JeepCrawler98

Thanks. Here's the link to the page I used.
 
https://www.qsl.net/dk7zb/Stacking/splitter.htm
 
And here's the software. Software seems pretty good.
 
http://www.hp.woodshot.com/

I've been making phasing harnesses throughout the years, but never a power divider. I figured I'd give it a shot. Did all my calculations to get to where I needed to be with the materials that are over the counter. Finding the right combination of outer and inner pipes is the biggest challenge.  My target was the high end of the GMRS band so that's where I did my calculations. Of course UHF being extremely critical of measurements a few thousandth of an inch either way can be a PITA. Testing it on the NanoVNA yields just barely a 1.4:1 at 467.650 MHz and under 1.2:1 at 444.175 MHz, my most used frequencies. Now I know what to look out for and compensate should I decide to build another.  Anyway, here's the finished product.
Everything all soldered and watertight waiting on a coat of battleship gray epoxy paint.

 
Everything soldered waiting for the final top cap after testing. Two 50 ohm terminators for testing.

 
Center conductor (11mm Brass Tube 1mm wall thickness) ready for installation. The 12 gauge copper center conductor is left intentionally long and will be much short once installed.  N-connector soldered on other end.

 
Brass tube with 8-32 threaded brass nut with rounded corners pressed in prior to solder.

You need to scroll to where you see the map dialog and drag the myGMRS icon to where it belongs.
 

I wouldn't expect the Shari's to cause you any problems; but since you're probably familiar with AllStar - using that package as a repeater controller is perfectly feasible as well; it's the same back end that the myGMRS network uses should you be interested in linking at some point (or not)

So far so good, recommend running the 40 watt radio at 25w and blowing some cold air on it if you're going to turn the keys over to the public or use it for a good rag-chewing session; if you need a simple repeater controller to handle time-out and ID consider the ID-O-Matic IV - it has a built in fan controller too.
If you have other transmitters with decent power output at your house in the 70cm or other UHF bands that will key up while the repeater is in use, you need to be aware of and understand mixing products, how they work, and how they can be mitigated. Mixing products can and regularly do wreak havoc throughout the radio spectrum and cause all kinds of problems not just with your own gear, but other licensed uses as well. I can elaborate if this will be your setup, they're one of the reasons why commercial sites are more complicated to install at properly.
What feedline are you planning on running? Good grade cable is tantamount to having a good set of ears as the cheaper stuff will cause noise to the point where it deafens your receiver, since your transmitter is sharing the same cable as the receiver. RG-58 or RG8x isn't going to cut it; good quality LMR400 is fine for backyard or other 'short-run' installs, hardline is better but will probably not pay back in your application - save that for a site you don't want to have to yourself drive back to. Don't forget grounding, weatherproofing, and surge arrestors, but that's kind of a given...

Some of us want to keep the riff-raff out while we tend to our caviar and champagne parties, you know...

Some of us want to keep the riff-raff out while we tend to our caviar and champagne parties, you know...

It's in your profile settings; from the "mygmrs.com" site hit edit profile, there's a toggle switch labeled "repeater access requests." turn it off (grey, to the left) and hit save profile.

Just in case anyone checks the forums before the main site... we have a new myGMRS!
After well over a year of fooling around with the new website, I have finally launched it. This is a big leap in technology since the original website was created in 2006 and only had a few incremental updates over the years. This new platform will allow us to put out quicker updates, brand-new features, and bonus features for Premium Members.
Premium Membership is an optional subscription where you can remove ads from the website, generate PDF reports of repeaters and licenses in any state, and create your own Club listing (part of the forums) so you don't need to create your own website! All of the existing features of myGMRS will remain free, of course.
A new mobile app is also in the works, although we're not close to a release date for that. The long-awaited iOS version will be part of the release, as well as a completely new Android app.
Since this is such a radically different website, I'm sure there will be some issues along the way. If anyone runs into bugs or problems of any kind, please don't hesitate to submit a bug report at this Google Forms URL rather than the forums or by email (as it'll be much easier to review):  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe6XLmCW-UU0Bp9lN9zM3L9gO_TCkArIN2oY-hOLG9x01B3lg/viewform
Thank you everyone for the wonderful support and thank you to our Beta testers. You know who you are!
Have a Happy New Year!

A fixed station is one that’s not broken; I usually work on breaking my fixed station 

A fixed station is one that’s not broken; I usually work on breaking my fixed station 

You flipped the switch! Looks good Rich; I particularly appreciate the ability to pull reports and dark mode so I don't have to wear my sunglasses at night...

