for 2m, 70 cm, and GMRS. I am thinking just like POTA their would be hunters and activators using only simplex. The difference would be activators could use any public location, such as city parks, county parks, ball diamonds, etc. The one add-on that you could do with LOTA is adding a fox hunt category to it besides the normal POTA style activity. Before I actually did anything with it, I wanted to get some people's opinions if it. Thanks

Contact the owner/operator of the repeater for permission. Should be listed in the database here.

A Control station is properly licensed as an FX1 "Fixed Station" in Part 90. I would agree with the concept that a Fixed Station could either refer to a link or an uplink to a repeater. The FCC does a terrible job of defining the terms used in Part 95. Previous discussion here: 3523-what-is-a-fixed-station

Fixed station VS base station. Gonna assume that fixed station MAY mean control station where a base radio installation is being used to communicate to a repeater. Commercial radio refer to that as a control station and they are limited in both power and antenna height.

I'll bite on this one so you can get a realistic idea how much money it costs to put a super high end tall repeater in. Here is a copy/paste from my costs for my system. It's argued that if I went with the correct repeater (Motorola Quantar) from the get go I could have saved $806 ($365 + $200 re-tune on the used Kenwood TKR-850 + the $150 preamp).... SO say $7989.77 total.... I couldn't afford it and didn't want to deal with it out of the gate to be honest. These costs are obviously not including any radios or monthly tower rent. Nor does it include the correct test equipment (Dummy loads, antenna analyzer, etc etc). I also don't have a duplexer any more but when I did that was an additional $800 for a good 4 cavity EMR corp Band pass/band reject unit. These costs DO include 66.6 hours of run time on dual 12V batteries at stand-by / 15.38 hours of talk time at 25W (half power). + charger. Note that the charger isn't very big because the Quantar also charges the batteries when power is restored. That is in addition to however long the 1500VA APC will run it at full power on AC which isn't tested but looking at the LCD screen of the battery it shows about 2 hours stand-by on that and keyed at 50W of power, about 30 min of talk time. You don't *NEED* Northcomm cables or all the backup stuff so if you consider a Quantar out of the gate and you subtract the other items you'd be closer to $7215.47. It's also worth noting that you don't need a pre-amp with a quantar so that saves you a bit since a quantar's receive is insane good. Every site is different and I'm on a receiver multi-coupler that has a pre-amp built into it. Numbers below: Item: Cost: Part Numbers: Notes: DB408 $952.50 DB-408B Feed Line $1,327.20 AVA7-50 x 280' @ $4.74/foot 6' Stand Off Bracket $0.00 S-600 Got as part of the tower climb Clamps $108.28 MS-SB50 Grounding kits x 2 $30.38 SG158-12B2U ($15.19/each) Repeater $395.00 TKR-850 Tower Climbers $1,700.00 9AM - 6PM 1-5/8" Female N Connectors $227.36 158EZNF - 2 @ $113.68/each 105AH Lead acid battery $267.00 Installing week of 6/14/21 Noco G3500 3.5A charger $63.70 G3500 Bought 11/23/2019 1500VA APC Battery Backup $178.60 BX1500M Repeater re-tuning $200.00 Pre-AMP $150.00 Northcomm Cables $200.00 Polyphaser VHF50HN $120.00 105AH Lead acid battery $332.00 Installed 2/16/2022 Quantar $1,328.13 DC Cable 3084989T03 $71.76 DC Cable TRN5155A $67.27 Quantar Tuning - Northcomm + Cables + Controller $899.20 Freight for Quntar $86.39 TOTAL: $8,704.77 Hope this helps!

