Logan5

Not the same at all as an open wifi hotspot. And there's a school of thought in the cybersecuritu world that recommends keeping your wifi open. This is said to provide an affirmative defense against illegal activities on your connection.

Pursuant to FCC rules regarding GMRS during emergencies, all of the Houston area GMRS repeaters that I am licensed for are available for anyone assisting with emergency response to this crisis.  
 
Please submit a repeater request and I will immediately reply with PL/DPL tones.

1 second packet bursts with an interval of at least 30 secs I believe. It was pushed by Garmin for their walkie talkie trackers. They wanted it for GMRS as well as FRS.

I keep a stock of SMA to BNC adapters, they fit into the top of the radio and make an SMA into a convenient BNC connection,. This allows for quick change out of antennas and cable in the truck for roof antennas. Yes BNC is not perfect, but can add heaps of convenience.
 

Looks like the 90 days should have passed by now.

If you have ever sweat coper pipe, there a couple good J-pole designs, easy to build and good learning project.

This is our coverage so far...  MAP

Its been my experience that everybody wants to own a repeater till they have to maintain it or pay tower rent. Also Lot's of people build small repeaters with low power radios using cheep duplexes with low antenna height. I decided to hunt down some of the machines in our area only to find "GARAGE" repeaters, (3' antenna on a 3' tripod on somebody's house roof) over half with less coverage then what you could work simplex from a base but listed at 35 miles of coverage. I can not understand why people put repeaters into service that don't cover any useful area and then list them on myGMRS. I would bet a lot of the machines listed are no longer on the air or have a tiny foot print. I would also bet when somebody takes a repeater down the listing remains.
 
Here is some other food for thought. Several of us in the WI, IL and IN area have linked a system of repeaters together on the myGMRS network. Our system of 5 machines is open to any licensed user and covers a few 1000 sq miles of area and it yet it has only 18 users. I promise it is not because the machines are junk but rather the limited number of GMRS users. I know Rich is working on something new and he is well aware of the dead listings, we will just have to wait and see.
 
Just my $.02

On any net the proper thing would be to have a certain point of the net for echolink users only to check in and stand by for them.I always find that others DO NOT listen and continue to check in over the top even when the net control calls for echolink stations only.I wish more people would coordinate themselves and pay attention to what is going on around them...William

If that LMR-400 cable is brand-new, it will work great for about a year, then it will start playing havoc with your receive signal.  The foil and the braid will start to oxidize in some areas, and loosen-up in other areas of the cable, causing white noise to be generated by the feedline itself by the transmitted signal.  You will then experience terrible de-sense in your receiver due to the white noise.
 
LMR-400 is great for two-way communications, but only one way at a time.  When you are using a coaxial cable in a repeater installation, where it has to send a transmit signal, and still receive at the same time... that's where you run into trouble with LMR series cables, or any other brand of foil-plus-braid cables.
 
RG-213 with full-braid shield and no foil overlay would be better for this application.  The BEST solution for a 50 or 75 foot run would be 1/2" Heliax.  For longer runs at UHF frequencies, I'd go with 7/8" Heliax or larger for best results.
 
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As for IDs, Ham station operators and repeaters are required to ID at the beginning of a contact, then end of the contact, and every 10 minutes during an ongoing contact.  For GMRS users, it is the same, only 15 minute intervals.  GMRS repeaters MAY send an ID using voice or modulated Morse code, (not CW), but are not required to ID at all.  However, GMRS USERS must ID themselves using the 15 minute rule, whether using a repeater or not.
 
That's my interpretation of the rules, and I have read them all very carefully.

Thank you, G.
 
I've been curious about that. I try to use direct connections on all of my equipment when I can, rare times when I want to measure handheld SWR and power I use adapters. I'm not saying that the loss from some adapters are too much to use them, but, It's not worth it for me when I would rarely need to use an adapter.

I keep a stock of SMA to BNC adapters, they fit into the top of the radio and make an SMA into a convenient BNC connection,. This allows for quick change out of antennas and cable in the truck for roof antennas. Yes BNC is not perfect, but can add heaps of convenience.
 

I've had that happen as well. Which why I got a SMA female to BNC female adapter. Tighten that bad boy onto the HT and you're in business.

Solder may not be best because there are two dis-similar metals involved and galvanic corrosion and weakening of the solder may take place compromising the junction. All you need is a bit of acid in the soil or acid rain to start that corrosion process.
 
Ref:  http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/Forms-galvanic/galvanic-corrosion.htm
 
Use a minimum of 4 gauge copper wire from the mast or tower base to the ground rod using the type of clamps pictured in these next links.  INSPECT those clamps and ground wire once per year and replace components as required due to ANY corrosion.  Many masts or tower bases have a factory ground attachment location.  If your mast or tower does not have a factory supplied area for grounding, make sure that you use 100 grit sandpaper to clean the area as well as the ground rod itself where the claps go.  4 gauge or larger ground wire is available at most Home Depot's in Department 27 (electrical) for roughly a dollar per foot. Please do not use spiral radiator style clamps! There is not sufficient contact area or compression torque to secure ground wires.
 
