linx

Might be meeting the wrong people, just about everyone I have ever talked to about radio has been very welcoming to the hobby.

We have a fairly active repeater here, but most conversations happen on simplex and the repeater is used more for range, and most conversations happening are between people that already know each other.

How many mounting locations do you want? "Yes" lol I have those bullet proof mounts in my colorado z71, great stuff. I abuse my truck pretty good, and my phone and tablet have never fallen out or even moved.

You can use this website to generate tower coverages in your area, and even display multiple coverages at the same time. It won't be circles like you are asking because of terrain, but it will show you the coverage of the repeater so long as you know the coordinates and height of the antenna. It asks for other information as well like gain, you can just ballpark it unless you need something very accurate. https://www.ve2dbe.com/rmonline_s.asp

I also need to know this ^

If someone is on they will let them know if they are not receiving, and people do radio checks, I guess it is more of an extra assurance. It also lets them know they are on the repeater channel since the tone we use is not shared by anyone's radio. We also provide coverage maps for up to 60mi for 5w handhelds, and so far from testing it's pretty dang accurate. I'm onboard with whatever makes the end user happy.

We have a courtesy tone on the repeater here because we find it helps new users understand that they reached the repeater, and don't need to keep asking "Is anyone hearing me on the repeater?" Some users still have their roger beep on, so you get a double tone every now and then, but it's not a huge deal. This is because a lot of users also talk on simplex, and they like to have the beep on. If this was on more radios, that would definitely help our double beep "issue".

You can use whatever you like to help someone understand your callsign. I typically only use phonetics if someone doesn't understand, however we usually refer to each other by name, handle, or callsign suffix "789". You can use NATO such as "Whiskey Romeo Victor Yankee 7 8 9" or some people use what the Sheriff's office here uses "William Robert Victor Young 7 8 9". I find that GMRS is pretty casual, so it's not likely anyone is going to try and get up in your face for not using NATO phonetics.

The 10w is not going to make much of a difference, antenna and height matter more. People talk on my repeater over 100mi away on 40w, because they have a good line of sight to my repeater. I can talk on the repeater with a 5w HT from at least 30mi just from what I have tested.

Well yeah, you are the smartest and most understanding person in the room obviously.

Sus link is sus

Great additional point. Even if you are wireless, it becomes wired in the chain somewhere when using the internet. Even in the case of starlink, they eventually have ground stations, and I guess that could be considered "Wireline". Now if they said that they just don't want them on the internet, I would have snagged some air fiber units, but I think it is pretty clear they don't want linking at all.

Yes now that they clarified. I understand the rule never changed, but the rule itself is so poorly written it leaves room to speculate. It should have been written "Operation of a GMRS station with a telephone connection or other networks is prohibited". Do you not understand that laws and rules can be interpreted differently by people? This is why terms of service for websites are 40 pages long.

I do understand the rule now, but even still, whoever is writing this is awful at their job. "Or other networks" should appear directly after "telephone connection" in "Operation of a GMRS station with a telephone connection is prohibited".

It disagree, it was never clear until recently. No matter what way you put it, the internet is not a PSTN. I see the comments saying "With VoIP, there are no pstn lines anymore, VoIP is the new pstn" etc. It's simply not. They are completely different technologies. The FCC just never kept up with the changing technology and they are 30+ years late to the clarification. VoIP is older than I am, and I am more than 30 years old. Typical government speed.

I am in favor of repeater linking, so long as there is not a lot of coverage overlap, and I know that is just about impossible to regulate (the FCC likely wouldn't anyway). I setup my repeater in Kingman AZ, with hopes of setting up one in Lake Havasu, and possibly Bullhead City to be part time linked together to provide non-overlapping coverage, but I was a little late to the party. The repeater we have covers the Kingman and Golden Valley area, Bullhead can hardly get in, and Havasu is completely in the dark because of the mountains in our area. I see this as a benefit, for myself, off-roaders, and hikers. I do volunteer SAR and I am all over the county, and when I am in range of the repeater, I am able to check in with family. People here that go off-roading or hiking will go from Havasu to Kingman to the Hualapai mountains for example (Because its much cooler in the summer), and may want to check-in with their family at home. What I am most butthurt about is that I bought all this equipment to link repeaters, spent all that time setting it up, then the FCC clarifies the rules lol. Good thing I only bought 1 repeater and linking hardware.

That is what I use, the repeater works great with 1 exception. They advertise that you can use multiple tones CTCSS and DCS. If you choose to use DCS as the input tone, you are only allowed 1 user slot, and you can't even have an operator slot for repeater control. If you want to use multiple tones or have a non repeated operator tone, you are limited to CTCSS only. I don't know if they have updated their documentation to reflect that now, but when I was purchasing mine about 9 months ago, it did not say anything about only being able to use 1 DCS input tone. EDIT: I own the 40U. I saw this in the GMRS equipment section of the forum and didn't read the replies, I assumed this was for analog use.

I use the db408-b on my repeater, There is a label with all the info at the base of the antenna, but if it has been in service for years, it may be faded or missing. It is only a sticker.