fremont

Purely anecdotal, but I and a friend have tried MURS vs GMRS in high desert country (no buildings or big mountains, etc), and MURS wins at 2w vs GMRS at 5w.  He lives there year-around and had no idea what MURS was until I loaned him my Wouxun KG-805M (and a Smiley OEM antenna).  He said "Thanks, I'm buying two of them."

In case you werent aware - anyone that runs into me while off-roading (IN the dirt, not on the streets!) gets a free GMRS radio! (while supplies last).  Just find me most saturdays anywhere between Anza Borrego and Randsburg, and unless I've already given away that days radio(s), you'll get one (IF you need one)

I wanted to buy a UV-5R GMRS just to play with. 
i just didn’t want to buy two!
Use the refund on the DigiRig to buy a genuine Nagoya 771G antenna with the proper SMA for that radio, to improve your range. 

Put your radio on Repeater Ch17, add Transmit Tone DPL/DCS D023, and me, or any of a dozen or so people monitoring that repeater via the internet will talk to you..

I bought my brand new, still in the box, Vertex-Standard EVX-R70-G repeater, not including duplexer, for $700.00. I bought an EMR Corp. Duplexer for a tad less than $500 and I am using a Laird FG4605 Base Station Antenna with the tip at approx 30 feet AGL with a LMR400 coax approx. 37 feet in length, sometime earlier this year.

Some friends and I are looking at building an offsite GMRS repeater on someone's remote property using solar power*.  Two questions were currently pondering:
1. What do people use for a "vault" to secure radios, duplexer, etc?
2. This location can reach > 100F in the summer.  I concerned a fan will only blow around hot air.  Low duty cycle, though, with traffic picking up during hunting and snowmobile seasons.  Any thoughts on temp control in whatever vault we use?
* We haven't yet run the math on power needs yet.

Motorola acquired Vertex Standard in 2012. In January, 2018, Vertex standard radios were rebranded as Motorola radios.

I dunno - i bought mine gently-used for about $500.

You might also consider a repeater that has a high-temperate rating. My VXR-7000 is rated to operate at up to something like 160F (if i am recalling correctly). The thing is nearly bullet-proof..

I use solar and battery at home, but it's light use. There are online services/calculators that can help you 'right-size' your batter and the amount of hours of direct sunlight needed to charge the batteries, based on how many watts of solar you run.

In addition to protection from the elements, it's also to try and discourage theft in case someone comes across the site.

Repeaters that I own or help manage are all indoors with commercial power and climate control. I wouldn't put a repeater outside, even in some type of vault or temporary/portable shelter, for more than a few days. 
 
You need to be concerned about rain, wind, heat, humidity, just for starters. Unless you're planning on using a waterproof 5w-10w enclosed repeater, I wouldn't recommend it, nor do I have any recommendations for you. 

I’m sure you realize this, but you must have a loading coil to match to a 5/8 wave antenna.
Here’s a pretty concise (albeit with some sloppy spelling) article about 5/8 wave antennas:
https://www.cainetworks.com/products/antenna/
 
But here’s an even better article:
https://practicalantennas.com/designs/verticals/5eights/

Join.  They're not perfect but they do a lot for the hobby.  And, a hobby where most folks have at least 4-5 digits in gear so dues shouldn't be the main criterion for saying "no."

An antenna sold for 70cm band will never work on GMRS 

My favorite lie was "chics dig it".  
 
Also, had someone tell me you can't mimic NVIS by bouncing UHF signals off of moisture or debris in the atmosphere by pointing the antenna toward the sky. Nor can we have actual NVIS propagation during major geomagnetic storms and Arora storms.  I guess the GMRS gurus know more than the JPL communications scientists that work for NASA.

Sorry, just saw this.  9" closed; approx. 47" extended.

Sorry, just saw this.  9" closed; approx. 47" extended.

I also use MURS a lot in the woods, excellent range.

POWER
Low:  No reading on SureComm SW-33 (says it needs 3w)
Medium:  4.5-4.6w
High:  5.5-5.8w
SWR
Stock antenna:  1.01 - 1.43
NA-771G:  1.01-1.10

This is just my personal opinion.  Unless you have a mobile high gain / beam antenna setup and plan on working world-wide FT8 while mobile, I wouldn't waste 10 cents on a 6m mobile.  In the 20+ years I have been in radio, I have made exactly 1 voice contact on 6M that was past LOS.  If I count FM repeaters, there were 2 contacts in 20 years.  And even with 100w, my LOS is legit about 2.5-3.5 miles around my home.
 
If you really want to talk while noodling around... get a 20m or 40m mobile.  20m is fantastic as far as users and mobile antenna efficiency, but fades faster after sunset than 40m.  I personally have the ability to run everything from 160m through to GMRS in my Jeep, with only 2 radios and 2 antennas, swapping mono-band HF antennas depending on what band I want to work.
 
If you really want to do it anyway, I would use 2 radios and antennas. Put the 6m antenna in spot 2,using a UHF mount and a Diamond HF6FX Monoband Mobile Antenna.  Out of all the mobile antennas I have used, this is the one that I had the best luck with.  Its the only antenna I made a long distance voice contact with, and on FT8 I worked 40 countries when the conditions were good.
 
