RCM

Welcome to GMRS world. The tower stuff is a challenge and can be a handshake deal to a lease with a million dollar insurance policy. All depends on how hard you look. One thing I have noticed since I moved to the south is the amount of buildings with an old tower out back with no antenna or a damaged antenna on them. Alot of old car repair places, tractor supply and manufacturing buildings have them. Back home we found a warehouse that had multiple antennas on the roof. I was able to manage an agreement with the owner to use the UHF antenna for GMRS in trade for cleaning up the radio room and helping with some small projects. It worked well until he sold the building. The biggest issue with any tower owner is going to be access. The other thing many look for is done right work. Not saying it needs to be a $10,000 repeater but don't show up with 2 baofengs in a tupperware container. When doing the install use common sense and do what you can to make it correct. Proper cable, connectors, grounding is all key to a good working unit and a good looking unit. Another location I had one I was responsible for my own power. $35.00 a month i could do split between some buddies. 
 
I wouldn't even try to talk to American Tower or an of the big tower folks unless you have a few grand a month to burn a hole. Look for those like above. 

Your GMRS license is your authorization to own and operate a repeater.  Monitoring all 462 and 467 main frequencies for awhile is a good idea to check to see if any channels may be in use for other repeaters.

 

The M1225 series radios are good, if you have a way to program them as they need an older computer to program them. I personally use Kenwood TK880's which have software readily available online and will work on modern computers. They are first responder grade which means integrity & reliability are there, and not as expensive as the 1225's normally cost.

Corey, the reason I'd like to play with solid-state filters is to push the state of the art forward.  Cavities are perfectly serviceable, and I intend to use them in my first repeater.  However, at some point I'd like to build a truck-mounted transportable repeater, and it doesn't have room for a 19" equipment rack.  That means compromises in order to achieve acceptable performance and flexibility.  Complexity gets me great performance - imagine a hydrogen balloon carrying the antenna, tethered to the truck bed by some G-line - but drives up the cost something fierce.  It'd be a fun project, though, when I'm independently wealthy.  In the meanwhile, I shall content myself with only a modest improvement in antenna height.
 
Also, if I ever ended up with a lunchbox repeater like that, I'd be using an external linear amp to give it some respectable power output... ideally also a lunchbox form factor with an internal backup power supply.
 
Berkinet, I've looked at tiny fifty-watt duplexers on Amazon (about fifty bucks) that would easily fit in a single-DIN car mounting.  I suspect that's what the lunchbox repeater is using.  Alas, cars these days don't tend to have any DIN mounts, let alone extras.  I just can't afford the equipment to tune them myself, and I'm not sanguine about what I've heard about thermal drift on these things' calibration.  In a perfect world, there'd be community repeaters I could borrow everywhere I go, but most of the time I'm somewhere where I can't reach 'em, though at home I can sometimes barely hear the two in the region.
 
Jones, I do want an eight-channel repeater, and I want it cheap.  Not for me, but for the future of our hobby and the service as a whole.  If everybody could drop no more than $500 on a repeater and a cute little chimney-top tower, suburbia will be blanketed in community repeaters, and the utility and value of having a radio increases exponentially.  Cost, complexity, and colocation will kill budding hobbyists' ambitions, and in the same way you say "just use simplex" hams tell me "just use a cellphone".  I'd prefer not to be beholden to people whose business model includes AI-driven ad tracking and selling personal information; the competition will ultimately limit their options for screwing their customers over.  If people put wi-fi on those community repeaters' cute little towers, many people could get by without any cell plan at all.  I don't want to be the underutilized slice of UHF that gets sold to AT&T next... best way to avoid that, in my opinion, is to increase traffic and use until cell phone companies will look at the spectrum, sigh, and realize that even if they did buy it they'd never in their wildest dreams of enforcement success be able to stop all the people with walkie talkies from causing constant 5G blackouts, and won't be tempted to lobby for this.
 
That's why I want an eight-channel repeater.  Not for me, but for everybody.

