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This comes up here and there so thought I'd share a PDF on best practices. This is the older manual but many of the items are helpful. Especially for repeater sites. Motorola-Standards-and-Guidelines-for-Communication-Sites-R56-Manual

Why not? Here is the easy to remember Emergency Plan for New York state: 212, 315, 347, 516, 518, 585, 607, 631, 646, 716, 718, 845, 914, 917 and 929 ?

Sorry looked like the link got doubled. It is fixed. But all the links above are all the same manual. There is a new manual but wont see it in the online world for some time I imagine.

Thanks. That link worked. I down loaded the manual and added it to my on-line electronic library on the computer.

I posted another source above, but the first place I ever found it was on the BLM’s site: https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/Lands_ROW_Motorola_R56_2005_manual.pdf

I didn't take personally at all -- just adding to the conversation AND I appreciate it!

The biggest issue with what you are asking is finding an amplifier that will take the little bit of power that repeater puts out and amplifying it to 50 watts. One of the issues you will run into is the amp will need to be type accepted for GMRS and I don't believe there are any that are. Second issue is amp's typically don't have a 10dB gain number. Meaning 5 in for 50 out. it's less than that. Most of what I have seen in the commercial world was 6 dB of gain. which would be 5 in and 20 out. BUT 20 isn't bad with a good antenna, feedline and height of the mount for the antenna. Unless you are having specific coverage issues where the repeater can hear users that can't hear the repeater, the increase of output power does nothing except stroke your ego that you have 50 watts instead of 5 watts. And if the receiver in that repeater is not up to the task of hearing as far as 50 watts will transmit, then you end up with an alligator that's all mouth and no ears. Which leads to interfering with other repeater owners or prospective owners that can't use that pair because of interference.

That reply wasn’t addressed to you, so no need to take it so personally; AND I posted a LIKE to your last comment.

There are "gain" and radiation pattern differences between the various antennas. Also at UHF it's LOS, line of sight, so just moving even a few feet can make a huge difference when there are obstacles between the radio and the repeater location. One other item you may notice while driving at times is a flutter or rapid momentary dropout of the signal. That's commonly refereed as "picket fencing". That's due to the signal being blocked by buildings etc. so the signal path between radios, or radio to repeater, changes rapidly as you move.