Radioguy7268

It snowed and I never got back up to it but it's is now the end of March and I can update on the performance.
 
The repeater stayed up 24/7 until around the beginning of January where low total solar hours due to reduced daylight and consistent clouds resulted a "low" battery state. The solar controller shut down the repeater when it saw a sustained voltage of 12.1 or lower. During this time we had nearly all cloudy days continuing through the start of February. The few sunny days we had the controller would turn the repeater back on after about 20 minutes of getting full sun on it's panel. We were only getting single days of sun with many days/weeks of clouds between. With the low solar hours from the high latitude a single day was only making enough power to keep the repeater running for about a day during January before the battery ran "low" again and the solar control shut the repeater back off. This would increase to about 2 or 3 days worth of power by February with the increase in the length of solar hours per day. It was good to see the solar controller doing it's job consistently protecting the battery while also consistently bringing everything back up in -20 degree weather provided it had enough sun. By late February we had 5 days of full sun in a row and significantly increased daily solar hours. The repeater has since has been up 24/7 since then. I have head multiple new GMRS members exploring it's RF footprint the past few days. Once the several feet of snow melts and the mud subsides I will try and post a reading of the data on the solar controller.
 
I know this post is super long but I think it contains useful data for anyone else looking to make a solar charged repeater with a small physical footprint.

Open or not? That is the question. 
Well no, not really.  But I guess I need to determine what your definition of closed is.  Are you referring to it being closed as requiring permission for access, or are you referring to closed as no one outside your specific group as having access going forward.
And I will warn you that even having an OPEN repeater on this forum with POSTED PL's but the ability to request access will fill your email box with permission requests.  I get them all the time.  No one has ever been denied, but I still get the requests.  So will you. 
If you are going to make the access semi-private, not post the PL / DPL information publicly, like I have, and wait for requests, you will get MORE requests.  But at least the repeater is publicaly posted for frequency and area of coverage.  This will cut down on the possibility of someone else parking a repeater on your frequency with a different PL. 
Not posting it publicly at all can get a repeater parked on your frequency if no one else knows about it.  Or posting it as being PRIVATE, or fee based membership.  Then you will get to deal with assholes like me that absolutely abhor the idea of taking a shared resource and trying to charge money for it.  My way of dealing with it was building a repeater that completely covered the other guys coverage area and making it fully open.  Of course he did have a for profit business of selling access to his GMRS repeaters, so I really had ZERO heartburn doing so.  He was the only one that suffered form that since his users could access my repeater for free, so they didn't need to pay him any longer.  But those are the breaks. 
I work very hard in this area to work with anyone trying to setup repeaters for any type of use outside of that.  I have run coverage maps for all the repeaters in my area, referenced this site and others trying to locate all the operational repeaters around with their PL / DPL information so when someone is talking about putting up a repeater I can assist with something resembling frequency / PL coordination so interference is kept to a minimum and everyone is happy.  I have programmed repeaters and tuned duplexers for others to get them on the air. And I have provided equipment to people to get a system on the air if they had a location to get something up and running.  I just refuse to support it as a business, and will attempt to scuttle ANY attempt to turn GMRS access into a business for profit. 
Now understand that this stuff is EXPENSIVE.  SIte access, electricity, equipment and maintenance all costs money.  Requesting donations, having raffles, and other fund raising operations are well within the scope of getting the bills paid for keeping gear on the air.  But GMRS is not there to enrich you financially. 
So in truth, leaving it open for use is the best option.  Here's why in my opinion.  First is management of access.  There frankly is none.  For those people that get on there and act dumb, the other operators will deal with them, typically by just ignoring the stupidity.  And that is the best way for dealing with LID operators.  They get bored and go elsewhere that they can get a rise out of people.  You will have more users if there are fewer restrictions for access.  But there is a requirement of good equipment for that as well.  My linked repeater on the MidWest system gets over 1000 PTT's a day and 4 to 6 hours of talk time on a normal day and twice that on the days there is a net.  You can't get a couple mobiles in a box to stand up to that usage level for long.  But it's always better to have good equipment from the start and not need to worry about it.  The other thing with more users and activity is you can see the fruits of your efforts.  And there are people there if you want to just chat with someone. 
 