My reading - and I am neither doctor nor lawyer, and this does not constitute medical or legal advice, or the practice of medicine or law - of the FCC rules leads me to believe that only the exciter is the regulated component, so long as the rest of the mess doesn't cause it to radiate beyond your permissions.
 
So I guess have one more vote for no problemo so long as you keep it on channels 15-22, and especially keep it out of the interstitials.

I have a Henry UHF Amp model C25D02, 1-5 watts in, 25 watts out. I've had if for over 20 years; it was given to me by a retired police chief from California. I had never used it because I didn't have a use for it. The tuned center frequency is 464 MHz with a 10 MHz bandwidth. Perfect for GMRS but unusable for 70cm ham radio.
 
So now I have a use for it in my GMRS repeater. I mentioned it in another thread earlier today. It's perfect for my repeater because 5 watts is the minimum specified power setting of the Kenwood TK-805D I'm using as the transmitter. That will raise its duty cycle, although it's not bad at its current setting of 12 watts.
The amplifier is rated 50% duty cycle mobile and 100% duty cycle in a repeater, at 25 watts output.
 
I had no documentation on the amp. It is still a current model, so I was able to find some data on it from the Henry website.
 
I decided earlier this evening to email the company and ask about Part 95A type classification, and also asked if I could get a manual. I received an email reply within the hour from Ted S. Henry. He assured me that it is indeed type accepted, and attached a pdf of the manual.
 
Two thumbs up for Henry Radio! 

I have a Henry UHF Amp model C25D02, 1-5 watts in, 25 watts out. I've had if for over 20 years; it was given to me by a retired police chief from California. I had never used it because I didn't have a use for it. The tuned center frequency is 464 MHz with a 10 MHz bandwidth. Perfect for GMRS but unusable for 70cm ham radio.
 
So now I have a use for it in my GMRS repeater. I mentioned it in another thread earlier today. It's perfect for my repeater because 5 watts is the minimum specified power setting of the Kenwood TK-805D I'm using as the transmitter. That will raise its duty cycle, although it's not bad at its current setting of 12 watts.
The amplifier is rated 50% duty cycle mobile and 100% duty cycle in a repeater, at 25 watts output.
 
I had no documentation on the amp. It is still a current model, so I was able to find some data on it from the Henry website.
 
I decided earlier this evening to email the company and ask about Part 95A type classification, and also asked if I could get a manual. I received an email reply within the hour from Ted S. Henry. He assured me that it is indeed type accepted, and attached a pdf of the manual.
 
Two thumbs up for Henry Radio! 

I have a Henry 1-5 watts in, 25 watts out amp. Center freq is 464 MHz and rated bandwidth is 10 MHz. Henry doesn't specify 95a type acceptance, at least on their website. But here is what they do state: "Type acceptance:  When used with type-accepted exciters - where applicable."
 
I might end up using it in my repeater. I think I saw a comment on this thread or another one on the site to the effect of there being no point in using an amplifier because most mobiles output at least 25 watts anyway.  Well, here's my point in considering its use: duty cycle. The transmitter in my repeater is rated at 25 watts, but only with a 10% transmit duty cycle. This is typical. I'm currently running it at ~12 watts for a higher duty cycle.  If I add the amplifier, I could reduce the transmitter power to its minimum of 5 watts while doubling my overall output power.  Running that amp at its full rated power is not a problem since Henry rates it at 50% duty cycle in mobile use, and 100 % in repeater use!
 
I believe it too, because its heat sink is nearly 4 times the size of the sink on my 25 watt radios.
 
There's another advantage to running an amp, too: I'm using spatial separation instead of a duplexer.  With an amp, I can locate the receiver antenna near the repeater and the transmit antenna farther from the repeater. That means the line loss will be mostly on the transmit side. So I can locate the amp out there near the transmit antenna and just increase the exciter power to compensate for the loss.
 
Kind of a reverse of how the serious VHF/UHF weak signal guys put a preamp at the antenna feedpoint to negate receive line loss.