Grounding Clamps:  http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/261571274156-0-1/s-l1000.jpg
 
OR
 
http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/170877755197-0-1/s-l1000.jpg
 
 
Good luck with the project.

You are not venturing into a new ham band,GMRS is a totally different band that has nothing to do with ham radio...William

Generally I lurk and scan all channels when traveling and hear most traffic via FRS and Simplex. I have a few mobile units but are not part 95 compliant. I just turn on my Wally World Rino 650t and listen for possible chatter. However when hiking or trekking the mountains with just an HT, it gets interesting. Recently found HT's have a rather vast coverage area! I do have all the Travel channels programmed, and allot of traffic received but can't make the hit with the basic 4-5w HT via Repeaters. I'd rather chat than play with a cellphone any day. Call me old school, but used to like chatting CB years ago, just got out of hand... Doesn't hurt to just scan and listen while traveling, you learn the lay of the communication land, and radio traffic
 
WQXP640

You can always install it up here. I promise as long as I'm alive you won't have to move it

ID unnecessary if users ID them selves and complicated on an open system. 

What do you have for antenna height? Obstructions? In most applications the height of antenna is most important. using a ground plane I assume a Mag mount? Although not ideal, it could get you started. Tell us more about your site.

The state EOC (MEMA) is way behind the curve on communications other than public safety VHF, satellite and WebEOC. They do have an FNARS station and there's some ham gear there but it's not used much and the HF side of things is woefully lacking. So, the quick answer is no. The counties are where the action is.

Oh my! That would just encourage me to use that 2m frequency for a daily net or something like that...
 
...or better still, use it as the output frequency for a DMR repeater!

So here's what you are looking at from an average shop.
 
$50/ hr in travel charge
$100/hr tech time
$150/hr system tech time (things like testing repeater, checking for desense, tuning duplexer)
$200/hr engineering time (this will be the whole networking of the system)
 
Plus, material.
 
Then there is the whole networking aspect. IP? Link radios? Remember, hiring professional services means professional solutions so you'd be looking at NXU-2s and at a very minimum Ubiquiti PtP radios (assuming ISP connections are not available and LOS between sites is).
 
You're likely looking at $1500 to $2000 to setup the repeater at your home and another $3000-$6000 for getting everything networked.
 
 
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We know that some members here occasionally use Part 90 accepted Wouxun equipment and similar radios, especially for amateur applications.
 
The factory Wouxun software is good, but will not run properly on some operating systems.
 
The freeware aftermarket software called "KG-UV Commander" from Jim Mitchell, KC8UNJ, seems to work well on most PC systems and it may even be more flexible than the original factory software in some applications.  As far as we can tell, the Kenwood 2 pin cable, as used on TK-370G style portables, works with this software as does as the original  Wouxun USB cable.
 
The link below is being supplied as a convenience. The staff at MyGMRS takes no responsibility for any issues that might arise from the use of data supplied in this link. Please review Mr. Mitchell's disclaimer located under the Download button for additional details.
 
http://www.kc8unj.com/kguv.html

Since this is a city government system, why not just license the EMA/EOC with Part 90 equipment?  Using GMRS/FRS  for the purposes stated may not be reliable under some circumstances (interference from civilians)  and may be abused unless everyone using the equipment is individually licensed and trained properly.  I'm sure that someone in City Government already has an FRN for licensing other agencies, so a Part 90 license for a few 5 watt handi-talkies might be best all around. There are several Itinerant frequencies available that do not need frequency coordination and will probably have less outsider traffic than using FRS/GMRS.

I haven't posted here in quite a while but I'm in the process of dusting off my GMRS equipment and have just added a Midland MXT400 to the mix. (This radio looks to be the same hardware as my TYT TH-9000 UHF.)
 
One of the things I've done in the interim is to have become a hub station in the Digital Traffic Network part of Radio Relay International. The network is a recent offshoot of the digital component of the National Traffic System. I've been handling formal traffic (i.e. radiograms) for Maine since mid-2014 and am affiliated with both RRI and NTS.
 
RRI very recently adopted the National SOS Radio Network, a neighborhood radio watch system that was created post-Katrina. The system was based on the use of FRS radios. NSRN suspended a while ago but RRI saw it as what could be a component in a tiered system with FRS at the bottom for local community communications. Above that would be GMRS and then the ham operators. Hams could pass along messages to, for example, the local or county emergency management agencies or pass 3rd party messages into the traffic system. The system would also collect SITREPs from citizens and pass them along to the appropriate agencies.
 
There are pieces of some other pre-existing elements that are also being thrown into the mix, e.g. Neighborhood HamWatch.
 
I'm in the process of working to update our county program (see http://ballyhac.com/) that was put in place in 2015, after we had a fairly significant ice storm. (Of course, we've had no such storms since but it's only a matter of time until we get something equivalent to the one in 1998.) The goal will be to align with the national program.
 
The most current information on the RRI-NSRN program is in the most recent issue of the QNI newsletter. See https://qninewsletterdotnet.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/qni-2017-5.pdf
 
RRI's main page is at http://radio-relay.org/