mixdup

Oh this one is easy, there are 24 repeaters part of the "North Georgia GMRS" network covering every repeater channel twice, some four times over, covering literally the entire northern half of Georgia and part of Eastern Tennessee I get that it's fun to do this and have a network you can get your voice over 700 square miles without having to learn radio theory or whatever is on the technician class exam, but the network is mostly 10 guys who live within 15 miles of each other ragchewing all day. Except this weekend, they're going to do radio relay for the cops at a Jeep event and that will be linked into the entire network, so that's a really good efficient use of all those channels There should be a middle ground between no linked repeaters and what some of these guys are doing. It would absolutely make sense to be able to link two repeaters on two sides of a mountain for example. But, do we really need the ability to order a radio off Amazon, key up, and tie up 8 channels between Knoxville and Orlando? But, my favorite part of that network is how it's essentially just a slush fund for the clique at the top. It's a non-profit that has no reports to the IRS, charges hundreds of dollars a year, and doesn't own any of the equipment. When the FCC rules say you can only use funds for paid repeaters for the repeaters themselves, they have a suspiciously well produced YouTube channel and well funded video studios

Only if your radio has gold fringe. Then it's an admiralty radio and you can do whatever you want

It has to do with the certification of the radio, and what type of radio the manufacturer had it certified as. If the radio was certified as a handheld by the FCC it's gonna be subject to those rules no matter what you affix it to