Go for it Mike. I like my GMRS for family as well as using for our family a private GNRS repeater for us and neighborhood. BUT with a Ham ticket so much more with selection of radios and hundreds of repeaters to pick from to use without joining. My now 13 yo grand daughter and I got our Ham ticket last May 2021 and we have fun talking to locals within 40 miles via repeaters, doing fox hunts as well as the speaking to the whole world. We only use HT and do a lot with DMRoIP. Grand daughter talks to a group of teen hams on weekend via Digital Youth Group Net FRI, SAT, SUN at 6:45 PM EST on Brandmeister Talk Group 96 https://hose.brandmeister.network/#/?subscribe=96 It a new Teen group and growing. FYI like GMRS folks, Ham folks are good and welcoming folks.

And now I I anxious about vegetation growing in and losses on cabling… my house is parked at the edge of some woods. Not incredibly thick, but still a fair number of trees (thank goodness no evergreens!) I found the best spot I could using my portable battery pack and trying to use three hands to hold it and my radio, mic and antenna on the board I mounted it to to then screw it to a truss. Anyway, reception to the repeater is very dicey in the attic sadly I wasn’t able to arrange anyone to sing opera for me on the repeater so I could just move it around and check Rx. So I was basing the best spot off the kerchunk reply to my Tx. Most spots I couldn’t get/receive a reply. I found several where it would just barely get a reply. After probably 45 minutes of testing I found “the best spot” in that area of the attic. Most of the spots I had maybe 6-8” around one spot where I’d get reception. Not sure how much it means, but on my DB-25g I am getting a peak of 32-33 on the power meter for a reply (no idea out of what as I’ve seen it go over 100 for really powerful signals like talking to my mobile with an HT in the same room testing). The received signals sounds reasonably clean with only a small amount of static. No idea how I sound though. And this is just based off picking up the repeater Morse code identification tones once from the spot and the repeater kerchunk in response to my Tx. I am assuming the repeater is 50w and based on Tx power testing my radio is really only hitting about 15w. I am going to see if I can coordinate testing eventually with someone on the local REACT net/Facebook group. Of course it’s not that hard (though more $$) to boost my Tx with a more powerful radio. not remotely as reliable, but it is interesting the height effect and the difference in UHF at a distance and VHF. On my main floor with the antenna near the ground (maybe 3’ off the outside ground) all I can get is Wx2 from my house. The weather station is about 30 miles away. And it comes through with some static. Testing in the attic I can pickup Wx3 and 5 also. 2 is crystal clear (it says 65 power on the radio) and 3 and 5 have just a hint of noise (50ish power). I’d have to double check 3 and 5, but I am fairly sure they are 60 and 70 miles away respectively to my south west and west and very much over the local horizon. I noticed no Rx impacts on the weather stations or general FM 88-108 radio band. for GMRS I am curious if the large dead zones are caused by outdoor things like nearby tree trunks, or features in the attic itself. That strongest Rx spot for the repeater is, interestingly enough, about 8” from some residential power wires running near the top of the antenna perpendicularly. With the wires between the antenna and the repeater. Now if I just had a spare antenna to test from the roof… actually what I’ll probably do is take my Ut-72 Nogoya up on the roof and slap it on a pie pan and use the mobile radio with the battery pack again and see if I can hit the repeater from there and if the reception is better. If it is better, that would be very telling since it’s something like 4.2dBi vs the HYS antenna I just mounted in the attic that is 6. I think it