jsneezy

I don't have a problem with paid access to a repeater or a system of repeaters. Your equipment, your access to the site, your choice kind of deal. I'm just irritated that some of the best open repeaters in the area are going private and paid access because someone or a few people want to be children and cause problems.

He owns a few repeaters. I think Diamond Point is his as well. I didn't know Towers 600 went private. As far as I can tell, it's still using the same tone, at least from my HT sitting in my bedroom as of now. I'll go request permission before any further use though. I don't want to make things worse than they are with everything going on with the repeaters up that direction. Since I live in San Tan Valley, I tend to stick to Pinal 675, Mt. Lemmon 650, and webhiway-tucson 725, for the most part. If work takes me out that way, or if the other repeaters are quiet, I'll monitor Shaw Butte or Towers 600. Maybe a PTT-ID system like SWCRS is using on the Pinal repeater would be beneficial on Shaw Butte. It would at least filter out anyone not using a specified and allowed PTT-ID.

The other pictures my wife captured were very similar to the one I posted last night. That one just had the most color in it. I don't think we are in the best area to really get any better pictures, but I had seen some really good ones from all over Arizona.

That's essentially the Towers 575 repeater that was mentioned previously. That particular repeater has a massive coverage area. There's also Towers 600, which is in the same general vicinity with similar coverage, and is still an open system. But lately, I've been noticing a couple to a few people bickering and arguing a lot on the Shaw repeater. There is another local repeater on the same frequency pair as Shaw, but it's a private club repeater. And yet another open repeater on a mountain outside of Tucson that also has a massive coverage area, but I never notice any traffic on it. At the end of the day, I wouldn't be surprised if Shaw ends up going private with paid access like Towers 575 did. The "temporary" shutdowns with Shaw seem to be more and more frequent over the last few months. I've also been noticing that there has been a lot of bickering and arguing between some of the people using it, while using language that I wouldn't want my young daughter listening to.

My wife is actually out taking pictures of the Aurora now, just outside of Phoenix. If she gets anything good, I might post one up. So far all she's sent to me just looks like a giant flood light behind a mountain.

Looks like it, too, suffers from the only complaint I have about my Boofwang UV-9G. That belt clip design is pretty annoying. I have considered talking to a friend with a 3D printer to see if they could design one that wouldn't allow the radio to swing around so much while I'm out moving through brush during hunting season.

I'm not 100% sure, but I believe the Mesa 725 is set up at someone's home. That particular repeater is the reason I wish there was an output tone on Shaw Butte. When I'm monitoring, I can never tell whether I'm hearing Shaw or Mesa.

I would have thought more of their repeaters would have some kind of backup, but that may also be dependent on what's available at the site the repeater is set up at. Generator and backup systems can get pretty expensive.

Also both Towers Mountain 575 and 600 and Diamond Point 575. I think a few of the SWCRS repeaters do as well. Possibly Shaw Butte 725, but I could be mistaken on that one. I'm not sure how many of the AZ GMRS Club repeaters are on battery backup, as I haven't joined.

Here in Arizona, a lot of repeaters are on solar with battery backup. Especially the ones around the Phoenix area. There's also several on generator backups as well. I think it has more to do with the site that the repeater is installed at and whether a backup plan is available on site.

Except if the laser is operated on channels 1-15.

Belt clips with frickin laser beams?

Sending it via DTMF works as well. It gets annoying when someone forgets to turn off side tones with it though. I don't notice much chatter on either of those repeaters. I have gotten a "loud and clear" response from someone on the 725 when I asked for a signal check from I-17 and Glendale Ave. Generally, the only time I hear a squawk from PTT-ID on Pinal is when someone forgets to turn off their side tones, as I mentioned above. Other than that, it doesn't sound any different than any other repeater. I have also noticed on Shaw and Tower 600 that there seems to be quite a bit of bickering and arguing between a couple people lately, and occasionally both repeaters get shut down for random periods of time. A couple of times, I ended up switching to another channel because I just didn't want to listen to the arguments.

As well as using the link tone on Shaw Butte, which will open the link to Towers 600, Diamond Point 575, and a couple others. Also, getting in with SWCRS gets access to Pinal 675, which has amazing coverage here as well. I haven't heard much off the Lemmon 650, but there's also the webhiway_tucson repeater that has a massive coverage area.

In the meantime there's also the Towers 600. I've gotten responses out of it in my house in San Tan Valley with my Baofeng UV-9G. Both with stock and Nagoya 771-G antennas.

Because of some troublemakers causing issues on a repeater I had just gotten access to, the group maintaining the repeater is requiring PTT-ID for all users of the repeater, as far as I can tell. They have assigned each member a 4 digit code for the PTT-ID, which will be DTMF or MDC1200. Is this going to work as a per channel setting on the radios? Or if I set it up, will it transmit the PTT-ID regardless of the channel I'm transmitting on? The radios in question are a Baofeng UV-9G and a Radioddity DB-20G.

Add another to the NAY column. If for anything, to keep "some people" posting in the comments in your videos. The responses to the pinned comments are always hilarious.

In my case, my wife and daughter are about as far as my call sign goes. If we have family from out of state visiting, we'll likely just hand them an FRS radio and call it good. I do kinda wonder why they excluded cousins, but step-children and step-parents are not. But again, that's more of a curiosity than an actual concern. I have plenty of FRS radios to pass around if need be.

I don't think anything I mentioned was any more complicated than what the FCC has given us to work with. Except for the cousin-spouse thing. That was meant as pure sarcasm. There's a reason that people say navigating the website and actually getting to pay the fees is passing the GMRS test.

As far as I understand the family part of the rules is that everyone in my family is covered, except cousins. Meaning I can hand an HT to my father-in-law, who is technically only family because I married his daughter. I can also hand one to my aunt or uncle, but their children are out of the question. Because of that, I don't think bloodline is really the right way to explain it. The way I've explained it to my wife is "practically everyone on both sides of the family except cousins". Now, because the regulation specifically says in-laws, does that mean I could let my wife's cousin use my call-sign? What about those areas of the country where cousin-wives are a thing? Could a license holder let his cousin use his call sign if he's married to her? That can of worms is likely to give anyone a headache...

Except it wouldn't be spoken of in this thread if the myth wasn't being spread around by someone.

That never stopped the CB guys from claiming that myth nearly 30 years ago. The fact that it was also brought up in this thread more than once tells me that at least someone is still spreading it around.

Except they have. I couldn't tell you how many times I was on CB in the 90's hearing guys saying "I'll pull up next to him with my 1000 watt linear amp, key the mic, and blow his radio" every time a couple guys would start bickering over something stupid. It's not something brand new.

Whiskey Romeo Tango Golf. Doesn't get any easier than that after military service.

I think a lightning arrestor and proper grounding are going to be the solution for that.