This will be a premium feature on the new beta site that Rich is working on; it's in the works but not here yet.

This will be a premium feature on the new beta site that Rich is working on; it's in the works but not here yet.

Commercial radios can frequently do this - I have this set up to page my family in case they want to keep the radio muted from the every day chatter on the repeater, or I need to alert them when they're away from the radio. Take a look at 2-tone paging; it's robust and plays nicely with weaker signal strengths which is why it's popular with the various public safety agencies still on analog (it's the two long beeps you hear before the buzzer goes off at the fire station).
Other options that can do this include DTMF and AFSK (MDC/FleetSync) signalling.
edit: see http://genave.com/two-tone-paging/

In general it's good to plan on UHF being line of sight for reliability purposes. With that said, VHF and UHF can go beyond what you can see pretty readily. It's not going to bounce off the atmosphere (short of rare atmospheric conditions), but you do have refraction and reflection within the environment.
If you're standing on a perfect marble - yup it's going to go into space like you mention. Same for the most part with rolling hills or paths over sustained topography; it's what you can see for the most part.
Down in my neck of the woods (Tucson), there's a lot of isolated mountain ranges. If you're on the other side of a mountain and the topography is such that the top of the mountain forms a somewhat clean 'knife edge' between you and another station roughly perpendicular to your path; the signal can actually bend over the top pretty easily and you can get a pretty appreciable signal even thought here's a huge mass of rock in your way.
Likewise, UHF can also reflect on large planar-ish surfaces such as rock faces. I have a few repeaters I can hit/hear from Phoenix at my house decently (over in the northern end of Tucson) even though I have a small mountain range in the way. When I point the yagi at Pusch ridge (a large rock face/cliff formation about 15 miles from my location), they actually come in with a solid signal, if I try and point it at the direct path to the repeater, it's nothing but noise. Plotting the path on Google Earth actually revealed that this rock face is at almost a perfect angle to act as a reflector in this direction where both my station and the repeater have line of sight to it, but not between my station and the repeater directly. This has actually proven to be a reliable tool for me for hitting those machines - works every time.

In general it's good to plan on UHF being line of sight for reliability purposes. With that said, VHF and UHF can go beyond what you can see pretty readily. It's not going to bounce off the atmosphere (short of rare atmospheric conditions), but you do have refraction and reflection within the environment.
If you're standing on a perfect marble - yup it's going to go into space like you mention. Same for the most part with rolling hills or paths over sustained topography; it's what you can see for the most part.
Down in my neck of the woods (Tucson), there's a lot of isolated mountain ranges. If you're on the other side of a mountain and the topography is such that the top of the mountain forms a somewhat clean 'knife edge' between you and another station roughly perpendicular to your path; the signal can actually bend over the top pretty easily and you can get a pretty appreciable signal even thought here's a huge mass of rock in your way.
Likewise, UHF can also reflect on large planar-ish surfaces such as rock faces. I have a few repeaters I can hit/hear from Phoenix at my house decently (over in the northern end of Tucson) even though I have a small mountain range in the way. When I point the yagi at Pusch ridge (a large rock face/cliff formation about 15 miles from my location), they actually come in with a solid signal, if I try and point it at the direct path to the repeater, it's nothing but noise. Plotting the path on Google Earth actually revealed that this rock face is at almost a perfect angle to act as a reflector in this direction where both my station and the repeater have line of sight to it, but not between my station and the repeater directly. This has actually proven to be a reliable tool for me for hitting those machines - works every time.

In general it's good to plan on UHF being line of sight for reliability purposes. With that said, VHF and UHF can go beyond what you can see pretty readily. It's not going to bounce off the atmosphere (short of rare atmospheric conditions), but you do have refraction and reflection within the environment.
If you're standing on a perfect marble - yup it's going to go into space like you mention. Same for the most part with rolling hills or paths over sustained topography; it's what you can see for the most part.
Down in my neck of the woods (Tucson), there's a lot of isolated mountain ranges. If you're on the other side of a mountain and the topography is such that the top of the mountain forms a somewhat clean 'knife edge' between you and another station roughly perpendicular to your path; the signal can actually bend over the top pretty easily and you can get a pretty appreciable signal even thought here's a huge mass of rock in your way.
Likewise, UHF can also reflect on large planar-ish surfaces such as rock faces. I have a few repeaters I can hit/hear from Phoenix at my house decently (over in the northern end of Tucson) even though I have a small mountain range in the way. When I point the yagi at Pusch ridge (a large rock face/cliff formation about 15 miles from my location), they actually come in with a solid signal, if I try and point it at the direct path to the repeater, it's nothing but noise. Plotting the path on Google Earth actually revealed that this rock face is at almost a perfect angle to act as a reflector in this direction where both my station and the repeater have line of sight to it, but not between my station and the repeater directly. This has actually proven to be a reliable tool for me for hitting those machines - works every time.

