MaxHeadroom

I completely understand the sentiment which is why I am looking myself to do something that is not linked to another club or entity. I called out last night on SCHEART between Florence and Columbia and never got a reply during rush hour no less - just tells me how the hams in the area respond to statewide linked repeater systems. The CSRA GMRS group seems to be the closest. I tried to link up with them back in 2019 timeframe when they were just starting up and tried to offer some assistance/equipment but never got a reply. Sadly I sold those MTR2000s since then but getting a capable UHF repeater isn't monumental - I have a "throw away" VXR-7000 coming to me as we speak. I can be available as well with a heads up - I work from home so I am usually close enough to a radio and repeater.

What I heard is ham clubs are still getting accommodated so I would think GMRS would as well under the same non-profit/"community benefit" vane. I have not tried to talk to ETV since I moved back but I can acquire an MTR2000 or Quantar easily enough to put up a repeater that would cover the entire Lexington County area easily. My personal battle around here is finding a tower for a private VHF repeater which I was hoping to coordinate for use for SCSG and CERT but that effort stalls every time I try.

I used to work for SC ETV and maintained that 147.000 repeater - the tower is empty minus the cell site on it now and the county's bus and bus maintenance repeaters. There's definitely room on the tower and in the building at the base, but ETV is getting picky about people putting things on the towers unless they're a ham club (GMRS might be doable if I talk to my old boss) but otherwise they want to charge rent for the site. I am down in the Gilbert/B-L area so I am hoping to get something to cover a little better. I did finally notice the .725 issue some time ago but I think its stopped since - unless my radio is just not unmuting for that mess anymore.

The Columbia 725 repeater is actually one of the best in the area and Patrick is awesome to get access from. Little Mountain 600 I am involved in but the repeater owner has closed all access for years now since its decently loaded when the occasion arises. I am hoping to put one more up in the area just to try and bridge the gap between the two on the south side of Lake Murray so if anyone has leads on sites I am definitely interested.

To your first 3 bullet points: ALL of that spectrum is already allocated to Part 90 (either as paging/radiotelephone or LMR) and will never be reallocated to a family service. Do a FCC ULS search for your proposed frequencies to see what I am talking about. Requiring Narrowband would be theoretical if there was new spectrum available, but narrowbanding the existing frequencies will be utterly useless when there's already interstitial channels (FRS) between existing GMRS channels which would cause a lot of co-channel interference issues. Digital Voice would not be within the rules either unless the point above with narrowbanding was able to be settled, and even then would only be one permitted modulation to prevent splintering of the service in a way that causes more issues than it solves. There's already super stringent regulation on data over the voice channels so I do not see a full digital modulation being easily accepted, never mind allowing multiple. With all that said, there would not be any grandfathering allowed since these would be sweeping changes to the service that would mean that some of the currently grandfathered users would become unintentional interference to the other user base. Moving the service definition will never happen either as all parts of 47 CFR have regulations which dictate frequencies and use cases for each service, none of which cross-over or are movable by current rule - FCC won't rewrite the book for GMRS especially with the current "attention" happening. Part 90 equipment on Part 95 - that is actually doable and I was working on in 2017 and 2019 but would need to be a separate effort from everything else considering what I mentioned above about all the other pieces. Add type acceptance onto frequency/spectrum management for a service and this would stall before it got any traction. I think you have a lot of spirit with this but sadly none of it is truly doable except the last part which should be tackled first to show that existing certified radios can be used in Part 95, which be default in 2024 opens up the "commonality of digital capable radios in a family service" and then work up from there. Sadly though there won't be any "free lunch" and GMRS will not see any change in frequency allocations unless something else is given up which this being my day job as well... I have yet to come to a workable conclusion that could be pitched to the FCC.

That is how I would do it - use the XPR as the transmitter and the SVR as the receiver - make sure both are programmed only to one channel so no one can veer them off-course and where a duplexer isn't tuned. Did the same with a Motorola XTL5000 and Futurecom DVRS as a "camping repeater" and works well for the most part - but definitely keep duty cycle low on the repeater or the transmit radio WILL get hot.

This right here. Hams are well-intentioned in almost every instance I have worked with them from an EM standpoint, but too many of them think they'll be doing swift water rescue in a mobility scooter or other wild self-proclaimed abilities. There's also something to be said about vetting hams that can do the tasks asked of them instead of finding the rag chewers that have nothing better to do because everything around them is closed down. These hams complaining that they need to take a course or anything else need to sit down - if you cannot "play well with others" enough to take a half-day class, practice your craft and be evaluated for your skill, or anything else... you're not helping out the effort.

