oldtech

I think perhaps there is another way of looking at this, which could be illuminating to people who may be confused about the situation. I paid my fee and I now have a GMRS license... so I have the privilege to use GMRS frequencies. But I do not have a GMRS radio. At a park, I see someone talking on a walkie talkie, and I ask him what kind of radio it is. When he answers 'GMRS', I just take the radio from him without asking permission and start talking. After all, I have a license, and therefore the right... RIGHT? Your license gives you a PRIVILEGE, not a right, to use the airwaves. To maintain your privilege you must follow certain rules. In the case of using a repeater, you must follow the FCC rules, and also the owners rules. And you must remember that the owner has the right to terminate your permission at any time for any reason. Another analogy is the drivers license, which allows you the PRIVILEGE, not the right, to use the roadways. To maintain your privilege you must follow certain rules. Obviously, your drivers license does not give you permission to 'borrow' some else's car without their permission... and the cars owner may withdraw that permission at any time for any reason.

GMRS is a 'wide band' service. Unfortunately, a lot of rigs were sold that do not do wide band, but were certified for GMRS anyway. Mostly from the Middle Land of Misery. Anyway, you should set it up to meet the needs of your users. My '97 is set to wide because I bought a wideband handheld for every member of the family... and, to my aged ears, wide band sounds better. ?

I cut off all the miscellaneous connectors on my 12 volt equipment, replaced with 'power pole'. Eliminates a lot of aggravation.

Unfortunately the model 97 has no easy way to add automatic station ID. The successor model 97S does allow for an external controller though.

I believe WRPN896 and I heard the same net (Sunshine Net). Dave was probably confused. The FCC does not license ANY repeaters, whether GMRS, Amateur, or Commercial. Repeaters are all operated under the license of a person, group, or commercial interest. WX4E, for example, is a callsign allocated to the Charlotte Amateur Radio Society, a non profit group. 'CARS' operates repeaters under that call sign, but the call sign is allocated to the club, not the repeater. The FCC does not allocate GMRS call signs to groups or businesses (anymore), so all GMRS repeaters are operated under the call sign of the owner.

Not the same Midland as in grandpas' day.

I can commiserate with you Jack. I have twiddled with antennas off and on through the years. But when you need an antenna, and you need it now, it's way too easy to pick one up at a hamfest or off ebay!

I have been building a portable repeater based on the Retevis RT-97. I was using a 5/8 until I received my Comet CA-712EFC. While it didn't extend my range appreciably, it did provide a very nice S/N improvement and helped fill in some 'holes' in coverage. My son lives 5 miles away in an apartment building with a lot of metal siding. He was able to find some spots in the apartment where his 4 watt handheld could hit the repeater reliably, but at best the signal was barely tolerable, lots of annoying fade. With the Comet, he can talk from most spots in his apartment and sounds 'good', not great, but certainly a whole lot better with little fading (he still tends to forget to hold the antenna vertical). While not in the professional, commercial, industrial duty antenna category, I would certainly rate it in the 'Prosumer' category. Easy to assemble and mount, with shrouded N connector, only a little more weight, and about the same wind load as my 5/8. My old antenna exhibited a 1.4:1 SWR attached to the RT-97. While the Comet is advertised as being 1.5 or less, when I tested it I could not see the return loss needle on my meter budge... so I rate it as 1.1 or less for my particular antenna (within my eyeball resolution of an analog SWR meter). So all in all I am currently very pleased. We'll see how it ages.

Man I love the site! What kind of range do you get?

Put the second meter in with the Dremel, the attached photo shows the result.

I wound up using a Dremel cutoff blade for the panel meters. Actually, 2 blades cause the first one choked up! I intentionally cut it 'small', then filed and sanded it to size. It took WAY longer than what I expected, but didn't turn out that bad, though I am now looking into purchasing an economical laser cutter! For the PowerPole connectors, I think I may have another idea.

If the repeater is to be used ONLY by members of your family, who are covered by your GMRS license, then the repeater does not have to identify itself, as long as the users follow the normal GMRS RULES. The RULES say a GMRS user must identify using their (your) callsign every 15 minutes, and/or when concluding a conversation. THEREFORE, the repeater is sufficiently identified by your callsign. If you can wait, rumor has it that a new version of the RT97 will accommodate a third party controller.

Not strictly GMRS related, but I'm hoping for a good answer. I have an enclosure of High Density Polyethylene, in which I want to mount two panel meters and two PowerPole chassis mounts, all rectangular in shape, designed to snap in. I've been musing about what would be the best method of cutting the plastic, and decided to see if anyone had experience with such tasks.

That's great they are working on at least providing a 'hook' for ID and/or external controller. I believe it will greatly increase the appeal. I do not need it for my own use, it's family only. That's basically how I have it mounted now!