It's a bit more convoluted than that: https://scotthelme.co.uk/lets-encrypt-old-root-expiration/

Using another repeater falls under the cooperative use clause and restrictions by the owner fall under 'individual licensee duties' of 47 CFR §95.1705:
 
Repeaters are still classified as 'stations.' This section is why many repeater owners require permission, as they're technically required to keep a list of control stations.
Key takeaways:
"Shall determine specifically which individuals, including family members, are allowed to operate (i.e., exercise operational control over) its GMRS station(s)"
(2) May allow any person to use (i.e., benefit from the operation of) its GMRS repeater, or alternatively, may limit the use of its GMRS repeater to specific persons;
(3) May disallow the use of its GMRS repeater by specific persons as may be necessary to carry out its responsibilities under this section.
"Specifically" in that first paragraph implies that a repeater's licensee must specify who you allow to act as a control station (which is any station using a repeater) over your GMRS station (in this case a repeater). This pretty much means that you have a duty as a repeater owner to keep a list of users to be compliant with this rule.
This is aside from helping to tune out the noise caused by people who take others' hard work for granted and cause trouble.
I don't think anyone stumbling onto a GMRS repeater is breaking the rules as a control station since it's hard to post a repeater as locked down in a matter fitting public notice; but the repeater owner does have a legal burden to keep track of you as a permitted user which users need to be aware of and thus should notify repeater owners of their intent. Of course, per the above, they can tell you to get off their equipment too and it's entirely within their rights to do so.
In practice; is this ever enforced and does the FCC care? I doubt it - but it is in the rules.

See:
I interpret "it retransmits only communications from GMRS stations operating under authority of the individual licensed under which it operates" as individuals authorized to use the repeater owner's license only (ie. authorized family members). Then for bullet number two, you can't guarantee that everyone using your repeater will identify properly especially if you turn it open to the licensed public, so it's best practice to have the machine ID on that merit alone.
The only time you're in the clear if the repeater doesn't identify is if it's a private, family-use-only repeater and everyone ID's.
Sauce: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-D/part-95#95.1751
There was a comment a ways up about intentionally not having repeaters ID to keep them unknown - while I understand the sentiment, it's a bad idea in the sense that GMRS doesn't have a frequency coordination body. Since we're all supposed to play nice and not cause interference, self-coordination becomes more difficult if your machine is undetectable; I can't avoid a repeater if I have no way of knowing it's there. List it on myGMRS and have it beacon if you want to discourage other users from parking others on the same frequency, then use split tones or other mechanisms to lock it down to your use only, otherwise don't be surprised if someone shows up with their own repeater on the same frequency one day. The beacon can be less frequent than the 'active traffic' identifying requirement; even if you do it on the hour or every few hours it's enough to be noticed by someone monitoring for a free frequency pair.

See:
I interpret "it retransmits only communications from GMRS stations operating under authority of the individual licensed under which it operates" as individuals authorized to use the repeater owner's license only (ie. authorized family members). Then for bullet number two, you can't guarantee that everyone using your repeater will identify properly especially if you turn it open to the licensed public, so it's best practice to have the machine ID on that merit alone.
The only time you're in the clear if the repeater doesn't identify is if it's a private, family-use-only repeater and everyone ID's.
Sauce: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-D/part-95#95.1751
There was a comment a ways up about intentionally not having repeaters ID to keep them unknown - while I understand the sentiment, it's a bad idea in the sense that GMRS doesn't have a frequency coordination body. Since we're all supposed to play nice and not cause interference, self-coordination becomes more difficult if your machine is undetectable; I can't avoid a repeater if I have no way of knowing it's there. List it on myGMRS and have it beacon if you want to discourage other users from parking others on the same frequency, then use split tones or other mechanisms to lock it down to your use only, otherwise don't be surprised if someone shows up with their own repeater on the same frequency one day. The beacon can be less frequent than the 'active traffic' identifying requirement; even if you do it on the hour or every few hours it's enough to be noticed by someone monitoring for a free frequency pair.

