mdomsch

Tommy - there was one repeater listed here for the last year, but it appears to be removed now. I was never able to access it from anywhere within Austin, nor did the owner respond to my inquiries. I also routinely scan the local HAM and GMRS frequencies from my truck and have never heard a GMRS repeater in the Austin area, only weak HTs. I have regularly heard what I think is either a church or the community theater in Round Rock Memorial Park at I-35 & 620 coordinating activities in different parts of the venue (lights, audio) using HTs during events, though I forget now which frequency.

@hans what are you using for a repeater controller? Our Boy Scout troop is wanting to set up a repeater for use on our longer-distance campouts.

@berkinet, you're trying to be sure the field volunteers and the command posts can communicate, right? FRS is limited to 1/2 watt and no repeaters, so that right there limits the effectiveness of the solution to a very short line-of-sight distance. The bubble pack radios that your volunteers carry become your minimum functional design point, and those will all have 95a (GMRS) and 95b(FRS) type acceptance to have been sold in the US in the first place. Dropping FRS leaves you with repeater-capable GMRS units, of which someone posted a nice PDF in these forums just a few days ago listing all the type-accepted ones based on the FCC database. Plus if you don't care about GMRS type acceptance (not sure how you can skirt this legally in the US), the Baofeng, Yaesu, and similar HTs which can be programmed (or un-neutered) to use the GMRS frequencies. Curious also what repeaters you're looking into.

Garmin Rino series (5xx, 6xx, 7xx) are GMRS certified and repeater capable.

Living in Austin, I tried this repeater today from the top of the Murchison/Far West hill, adjacent to the Austin ISD I/B tower, but was unable to pass a signal through it. I tried listening to it for several hours today and heard nothing.