is possible I’ve got an okay minimal, but still enough, performing setup to use the repeater and be intelligible to anyone in range of the repeater. Which is my goal (well, I’d prefer perfection). I should have 35ft of LMR400 tomorrow to run it down through an interior wall to my basement where I’ll setup the radio. it did also occur to me that if I can hit my BIL with this omni antenna in the attic okay, I don’t need a Yagi to hit him also. I can just use the Yagi for the repeater and switch to the Omni if I want to talk to him direct. Hopefully I can test all the things (except with a Yagi. That’ll need to wait a few weeks as I am prepping for a vacation camping with my kids for a week soon). I’d imagine the test at my BIL should go a lot better this time around. I hope. Last time it was testing with my 11yr old on my back patio (which it turns out actually isn’t a direct line to my BIL’s from there as I misjudged the direction a little. So the signal was passing through the house). He was using my UV-9g and one of those Abbree dual band antennas (18”) which actually works fairly well on GRMS. Though I’ve since gotten a Nogoya 770g for it which seems to work slightly better. And on the other end I had a Midland 105 with a UT-72. I lost him once I hit that ridge line between us and I could just barely here him a couple times headed over there to pickup my daughter from school as it’s near my BIL’s. with the realization that the Midland is both narrowband and transmitting at a third or less power than my DB-25g…and I’ll have a DB-25g in my car using that UT-72 antenna and a DB-25g at my house using a 6dBi antenna up about 8ft higher and with less house in the way I am figuring that is a significantly better chance of success. Plus I’ll actually drive all the way over to my BIL’s rather than just trying on the way to and at my daughter’s ES. His house is a half mile further and at slightly lower elevation, but that extra half mile might actually move it out of some radio shadows from the ridge. Or that’s my hope. That other option is get up on his 2nd floor or attic (or on a ladder) with my HT and the Nogoya 770g and of course the other option I am likely to pursue that helps me and my interests is getting my HAM technicians license this summer which I plan to do. So far I’ve taken 4 practice tests and passed 3 of 4 without having done any studying (other than what I’ve learned about radios over my life and especially recently). Though I do plan to read the actual study guides before signing up for an exam this summer. I imagine VHF will work better for me and there is a VHF repeater not too far from my house. Though it’s possible it’s over the ridge to the north of me (my BIL’s and the GMRS repeater are over the ridge to the south of me. My house sits on the backside of the southern ridge about a third of the way to the river valley floor another 200ft down and maybe 3 miles away. Then up about 300ft vertical and a mile north to the next ridge. A HAM license doesn’t get me taking to my BIL though. I can convince him to spend $35 on a GMRS license and get him to buy an inexpensive base station, antenna, and power supply if I can show it’ll work. Not sure I can convince him to study for and get a HAM license. Though I guess if I do once I have a base station setup for my house for 2/70 and I break every law sacred to man if I can repeat the test with my son sitting at home on the 2 meter base station and that works to a mobile car based radio to his house maybe it’ll convince him (hopefully neither the FCC nor any other HAM will slash my wires, cut my cables or tar and feathers me if my son, unlicensed, “rogers” me a few times on 2 meter to test). heck, he is the one that floated the idea of “so if the cell network/internet went down, how do we talk? You are only a few miles away, but driving or biking over to ask “is everything okay” seems dicey in that instance”. So I might have some leverage.

