WQYC236

Very interesting results, thanks for posting!

Be sure and let us know how these experiments come out, especially communicating in the hill terrain.

Looks like we may have to start making a "Citizen's Arrest" and Fed Ex them to the FCC.

Welcome to the forum! This is a great place to be.

Interesting information. I have an 1100 foot mountain within 3 air miles from the house (but no AC power), and although we now have a great 30 watt repeater in the area, it might be fun to build a very low power (8 watts) solar machine just to see how it does.

That's fantastic! Thanks for the update. Sounds like you may have a lot more people using the repeaters in your area than we have in our area.

What kind of range are you getting with the repeater at 500 ft. in all that Indiana flat land?

This is an update on the DKDCG guy I wrote about earlier. I was back in the same town on Saturday and sure enough he was still there "warbling" through all 22 FRS/GMRS frequencies! I was actually trying to have a LEGAL conversation with my grandson on his new GMRS hand held radios about three miles away and finally had to sign off because of this idiot. His standard operating procedure is to "warble" twice on each channel and then move to the next until someone responds to the noise. If someone answers, he always says the same thing "I didn't know this radio was working", and then proceeds to move through the frequencies again. This went on for the entire two hours that I was there. Never underestimate the power of stupid people with time on their hands. He did mention the apartment complex he lives in so we may be getting closer to a lawful solution to what is becoming a bigger problem.

I also would definitely go with a 5-6 db, center loaded, longer antenna in the center of the roof. There is a noticeable difference in range over the short quarter wave type antennas, especially at the limits of your effective range.

Interesting choice in radios. Let us know how they do when you hit the open road.

I'm truly in the presence of greatness on this forum!

How did you guys learn how to do all of this neat stuff? I'm struggling here with all the acronyms.

Ha! If I have another conversation with him I may tell him he made the big time on MYGMRS!

I think you are talking about the "Mount Hope Repeater" in Sanford. It's listed here under the repeater directory. You're correct that it lists the input and output frequencies as the same and the tones are unlisted. So you will have to ask permission to use it and I'm sure the tones will be forthcoming. Just email the owner and fill out the information.

Speaking of the unlicensed, I'd like to expand that term to the "Don't Know, Don't Care Group" (DKDCG)! I spoke to one of these on Saturday while I was in a small town of about 30,000 people near me. I had the radio on scan when I heard that annoying warbling sound produced by somebody hitting the "Call Button" on a walkie talkie. If that wasn't annoying enough, the scanner was following him up through the channels, one, two, three, four, etc. After listening to him move through all the channels twice, I thought maybe someone was actually in trouble and trying to find help on any possible channel. I identified myself and asked if someone needed assistance. The response was "No, I'm just trying to see if this radio works". To make a long story short we talked for maybe 3 or 4 minutes while I explained to him (obviously an adult male) about licensing and the power and channel restrictions. I encouraged him to stay on the FRS only channels if he wasn't going to get a license and to especially avoid the Repeater channels, explaining that he could be interfering with legitimate communications. He responded with short, unintelligent answers. I finally signed off and went back to scanning mode, only to hear him back on the repeater channels warbling through every frequency, just as if nothing happened! ​The famous turn of the century evangelist Billy Sunday once said, "Anybody can get born again, but stupid is forever"!

I was just on that repeater last weekend about 4:00 PM asking for a radio check from Warrenton but got no reply. Got a solid tone back from it 72 miles away.

Along that line, something that I've thought about was to have a small recording device to catch the call signs for later use.

Hmmm...at least I could remember their call signs. I used to hear two guys come on the air at exactly 23:15 every night on 462.675 and talk for ten minutes (in Russian)! They were like clockwork for about a month and then disappeared completely. A log book would have helped me to keep better records in that case. My base antenna is up about 40 ft and I could barely hear them so the could have been anywhere.

I was sitting in a parking lot in Culpeper, VA with the radio on scan when I heard two guys obviously putting a radio on the air for the first time and doing some brief testing on 462.550. I broke in and told them they were loud and clear at my location and asked where they were. It turns out they were in a neighborhood 32 miles north of me, but at an altitude of about 1100 feet! There's a whole community of houses on that flat mountain top plateau and only two licenced GMRS operators. Too bad one of them doesn't put up a repeater.

I've never considered it but it might make sense if the radio(s) were used in any organized capacity. Public watch or safety, sever weather situations etc.

Exactly right!

I know that feeling! One of the problems is that the closest tree (an oak) is about 70 ft. horizontal and 100 ft. vertical from where my radio is located. Even calculating the side 'c' of the triangle (122 ft) that's a fair amount of line loss. That's why I think putting the repeater and antenna together in the tree makes some sense.

If the distance between the antennas was a multiple of a wave length wouldn't you experience some gain? If we could work out the bugs it might be marketable as a package. I don't have a 100 foot tower yet but I do have two 100 foot trees (still working on how to climb them safely or launch a line to pull up a rope). My understanding of how to make a HT into a repeater is woefully lacking. I'd still like to find a way to turn my Motorola base station into something that I can ping or that would parrot back my voice for testing purposes since I'm usually working alone.

Was just re-reading your post, what is "my code"? Is that a neighborhood thing? We don't have any restrictions on towers unless they get into airplane territory out my way.

Nothing is ever easy when it comes to actually doing it. Maybe the concept would lend itself to a low powered solar application. I've talked 17 miles from a mountain top with only 4 watts.