5 AM Central Time, Saturday, January 26 - 14 degrees below zero with wind chill at 27 below zero. Colder at my Midwest location than in Fort Yukon, Alaska.

Several years ago, the morning air temperature was 27 degrees below - a lady went out to her car to go to work, saw that one tire looked a little soft - kicked it and it 'broke'.

It is so cold here that Scotsmen in the area are starting to wear pants. I tried to take the garbage out, but it didn't want to go. Pet stores here are starting to sell Penguins. Police told a robber to freeze - and he did. Mail delivery persons are watching out for dogs AND Polar Bears. It is so cold here that hitchhikers are holding up pictures of thumbs...
 
Now, where did I put my golf clubs?

I agree that most of this usually has to do with power and tower costs if the owner doesn't host it on an owned property. 
 
I have never viewed repeater access as a "right". If I own it, it's use is up to me, it is not public domain. The channel is, and if you want to use the output as your simplex, go ahead. I monitor before I transmit but if I am 15 miles away, I'm likely not going to hear a 3-4 watt portable working simplex. Sorry. 
 
As far as these stiff nosed repeater deals....well, some guy in my, say, region, supposedly has like 20 repeaters strung out over 7 counties, non over lapping mostly and not great coverage according to the maps, but has a real salty write up about "paying members only"....of course I don't believe that even half of his repeaters even exist. Has a big imagination. 
 
I run one repeater that is private (about 25 years) and one that is open (PL, but if someone wants to use it they can). 

So here is my take on this as this has come up in the past.
 
I run my repeaters with the travel tone and other tones. If a user wants a specific tone in the past and wanted to donate to the "repeater" fund I gave them another tone. More of the community tone aspect. Rarely did anyone ask or pay but I suggested when possible. 
 
My entire reasoning is the power bill. It was $35.00 a month and I had to pay it. I didn't care who used what but if i could recoup a little of that money to help offset the cost I tried. I went round and round with a ham club in the past about a similar item. They basically wanted to be in the shelter on the tower and not help out with anything yet they charged all there members dues yearly....
 
By no means did we kick anyone off or block users for not helping. I think anyone with that mentality should not own a repeater.
 
As others have said in the past a repeater on a good tower can be very costly for the party that owns it. 

§95.333   Prohibited uses.
© To transmit messages for hire or provide a common carrier service
 
Source: FCC
 
Radio common carrier means any corporation, company, association, joint stock association, partnership and person, their lessees, trustees or receivers and any town making available facilities to provide radio communications service, radio paging or cellular communications service for hire.
 
Source: https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/radio-common-carrier
 
Also, 
§95.1705
 
(4) (f)
(3) A station may be shared only:
(i) Without charge;
(ii) On a non-profit basis, with contributions to capital and operating expenses including the cost of mobile stations and paging receivers prorated equitably among all participants; or
(iii) On a reciprocal basis, i.e., use of one licensee's stations for the use of another licensee's stations without charge for either capital or operating expenses.
 
Source: FCC

I have to concur with WRCC719's comments. One thing that mystifies me is that there appears to be some GMRS users that to want to keep the use of GMRS to a minimum by others. It seems to me to be opposite the approach of most ham radio repeaters.
 
I live in a rural part of W. WI and other than our own family use of mostly simplex, there are few users of GMRS repeaters. Of course, compared to decades past, ham repeaters in our area are mostly silent as well due to most people using cell phone communication and from what I can tell, many new hams tend to become inactive. 
 
Are we seeing any increase in the number of GMRS licenses?
 
I wish there was a way to promote GMRS to the general public, but I am not sure how you could do this unless you had a critical mass that formed a club or similar organization. GMRS, with FRS interfacing for those who do not have a license, seems like a good solution for at least some folks. 

§95.333   Prohibited uses.
© To transmit messages for hire or provide a common carrier service
 
Source: FCC
 
Radio common carrier means any corporation, company, association, joint stock association, partnership and person, their lessees, trustees or receivers and any town making available facilities to provide radio communications service, radio paging or cellular communications service for hire.
 
