Just wondering, has anyone ever painted one of those white fiberglass GMRS antenna radomes?
The the other pipes coming out of my roof are gray (like a primer color), and I think a white antenna radome would really stand out. So to visually subdue the antenna some, I thought about painting it gray, or at least putting a light coat of primer on it.
Question is, would doing so noticeably affect the antenna's performance?
The GMRS is allotted 30 channels—16 main channels and 14 interstitial channels. GMRS stations may transmit on any of the channels as indicated below.
(a) 462 MHz main channels. Only mobile, hand-held portable, repeater, base and fixed stations may transmit on these 8 channels. The channel center frequencies are: 462.5500, 462.5750, 462.6000, 462.6250, 462.6500, 462.6750, 462.7000, and 462.7250 MHz.
( 462 MHz interstitial channels. Only mobile, hand-held portable and base stations may transmit on these 7 channels. The channel center frequencies are: 462.5625, 462.5875, 462.6125, 462.6375, 462.6625, 462.6875, and 462.7125 MHz.
(d) 467 MHz interstitial channels. Only hand-held portable units may transmit on these 7 channels. The channel center frequencies are: 467.5675, 467.5875, 467.6125, 467.6375, 467.6625, 467.6875, and 467.7125 MHz. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I see a lot of newbie questions about repeaters where the "typical" reply states the repeater input frequency is 5MHz higher than the output frequency. However the rules don't require that. Read sections §95.1763 A and C. No mention about a required offset when going through a repeater. It seems so long as the repeater output frequency is one of the 462MHz main channels and the input frequency is one of the 467MHz main channels the FCC is fine with that.
Why does that matter?
Many people are buying GMRS specific radios that have the repeater frequencies per-programmed into them, with the "common" 5MHz offset assumed by the manufacture and hard coded by the firmware. However if a repeater owner sets up his system to use an input frequency and output frequency that is NOT a 5MHz offset anyone unfortunate enough to own a radio with the repeater frequencies hard coded by the firmware is out of luck. There is noway to make it work short of changing the frequencies.
For somebody who wants to keep his repeater "private" with reduced chances of being abused by non authorized users could employ a nonstandard frequency offset. Of course anyone who wishes to use the repeater must have a radio that allows the "non-standard" 5MHz offset to be programmed into it. That leaves for the most part old commercial radios.
For a really flexible GMRS specific radio a manufacture should provide a repeater memory channel where the input and output frequencies are selected from a list along with the access tone(s) required.
I see enough comments about the Midland radios concerning the tone and bandwidth issues, but nothing about the repeater offsets. If the radios are targeted to be "fully" GMRS rule compliant, sooner or later, the above issue should be addressed as well. This likely also applies to the other GMRS specific radios I see mentioned on the forum.
Frankly, I want to know the real reason why the FCC requires you to use a Type 95 radio for GMRS. Suppose you're a licensed ham AND have your GMRS license. This rule just means I've got to purchase additional radios to lug around. Who is this rule benefiting and why?
There was a petition in 2014 to add exception to the Type 95 rules to ham operators but it failed miserably.
In my opinion, (probably not worth much) you have two seperate communications. The first is between two licensed GMRS stations. The second communication is between amateur stations. Both communications are legal.
I actually do precisely this whenever our local ham club and local GMRS club conduct "joint emcom nets". Since I am a licensed GMRS station as well as a licensed amateur operator, I handle the 'test message' traffic from one group to the other...
I just have to remember which 'hat' I'm wearing whenever I grab for the mic!