The good news is that if you call it a private system & try to control access to the codes, you will probably get some polite inquiries from people asking for information. Once people start to use it, you will quickly lose control of access, especially if it offers good coverage. Anyone with about $30 worth of equipment can scan for the repeater output tones.  If you make it a split system (different input PL/DPL codes vs. the Repeater's output) you can keep a little more control over access.
What do you want to accomplish? Who are your desired users? Do you have any undesired users in the area? Do you have local control capability? ie: can you pull the plug if people are using the repeater in a way you do not want them to? Do you want to be faced with that kind of decision?
 

The good news is that if you call it a private system & try to control access to the codes, you will probably get some polite inquiries from people asking for information. Once people start to use it, you will quickly lose control of access, especially if it offers good coverage. Anyone with about $30 worth of equipment can scan for the repeater output tones.  If you make it a split system (different input PL/DPL codes vs. the Repeater's output) you can keep a little more control over access.
What do you want to accomplish? Who are your desired users? Do you have any undesired users in the area? Do you have local control capability? ie: can you pull the plug if people are using the repeater in a way you do not want them to? Do you want to be faced with that kind of decision?
 

The good news is that if you call it a private system & try to control access to the codes, you will probably get some polite inquiries from people asking for information. Once people start to use it, you will quickly lose control of access, especially if it offers good coverage. Anyone with about $30 worth of equipment can scan for the repeater output tones.  If you make it a split system (different input PL/DPL codes vs. the Repeater's output) you can keep a little more control over access.
What do you want to accomplish? Who are your desired users? Do you have any undesired users in the area? Do you have local control capability? ie: can you pull the plug if people are using the repeater in a way you do not want them to? Do you want to be faced with that kind of decision?
 

Motorola M1225 - less than $200, more than enough.

Motorola M1225 - less than $200, more than enough.

Not that I'm aware of, but it would be easy enough to cross-strap your own. The VXR-1000 just puts it all in a nice box, and adds some function lights and a switch for on/off.
 
 

Stuff like the VXR-1000 and the Pyramid SVR vehicular repeaters effectively make your portable talk through your mobile radio.
The trouble with using them for GMRS is that they're cross-band repeaters, meaning you would be using a VHF portable to key up your GMRS high powered mobile. That's outside the rules for GMRS - you can't crossband with another service - and there are no VHF frequencies for GMRS.
You could try to do something like a portable repeater, and have a few key personnel set up the repeater on-site with some type of collapsible antenna that might allow you to get an antenna 20 or 30 ft. in the air.  That would increase the range of your portables, but would it be enough? If you've got the funds, you could set up some type of a trailer with a crank up tower, and that would probably get you 75 to 100 ft. up in the air.
Also, you might want to look at some type of a "mic extender" product like the X10DR from Wireless Pacific, which gives you a wireless microphone - allowing you to get a few hundred feet from your vehicle, but still key up on the mobile radio. It's sort of like the vehicular repeaters, but without the cross-banding problem.

I'm still trying to translate what they mean by "Forwarding sensitivity decreases" under the last "Duplex" heading. I'm thinking that they actually measured receiver desense - and they're spec'ing it at 3dB.  But then I'm thinking, no - they wouldn't advertise that. Or, would they?
For the rookies - a 3dB desense (reduced receiver performance when the transmitter is keyed) is somewhere close to unforgiveable. Not to mention unworkable. You basically took every 4 watt portable & made it perform as well as a 2 watt portable.
 