Also, unless you are going to keep power around 5w, you're probably going to have to keep whatever radio you are not using, off while talking on the other.
 
If you want to do it all with 1 radio and 1 antenna, get a Yaesu 8900 (discontinued radio) or a clone of it, and a Diamond CR8900A antenna.  It is pretuned to give best bandwidth and VSWR over the FM portions of 10m, 6m, 2m, and 70cm.  It's not really usable for the Data/SSB portions of the 6m band without a tuner.

Kaffee: That's not what you said. You said he was never going to be able to talk to a repeater 80 miles away using an HT. Jessup: That's correct. Kaffee: You said 80 miles away using an HT Jessup: I recall what I said. Kaffee: I could have the court reporter read back to you... Jessup: I know what I said! I don't have to have it read back to me, like I'm... Kaffee: Then why the two statements? Colonel? Jessup: Sometimes men use HTs that are POS CCRs. Kaffee: No, sir. You made it clear just a moment ago that your men never use cheap gear. Your men use quality equipment or people die. So the OP shouldn't have been in any danger at all, should he have, Colonel? Jessup: You snotty little bastard.   With apologies to Tom Cruise as Lieutenant Junior Grade Kaffee and Jack Nicholson as Colonel Nathan R Jessup in "A Few Good Men" written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Rob Reiner. ?

Don’t feel bad.  Lots of people like to do a data dump when asked a question (myself included!)  Let me see if I can avoid over complicating it.
I’m only going to concentrate on CTCSS tones. These tones just work as a way to avoid audibly hearing (in the case of a simple radio user) or retransmitting (in the case of a repeater) a received signal.  If you transmit with a tone of 87.5 Hz, that tone is added to your audio.  If I set my receive tone to 87.5 Hz, my receiver will allow your audio to be reproduced by my speaker, after filtering out the low frequency 87.5 Hz tone.  My receiver receives other transmissions but doesn’t audibly reproduce them unless they contain the correct tone.  If I want to hear everything I just remove the receive tones and it’ll audibly reproduce everything.
Similarly repeater owners program their repeaters to listen for one specific tone.  That’s the uplink tone, “up” meaning transmissions to the repeater, “down” meaning transmissions from the repeater to others.  Any transmissions on the same uplink channel which don’t include that specific tone will be ignored and not retransmitted by the repeater. The repeater operator can limit who knows what the uplink tone is in order to reduce what the repeater retransmits. That’s about the only access control a repeater operator has in GMRS.
Many repeaters also use a downlink tone.  That is simply to provide a convenient way for people to hear the repeater transmissions without hearing other transmissions on that channel.  There could be casual users who are simply using the same channel as the repeater transmits upon. Repeater users may not want to hear their chatter.  In most cases the repeater operator uses the same downlink tone as the uplink tone.
When someone chooses a different receive tone than the tone used for transmit, that’s called a split tone.  Honestly, I’m not convinced it accomplishes much.  It really doesn’t limit who can use a repeater as others have claimed, because a person can simply clear out the CTCSS receive tone and hear everything that’s transmitted.  
The only legal way to limit who can use a GMRS repeater is to try and keep people from learning the uplink tone.  Because there’s a limited number of tones and because they can can be guessed or easily scanned if you’re near the repeater, that’s only a temporary limitation. 

I loaned a pair of KG805M's to a buddy who lives near where we hunt.  In the winter, he and his wife are out frequently to XC ski, snowshoe, etc.  My email back from him about 5 days after receiving my care package:  "We bought two MURS radios."  And, this was with the stock antennas, not the Smiley 5/8 155-tuned antennas I sent along as well.

Port Angeles to Neah Bay (locations of two coast Guard stations) there is an agreement to monitor VHF Marine Channel 16, but no formalized agreement on FRS Channel 1, but they also understand that there was a push for FRS Channel 1 in this area, so many carry Garmin Rino radios and do monitor. There is no legal binding agreement, only state, county, tribal type of interop as many people do carry FRS/GMRS gear when going into the wilderness. The remote listening stations, JPS Communications/Interoperability/Raytheon based equipment is also programmed to listen to FRS/GMRS, but that also includes software defined equipment that monitors pretty much everything HF to SHF, excepting DTR frequency hoppers.
Some of my time in the military was spent in signals intelligence and spectrum management, and there are many technology capabilities that may not be advertised, and may also only exist in limited capacity and locations. There are places that are still rural with zero realistic coverage. Only something like Echelon type collection would take place, if someone was looking for you. Much of the West Coast states have also included radio direction finding capability in their more popular state parks, where being able to track a line/direction to a possibly lost person is expected. 
Many may not realize that public safety grade radio infrastructure, P25 radio systems, operate much like cell phones where the radios and the infrastructure know of each others location and status, so signals can be properly handed off between sites. This results in inherent tracking capability, even if it must be done somewhat "manually" digging for which site a radio is subscribed to, and via specific radio ID. FRS/GMRS lacks this ID in many cases, so listening stations can only give a frequency, signal strength and direction, which may still be helpful in a search.