Just a heads up, and this should only affect older or nodes running self configured software (such as Debian 9, or modified HamVoIP or ASL builds). It appears the issuing authority for the myGMRS TLS certificates (LetsEncrypt) is no longer playing nicely with certain older systems, so certain nodes are no longer pulling in the node list or posting statistics to the mygmrs network map.
If your node is no longer showing up on the mygmrs.network map or able to connect to other nodes otherwise on the network; the easiest workaround I know of is to not have it check for certificates, by modifying as follows:
rpt.conf: your statpost_program should be as follows: 
statpost_program=/usr/bin/wget,-q,--timeout=5,--tries=1,--no-check-certificate,--output-document=/dev/null If you do not have this string, add it - the main change is the addition of --no-check-certificate, the other stuff is to keep you from spamming the mygmrs server in case there's network issues.
Node list: depending on your mechanisms for pulling in the nodes list (https://mygmrs.network/nodes)
If you're using usr/local/bin/rc.updatenodelist - you'll need to add "--no-check-certificate" to the calls to wget in that file. I don't use this mechanism, so if someone wants to take a stab at modifying that one and posting it here I'm sure it'd be appreciated. If you're using wget in a cron job - add "--no-check-certificate" to the line you have for that  

RG8x is better than RG58 but is still terrible for UHF - spring for the LMR400; it'll give you a noticeable boost in performance. It's worth the cost: https://abrind.com/product-category/abr400-solid-ultraflex-assemblies/
I can't comment first hand on the antenna; but the Browing BR-6353 works well at GMRS for what it is, it's only slightly more than the TWAYRADIO brand: https://www.theantennafarm.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=3580&gclid=Cj0KCQjwkbuKBhDRARIsAALysV7PYMkBxYiCxyoQ5dSVENW9I2CnZc0eMgrFmNlvt_oP7ufbQQW9qdYaAiPhEALw_wcB. It's fully welded and pre-tuned, it's surprisingly tough for how cheap it is. I recommend getting away from Amazon when shopping for radio stuff.
Bonus points for the type N connectors too - while PL259's are also called "UHF" connectors it's because when they were designed UHF was anything above 30mhz; Type N is mechanically a better and lower loss connector, and are better for weatherproofing too.
edit:
Back on the coax; you're putting up a 7.1dBi yagi antenna, with 50' RG-8x you will lose 4.246db of that gain for a net system gain of 2.9db.
In contrast; with the LMR400 - you're 'only losing' 1.371dB for a net system gain of 5.7dB
For the hell of it - using RG-58 results in a net system gain of 0.2dB; it'd almost completely negate the benefit of your antenna to an isotropic radiator (which is below the performance of a basic dipole as it is already).
For reference; a basic dipole 'unity gain' antenna is 2.15dBi (aka 0.0dBd)
see: https://www.qsl.net/co8tw/Coax_Calculator.htm

RG8x is better than RG58 but is still terrible for UHF - spring for the LMR400; it'll give you a noticeable boost in performance. It's worth the cost: https://abrind.com/product-category/abr400-solid-ultraflex-assemblies/
I can't comment first hand on the antenna; but the Browing BR-6353 works well at GMRS for what it is, it's only slightly more than the TWAYRADIO brand: https://www.theantennafarm.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=3580&gclid=Cj0KCQjwkbuKBhDRARIsAALysV7PYMkBxYiCxyoQ5dSVENW9I2CnZc0eMgrFmNlvt_oP7ufbQQW9qdYaAiPhEALw_wcB. It's fully welded and pre-tuned, it's surprisingly tough for how cheap it is. I recommend getting away from Amazon when shopping for radio stuff.
Bonus points for the type N connectors too - while PL259's are also called "UHF" connectors it's because when they were designed UHF was anything above 30mhz; Type N is mechanically a better and lower loss connector, and are better for weatherproofing too.
edit:
Back on the coax; you're putting up a 7.1dBi yagi antenna, with 50' RG-8x you will lose 4.246db of that gain for a net system gain of 2.9db.
In contrast; with the LMR400 - you're 'only losing' 1.371dB for a net system gain of 5.7dB
For the hell of it - using RG-58 results in a net system gain of 0.2dB; it'd almost completely negate the benefit of your antenna to an isotropic radiator (which is below the performance of a basic dipole as it is already).
For reference; a basic dipole 'unity gain' antenna is 2.15dBi (aka 0.0dBd)
see: https://www.qsl.net/co8tw/Coax_Calculator.htm