WRTC928

As I see it, the biggest advantage to a repeater in your situation would be so anyone with a GMRS license could get out a message to everyone whether GMRS or FRS due to the repeater's power and (hopefully) elevation. As I commented in my previous post, you could accomplish the same thing with a good base unit, but it would have to be monitored, and you might have to relay something from a lower-powered unit. GMRS is not intended for "broadcasting", but as I read the rules, transmitting a warning message (i.e; "The NWS has issued a tornado warning for our area." or "There's a fire southwest of us moving our way.") would be perfectly permissible.

That's probably true, but I think I'd install a base unit with an antenna as high as I could get it. There may be some fringe areas where users can communicate with the base but can't necessarily reach all the other people in the neighborhood. For general announcements, it would be nice to have a unit that you know can reach everyone.

Thanks. That's good to know.

Now that I know such a thing exists, it appears they're not prohibitively expensive. here and here $50 seems cheap enough to avoid blowing up my house.

That's what I wanted to know. Thank you. Off-grid solar/battery arrays apparently typically have some sophisticated circuitry associated with them and it probably balances the voltages. 50 Ah will probably give me plenty of standby capability. Certainly enough to go swap the battery. I have damaged shoulders, and I prefer not to deal with the weight of a 100 Ah battery, especially if I want to take it somewhere else. I can always buy one later if I change my mind.

And a follow up question... Is there any reason I can't hook two 50 Ah lifePO4 batteries in parallel to provide 100 Ah like you can with lead-acid batteries? I think some solar charging systems do something similar, but I'm not sure. I can't think of a reason why it would be a problem, but this is uncharted territory for me.

As I said, I don't know much about these batteries, and it gets confusing to read the info on the sales sites. They never say whether the thing will safely act like a trickle charger or not.

My father had burn scars on his chest from a bit of WP spray he got in the Korean War. I never thought to ask him if the grenade was Chinese or American. Speaking of destroying equipment, in 1978, US troops on the listening posts in Iran had to pull out in a hurry and leave their highly classified comm equipment behind. They applied something that looked like fruit roll-ups and lit it. In fairly short order, it reduced millions of dollars' worth of equipment to slag. I don't know what that stuff was, but I'll bet I could have some fun with it.

All the ones I use much now have BNC connectors installed. I can use any antenna on any radio, and I don't worry about breaking the SMA connector.

I guess if you can afford it, you "need" as many repeaters as you want. I can imagine if someone travels a regular route, it would be nice to have access to repeaters all along the way. I can't afford that myself, but I am soon going to put one up in Purcell to cover the empty air from the one in Pauls Valley to the one in Moore.

True, but the male thread/male center pin and female thread/female center socket don't seem to be used much, at least not on inexpensive Chinese HTs.

Ask away! Most of the knowledgeable people here are extremely helpful. There's no place on the internet which doesn't have some jerks, but there are fewer here than in most places.

Yeah, I had a lot of false starts before I got it figured out. I figured I'd try to make it simpler for others. I don't know if your radio has a male SMA connector (like a Baofeng) or a female one (like a Retevis). Be sure you order the right adapter. Either way, you want to change it to a female BNC connector.

Just today, I heard a guy use his ham callsign on a GMRS repeater. I told him the FCC will take away his dessert tonight.

That's good to know. I was not aware of that.