Man, I have to be honest, I feel like the internet and my cellphone/smartphone has made me dumber.  Like so much so, that I'm not sure I even spelled 'dumber' correctly, but I don't want to look it up because that perpetuates the problem. LoL

Yep, went back and reviewed his other posts.  6 to 8 lines max and then all of a sudden this stuff.  Personally I think we need to put a stop to this nonsense right now.  If you want to get on here and write a novel about a topic, then YOU need to be writing it, not ChatGPT. Because screen scraping someone or someTHING else's work and calling it your own is still plagiarism and BS.  Is this what the world is coming to that people refuse to have an actual thought or opinion and instead ask some AI thing on the Internet to form an opinion for them?  We just gonna forgo free thinking and jump on the InterWeb bandwagon of BS and allow others thoughts to be combined by some computer system and just go with that? 
Ok, how about we just forgo voice communications of any kind, run some voice recognition program on our computers and and then connect that to our radios and let the computers talk on the radio and not bother to actually communicate with each other any more. 
Personally I think this stuff is getting out of hand.  And we are only beginning to scratch the surface of the coming dumb.  The WORST is yet to come.
 

Michael, as you do suffer from Valley Fever and its associated atrophy of higher cognitive functions, Goretex tried to politely state the issue isn't what others state, it's you. You are the one constantly bringing extraneous clutter to questions and possible solutions through the use of non-certified equipment, restating steps just stated by others earlier in the thread and then attempting to dismiss criticisms through your use of very poorly constructed sarcasm or snide comments.
I do agree that you have provided some assistance in instances but it is your constant "need to input" on any topic which is the primary issue. In other words, you are not the best, most accurate or final authority on the questions raised by others. Stop trying to monopolize the forum.

Someone has discovered the joy of using ChatGPT to pose wordy ramblings. Congrats. 

Hey folks... I have discussed receive and transmit quality with many of you in the past.  Especially focused around the quality of the transmit signal with regard to spurious emissions, commonly known as Spurs.  I wanted to share this info because with the introduction of the TinySA, some YouTubers are using these in their tech reviews, but really don't understand what they are looking at and end up giving out bad information.
Our friend NotARubicon recently reviewed the BTech GMRS 50V2 and did a great job of showing/explaining what is known as a harmonic spur.  Harmonics are a subset of Spurious signals found at integer multiples of the fundamental frequency of the signal.  If you haven't seen the review, I highly recommend it.  BTech GMRS 50V2 - Review & Power Test - Is BTech's New GMRS 50V2 Better Than The GMRS 50X1?
 
I got a couple of pictures I wanted to share, that relate directly to this.  These images may help understand the references when you see/hear reviewers discuss this topic.  I have a friend of mine who's repeater was not behaving well and upon testing with a tool called a Spectrum Analyzer, he found Spurs every 100 KHz above and below the carrier at 462.675 MHz.  In the GMRS world, that translates to the signal being transmitted over and over again, every 4th channel. 
Below are the images he sent from both prior to the repair, and after it was fixed.
Broken...

 
 
Fixed....
 

 
 
There are many, many types of spurs that can occur.  You are looking at the effects of noise generated by the exciter circuits (VCO for those familiar), known both as sideband spurs and Baseband Harmonic Images.
If this doesn't make sense, its okay.  Just know that if someone is doing a tech review and shows pictures or video like this, the radio is broken... not that it was designed poorly.
The next two pictures are of two of my radio's signals on a TinySA.  These images are great example of Phase Noise spurs.  The first picture, the issues seem pretty obvious to me.  The second picture shows one small spur.  It's not terrible, but it really shouldn't be there.
Warning... Geek Alert!
Phase Noise spurs are unwanted signals that occur due to the random fluctuations in the phase of the carrier signal. Phase noise spurs can degrade the quality of the transmitted signal.  Think audio and signal quality.  This is a symptom of poorly/cheaply designed radios and use of low-quality parts; not something that is malfunctioning. 
 

 

 
 
This was by no means meant to be technical.  It is just samples to help know whats broken vs. poorly designed, and a conversation starter. 
Let me know if there are any questions.  Either myself or one of the smart people in the room will answer them the best we can.

Someone has discovered the joy of using ChatGPT to pose wordy ramblings. Congrats. 