Doesn’t matter. 25 repeaters in that part of the state is exactly why the FCC is deciding to “clarify” since 25 divided by 8 means even with properly spaced out repeaters there’s no free channels and reuse of each one 3 times… for money. Where does the family repeater owner go then that wants their GR1225 on their roof for the neighborhood?

All antennas have resonance - and that resonance is part of the entire transmitter design. In commercial LMR it’s why anyone says “stick with the stock antenna” as it’s been designed for that transmitter and for best performance. With these radios, there is no engineering going into the transceiver/antenna design and matching so I know some want to find something “better”. The Nagoya antennas are typically the “gold standard” but there’s A LOT of bad clones of them. The Abree “tape measure antenna” - skip it. Last few I got my hands on swept resonant in UHF around 420MHz - nowhere close to the 465ish range you need for GMRS/FRS.

Motorola, Harris, Kenwood/EFJ - almost all commercial/public safety radios will offer what you're looking for. GMRS doesn't have it in the radios you normally see because to be totally blunt, most of them are all rebranded from the same reference design and "radio on a chip", and most of those manufacturers won't bother putting anymore more than DTMF SelCall on the feature list. Motorola calls it MDC1200, Harris of yore called it GE-Star or similar, Kenwood called it FleetSync... its a small "data burst" you initiate and the receiving radio stays muted until it receives a burst with its ID contained within it. When the receiving radio does receive a call/page, it will either beep and then unmute, or beep incessantly until the user hits PTT to say something at which point you know they're "free". This was used primarily in situations like GMRS where there's one repeater, tons of users, and no one wants the radio going off 24/7 with irrelevant traffic - like cab companies. As for "legality" - GMRS allows it by rule. Repeater owners and other operators that barely grasp PLs will get mad about "that digital crap on the radio". We run it almost exclusively here to keep the channel muted.

That’s worked before - sometimes enough to get the annoying party off the air for good. Like I mentioned about hams and squatting on pairs - funnily enough in my area they were also hams that thought PL was “new tech” so everything ran CSQ. Put up a repeater with every ID/weather/widget voice ID controller option checked and even if no one uses the repeater the squatter will usually vacate pretty quick!

I don’t think it’s “microscopic” but it has something very unique - activity. The main page is also one of the only (and most comprehensive) databases of repeaters/sites/systems and contacts to them. That’s more than what I can say about GMRS several years back. Not much of a stretch to run with that and propose a “regulatory body” for GMRS repeater coordination like hams do or FCC already mandates as a prerequisite to coordinated licensing.

Thank you for posting that - I do not live in NC anymore but have family that has GMRS radios and licensing and we used to use that system a decent bit. Hopefully a few more standalone repeaters can be put up in key areas to make up for lack of linking. That was the issue when I left NC is a lot of small sites interconnected but not many "lighthouse stations" as I'd like to call them - ones that can cover a county or 3 on their own.

That is the intention with any repeater I install for my use or my family/friends. The 2 I have up locally are both on surplus telco batteries using RV solar panels/charge controllers with AC power to create essentially an "unlimited UPS" when shack power is lost. No internet linking, not even RF linking since power budget has to be taken into account for then your link radio and repeater. Wide area coverage, mobile-centric coverage. That is how most public safety systems are built as well since handheld coverage will always be the most "expensive" to design around no matter what. I think most of the SHTF conversations have a lot in common, but never come to a similar conclusion - power and survivability being key. I think a lot of people see CB as a good alternative because "low power and less to maintain" except HF propagation is not to be relied on - and even DHS/FEMA/etc are getting a reality awakening on that end after throwing very expensive Codan radios at all agencies/hospitals/etc and then realizing its not guaranteed you can hit the next station 200 miles away. That is part of your SHTF - have to decide what matters and when/where because you'll never be able to feasibly cover "all risks".

That is a lot of what I mean when I say one of the principles of GMRS and even amateur radio is "be a good neighbor". In these hobbies/services its very much like a conquest and first to "plant their flag" has squatter's rights to that location/frequency. FCC directly manages all Part 90 with third party coordinators working on their behalf, and amateur radio has volunteer coordinating bodies in regions to try and do the same. The only problem now is that amateur radio has issues with this stuff as well (frequency pairs being squatted on for decades with no equipment running on it and corruption within organizations) - and GMRS is lacking any sort of structure like that at all. This site/forum in my mind is meant to be that coordinating place - if people would stop attacking each other and their ideals in a way to actually benefit the service instead of their own egos.