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As the others said, that’s definitely adequate for most uses.

Personally, depending on location. Ie mountains and repeater availability. Usually, 20 watts or so are nice and adequate. Most will let you trim the power back some even enough to get on the frs interants and still be close to inbounds according to some rules. Plus most are economical compared to a 50 watt model. Most 40/50 watt radios can't turn the power down enough to play with the entire allocation. Hence some channels are blocked etc. But it is always nice to bump up the power when at the fringes of a repeater or in the woods. With uhf and vhf. Gmrs is uhf. Focus on the antenna setup more then the radio. 15w with a properly setup 5/8 antenna gets you out further and cleaner then a 50w with unity gain antenna with no groundplane and crap coax. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

I use a 20 watt mobile right now for GMRS. The Radioddity DB-20G. It works great! I can get into repeaters 20-30 miles away depending on terrain. My base is the same radio with an antenna on the roof at 20 feet. Base to mobile I can talk 20 miles reliably. So 15 watts should be fine. I've also experimented base to base with a friend at 5 watts that was about 10 miles. Antenna setup is far more important than wattage fpr line of sight comms. Antenna height specifically.

Well at least you’re starting out slow.? you may be on a budget but it’s a good one. Good luck and pictures please when you’re set up.

Another advantage of a 15 watt mobile is ease of installation: such a radio can often be powered directly from a “Power Point” (cigarette lighter outlet).

This is actually not true. More power can make the signal received clearer but it will NOT make the volume of the received signal louder. That is not how it works. Speaking volume into the mic and mic gain will affect volume but not transmit power.

My primary radio makes 18w at the output. It works fantastic in my area. We have about 300 feet of elevation variation for about 100 miles in any direction. I get 25 to 35 miles from any given repeater with 80%+ reliability. Once I stretch past 35 miles, going to 48 watts is very helpful in many cases, but doesn't even come close to punching through "every time" I drop out with the 18w. Long story short, I think 15w is great for many applications.

They do. However the ones I’ve seen are designed more for boosting the power output from a hand held radio in the 2 to 5 watt range. I have one myself since I have a rather large collection of handheld radios so it works for me. As mentioned by others if you are using a real mobile radio your best bet is just get one with a 45 to 50 watt output and skip thinking about amps.

I paid $700 for a brand new still in the box Vertex Standard EVX R70 G7 40 Watt UHF Repeater Station still in the box. This repeater is actually a Motorola XPR 8400 and this repeater performs very well with great selectivity. The station can operate either Digital or analog. The seller I bought my unit from had 2 or 3 other repeater stations for sale at the time. I am really impressed with the portable coverage from this station and the mobile coverage has been great on flat terrain. I was not happy with the two non-American mobile radio units tied together as a repeater station. I couldn't get more than a 3/4 of a mile distance from the portable and the station because of the poor shielding between the two radios and I was using a quality American made duplexer with an American made antenna system. Although, the Repeater was made in Malaysia, at least it is owned by an American company.

On mobile ove had great success with the Midland MXTA 26. 5/8 over 5/8. Works much better than the Nagoya 72G I used to use. Although the Nagoya isn't bad. But noticeable difference.

Something to think about what discussing line of sight coms... not to be rude, but it's line of sight. I've heard of folks hitting repeaters or other users from mountain tops out to 100 miles on a 5 watt handheld. In that scenario, generally the difference between 5 watts and 50 watts would be the volume of your voice coming through on the other end. Power (wattage) equals volume. Power can help with clarity too when there are some obstructions or obstacles the signal pushes through or around. But not amount of power can get through certain obstacles. On the ham side, many people have 50-80 watt mobiles. But most of them will tell you they usually don't use more than 10-20 watts most of the time.

The great starting point is here: https://www.repeater-builder.com Another great starting point is here (it is pinned!):

So, to sum everything up: - Antenna: Best is an Ed Fong, Premium is a Comscope DB404 approx. $600, and Economy would be a Laird FG Series - Hardline: Comscope/Andrews LDF4-50A approx. $3-$4 per foot - Duplexer: Low port to transmitter, high port to receiver, and middle port to antenna. The duplexer is usually sold separately from the repeater. Approx. $200. - Repeater: Bridgecom BCR40DU. Approx. $1900 (This usually gets programmed to the frequency for the repeater by the factory/dealer) This should be a great starting point for people to build a repeater. I would search cheaper alternatives; although, you can shop for better choices as well. This is a great bit of info to help people build a repeater as simple as possible.

I literally read this entire thread purely for its entertainment value.