Even before Covid hit, Kenwood had an issue because one of their major chip suppliers (AKM in Japan) had a huge fire that destroyed most of their factory. Then, once Covid hit, Southeast Asia went on lockdown, and most of the chip making factories locatd there were stretched pretty thin. Last batch of the NX-1300 series radios I ordered took almost 4 months to get in.
They are a nice radio. I like the audio on those, especially compared to the similar priced Motorola CP100d.

Gonna stick something ELSE in here that I don't think has been covered.
If you are on a LINKED repeater system, even if you are a repeater owner on the system, you have to identify.  Reason is that your transmissions are not only coming out of your repeater, but other owners (call signs) repeaters as well. 
That being said, I don't know of any owners on the linked system that don't identify.  So this isn't a ding on anyone I have ever heard or talked to.  But it's worth mentioning for others.
I see this being debated here and in several other threads.  And I frankly don't understand why it's a big deal to identify.  And thing for a second WHO it is that consistently DOESN'T identify.  The clowns that are causing hate and discontent with their beeps and burps and other crap being jerks.  So you are wanting to fall into that group and act that way?  Not sure what your motivations is for that. 
Repeater ID requirements.
What the regulations say has been covered, several times.
What you choose to do on YOUR repeater is up to you if it's stand alone.  If it's linked, it has to ID every 15 minutes.  And you are better off to set the ID for 10 minutes so that if it's held off by traffic, it will still go out in time to be compliant. 

Do you plan to make your linked repeaters monitor the frequency for activity in their local coverage area before actually linking from a distant user? Do you plan to make the repeaters monitor their input or output frequency prior to putting out it's ID every 15 minutes? Automatic linking and Auto ID are rarely implemented with any consideration that someone else may actually be keyed up and active as a co-channel user on the frequency already.
Just curious, cause the Rule Police don't often talk about those concepts.
 

So, I am going to write something super controversial and likely going to spur some conversation... I don't know what the right answer is and don't take this as advice, but I will tell you what I do know I have seen.
 
I know two people that collectively run over a dozen GMRS repeaters and none of them ID on their own.  Also, both of them had people file complaints about the repeaters, leading to site visits by the FCC.  They both were accused of using non-compliant repeaters and not ID'ing.  Both of their systems and sites were found compliant and nothing changed.  They still have the same hardware and still don't ID.
 
There are several things in the rules that lead me to believe that there are many people misunderstanding when repeaters must ID on there own.  Combined with what I have seen my friends go through, it just reinforces that opinion.
 
Come to think of it... I don't recall ever hearing, first-hand, a repeater ID on it's own.  Like, anywhere... ever.

More Power does not necessarily = Better.
Frequency stability, hum, distortion, audio fidelity, deviation envelope - those things matter too. To paraphrase an old timer  - if you sound like an angry Donald Duck trapped inside a tin outhouse - does it really matter how many watts you're pumping out?
 

Business use on GMRS is fine as well as long as people are properly licensed.  There's no prohibition against using GMRS for business purposes, but you may not charge someone to use your GMRS station.
§ 95.1731 Permissible GMRS uses.
The operator of a GMRS station may use that station for two-way plain language voice communications with other GMRS stations and with FRS units concerning personal or business activities.

I just picked up some UHF M1225's and P1225's (Genuine Part 95 Motorola gear!) on a trade-in, so I'll probably be getting one of my kids to start up a small GMRS resale business here on the classifieds. About 40 portables, chargers, 6 mobiles, and a base/control station package.

... and, prior Certification under Part 95 = current acceptance. ie:  Grandfathered.

Add in the Vertex VX-231 or VX-261 (newer style version) as 4.5 watt (advertising lies when it says 5 watts) options. Either one can be set up with a single channel and are decent compact semi-rugged radios. You can also find the higher end EVX-531 online at prices under $100 complete with charger. Vertex software is available online for free if you look hard enough, or for $35 if you pick the first Google result that pops up.