Jackel0228

Internet and rent cost me 115 a month for 150' feet, I have 2 locations from a locally owned tower company. I hope to work out a similar deal for a 3rd site this year. You have to try and find a smaller tower operator, places like American Tower and Crown Castle want outrages fees. The owner of the company is a great guy and he even climbs still. I was able to find a few other places well I was looking but decided a small company with 20 plus sites was the best option for expansion of the system. 

Not GMRS but still UHF radio related and I know several other members own or service licensed part 90 systems. So I thought I would share a few photos from this weekends tower site repair on my business system. Last year I added this site to my Mototrbo IP site connect system, because of costs I cut a few corners and paid the price with an under preforming site. Today's project included installing the new repeater system, replacing the antenna, upgrading from 1/2 to 7/8 feed line and swapping out the 2' standoff for a 4'. Big thanks to my climber, he braved the 29 degree temps and completed the entire project in 4 hours. Yes that's him sitting out on the end of the 4' side arm installing the new antenna. I guess the side arm is now climber tested and approved! Not even with his 50 lbs of safety gear would you catch me sitting out there at 150'. I did some testing on the 50 mile ride home and the site is no longer under preforming. It has exceeded my predictions with15 miles of portable coverage, up from 2 miles.
 

I can say that I did exactly that... I went through the process and got an IG license.. It's expensive and a pain, but I thought it would be worth it. I started my radio endeavors with an "emergency family and friends communications" goal in mind. Then I bought some radios, and they were capable of doing all kinds of things that weren't even allowed on GMRS frequencies. So I needed to at least be able to test them out, so to prevent from doing anything against the FCC rules or causing interference to others, I thought the IG license was a good idea.