Source: https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/radio-common-carrier
 
Also, 
§95.1705
 
(4) (f)
(3) A station may be shared only:
(i) Without charge;
(ii) On a non-profit basis, with contributions to capital and operating expenses including the cost of mobile stations and paging receivers prorated equitably among all participants; or
(iii) On a reciprocal basis, i.e., use of one licensee's stations for the use of another licensee's stations without charge for either capital or operating expenses.
 
Source: FCC

Just a couple thoughts - you may have already considered these, but I'm including this for persons with TK-880  (8 pin mic) radios that may not be aware of this:

Option 1:   TheTK880 series has the Operator Selectable Tone set up menu available through the software 'edit' tab.  Once you have the tones in place that you may need, then go to the "Key Assignments" drop down menu and assign the two arrow keys to the right of the "A" and "B" buttons to select the tones.
 
Option 2:  Go with an actual KMC 36  mic from Kenwood to solve the scan issue.
 
Good luck...

 

I can vouch for the quality of the Kenwood TK-880 radios. They are rugged, reliable and very professional radios! I have had two of them in constant use for the past three years.

Wow, are the thought police active here or what? I stopped addressing gun forums because people would get crazy. CHILL OUT!
 
I can start talking about radio controlled AR-15s if you really want excitement.

I've been running multiple 900mhz repeaters for years. It is a great band. Similar to 440mhz but with sharper nulls etc... The trick is finding clear input and output freqs...my machines are on odd splits because of that but since everyone is on commercial radios it doesnt matter.
 
Motorola GTX and MCS2000 are my preference.
KENWOOD TK-981 my other preference.
 
For at home base antennas comet makes a really well performing fiberglass vertical.
 
LMR-400 or better is damn near mandatory.
 
Thats my 2cents. FYI nyc based.

So I went and got the 33cm rig today. And here's a cool kicker: the guy I bought it from also has an unlisted GMRS repeater, and gave me permission to use it!

LoL, so the answer is yes.

I already have 222, and have had for years.
I've joined a 33cm discussion group, and buying a Kenwood TK-981 today. We'll see how it does.

I built mine as a very basic controller, without the voice ID. That can be added later, if I decide I want it. But it works perfectly for what it is. It was also delivered quickly, all the parts were there, documentation was thorough and it went together without difficulty. It was also easy to program.
 
Most GMRS repeaters that I have heard don't even have ID nor an EOT indicator. Some don't even have a squelch tail. It can be hard to tell if you are even getting into the repeater, or if a listed repeater even actually exists in real life. I have mine programmed to ID (in Morse code) after the first transmission and (if and as long as there are subsequent transmissions) every 15 minutes until the activity is over. I also have it set to beacon every hour. This is to announce its presence to GMRS operators who might be traveling through the area. Another advantage of the beacon mode is it allows me to listen for it when I am out and about, as an aid in gauging its coverage.
 
The ID-O-Matic adds these features to my repeater, and makes interconnection between the receiver and transmitter used in the repeater, for less than $50 shipped. Sure you can get a controller with more features. They start at about $200 and go up rapidly. $300+ is more common for controllers that have more features than the ID-O-Matic offers.
But the radios I'm using as receiver and transmitter have PL built in, so I don't need that built into the controller. My repeater is easy for me to access, so I don't need to be able to control it remotely. Nor do I have any need nor desire to have a computer powered up and connected to it 24/7.
 
This little controller does everything I need it to do, and does it at a price that is not much more than those Chinese controller boxes that connect a pair of BF-888s or whatever and use VOX to control the transmit. And it's a much more serious controller than those. It's not a fair comparison to pick it apart based on the features found in a $300+ controller.
 
So that's my review. I give it thumbs up, and I'll probably buy at least one more of them.

Maybe it's intentional. If his business grows too much, he'll have to hire people. And that opens a whole new can of worms!

Maybe it's intentional. If his business grows too much, he'll have to hire people. And that opens a whole new can of worms!

I'd be using it if the Part 15 stuff weren't.