I set mine up with 16 channels, most of which were programmed to the same repeater pair (462.625 Tx / 467.625 Rx). The way mine is configured, I have six pre-configured tones (4 are CTCSS, 2 are DCS), with two channels for each tone (1 high power, 1 low power), all programmed to the same repeater pair (46x.625). With the change of a channel, I can select either high or low power, and any of the pre-configured tones should there be interference from other users. I then used the remaining channels to use the adjacent frequency pairs (46x.600 and 46x.650), with selectable power levels for each. They are slightly outside of the optimal frequency for the duplexer, but will work if needed. That configuration allows me to change the required tone, power level, or even the frequency pair, with just a touch of a button.

I love 10m repeaters. Had a guy somewhat local to my home in VA with a 10m repeater. It was 37 miles away from my house and I could work it from home all day with only 5 watts. It was high enough that with 100w, it easily had 100 mile+ of LOS/Ground wave coverage and at solar maximum the world was the limit. The repeater is listed as private/off the air now. I'm not sure if the owner passed or decided to stop public access.

I apologize if I missed it within some of the answers, but what Radio Service are you referring to? Amateur, GMRS, or Business? The short answer is Not True, regardless and I felt deeper explanation might be helpful. If you are referring to GMRS (Part 95), the FCC does not take any kind of interest in our repeaters. As stated above, there are 8 channels designated by the Commission which may only be used for repeaters. It is possible that whomever told you that was referring to the FCC not intending to make any changes to that part of the rule. They are not planning on allowing any of the other 14 channels to be used with repeaters (the FRS only channels). The FCC created the GMRS class, included rules for transmission modes and allowable uses, and set it off to fend for itself. It is not currently considering any changes to the regulations nor does it actively participate in its' usage day to day, unless there is a situation which requires investigation and potential regulatory action. (That happened in Tampa FL recently due to usage not in accordance with the regulations). As an aside, Incidentally, because i see this all the time, if you do something which is deemed not in accordance with the regulations, you are not breaking the law. These are not Laws. The FCC is no a legislative body. It is a regulatory body. You are breaking a rule, and that alleged infraction would be investigated, and if warranted, passed on to an enforcement body (a local District Attorney for example) who will impose enforcement actions in accordance with the FCC's policies. Except for extreme cases, (violations of the rules which result in significant property damage, personal injury, death, or disruption of the public broadcast and radio systems) you cannot "go to jail". You will not be incarcerated for using your Baofeng as your personal 2way radio on GMRS channels while at the County Fair, to keep track of your kids on the Ferris Wheel. If you are referring to Amateur Radio (Part 97), the FCC does not coordinate (which is the proper term, not regulate, nor permit, or allow, or license, etc) repeaters or any specific frequencies used with them. An amateur radio operator (person or club) is free to establish a repeater on any pair it so chooses. There are generally accepted standards such as offsets and splits, but even that is not set in stone. Amateur radio is 'self-policing" and thus, generally speaking, everyone gets along in the same sandbox just fine. A VEC plays an important role in all of this. They are Volunteers in that they do not operate as a commercial entity or receive payment for their services. (It is possible that a person working as a Frequency Coordinator is also an amateur radio licensee and provides this type of coordination for free, while charging for other activities.) I will explain coordinators and what they do at the end. If you are referring to the Business Band service (Part 90), the answer is still no. There are no plans to do so because there are significant regulatory standards in place. One of those is the regulation that any applicationfor a Business Band license includes the need for Frequency Coordination. You apply for a License, and the FCC approves your application in accordance with coordination. As an aside, the FCC developed the Band Plan, and in this scenario, does not get involved in the xxx.1234 mhz part of it as long as you operate in accordance with the Part and the Plan. You do not apply to use a particular frequency. A coordinator tells the FCC which one to allow you to use and that is then what is approved for your license. A Coordinator is a person or entity who reviews your application from the technical aspect. They are a business and charge a fee for their service. It is expensive in general terms, and the pricing typically is tiered depending upon how many frequencies you are requesting. Buytwowayradio.com charges a fee, which I believe is at one price for one frequency, and is one price for 2 or more. A local shop here in my community uses a Coordinator who provides up to 5 frequencies for your application for 1 price. They will look at your intended use (will you use mobiles, portables, repeaters, data, a mix, etc.) as well as things such as needed transmit powers, the location and height of the transmitter antenna, it's position relative to an Airport, or other restricted area, things specific to towers, and the other frequencies (and all of their conditions such as above), likelihood of inducing or being affected by other radio interference in the geographic region you seek to operate within. They analyze your application against all of the other data available in your area, and they recommend a frequency, (single, multiple, or repeater pair) and then forward your application to the FCC for final approval. This is Frequency Coordination, and is a required component for obtaining a Part 90 license. There is nothing to indicate that there is A: a need to restrict radio station licensing as it exists today, or B: actual Commission activity toward doing so in Part 90. I would venture to say that our slice (GMRS) will likely require some involvement in the future simply because no one anticipated the unprecedented rise in the actual usage. Take a look at MURS (VHF, 5 simplex channels, no fee, data OK, but absolutely no repeater use of any kind). It was developed, thrown out there, has generally limited uses, and thus floats along just fine for decades with light to no usage in most areas. Whereas GMRS has so many uses, it's difficult to find spectrum to operate, in some places.

@Sshannon It would be interesting to find out how well FM might work on the other FM bands.