w4thm

I gotta say i'm still shocked over the general attitude of gmrs repeater owners and hams. "Well, I built it!" - good for you, so have many hams without club funds. "I paid for my license." - hams have to study for theirs. This in a way guarantees some level of competence. "I don't want yahoos or shenanigans on my repeater." - yeah, because yahoos always ask before goofing off on a freq. The attitude sucks. I'm standing by that. Unlike ham radio which has hundreds of repeater pairs, gmrs has only a handful. If there's anywhere that could benefit from some comraderie, its gmrs.

For those that were using it and wondering what happened to it. I listed this repeater for its owner under his permission.The owner and I had a difference of opinion over on the air behavior. I had to field a few emails regarding the machine (despite it not being on my call). I notified him of the concerns. I found out today he took the machine off the air. This may be due to the insanely foul language one particular operator used at all hours of the day. Radio checks confirmed its off the air (for now) so i pulled the listing from the repeater list.

I had this very discussion with a buddy that maintains a bunch of state systems. The FCC page isn't very clear. What he said is that a base station is something like a repeater or other radio intended to be permanently installed in a structure. A fixed station while non mobile, is a radio that can be moved around if need be. example, a console mounted dispatch radio versus a mobile radio with a power supply sitting on a desk connected to an outside antenna.

I'm not assuming, I'm clearly stating that the overall attitude of how repeaters are handled on GMRS stinks. Plain and simple. It's an elitist mentality that makes it unwelcoming to others. If you want privacy, get a business license. Do repeaters cost money? Sure they do. I've built and maintained many ham machines myself. You want to talk about expense, go price out a set of new cans for a VHF machine. They'll cost more than a full turnkey GMRS repeater. At the end of the day, what does getting people to find you to ask for permission do for you? Does it stroke the ego? All else aside, we both know that the "yes" will come out much more often than the "no" out of concern that you may have just created your next jammer. So given that this is all a song and dance, why not spare everyone the trouble and just not worry about it?

Sorry man, I disagree. I also disagree with your example. Your example of using somebodies house is a crap post. GMRS is not a private business license. It's more akin of a public park that has an entrance admission. It's you gear and your entitled to do as you wish but I stand my ground that the overall attitude of doing that is crap.

So you succeeded in getting a school with no budget to stop using their 2w radios? Made a huge impact on those airwaves huh?

lol jammers! That's a sport down here... 1) the FCC aint gonna do squat. You rule quoters are spinning your wheels. Even when a case is handed to them on a silver platter with video it still takes a bit of harassing them to get them to show up. 2) Marc is on the right track. Ignoring them and talking over them demoralizes them. It's no fun kicking a fence if the dog doesn't bark. This works for most situations. 3) On the flip side of what Marc says, some of us down here have become expert hecklers. The last thing a heckler expects is a full on attack from a group of experienced hecklers. You better bring your humiliation "A" game though.

Regardless, this whole ask for permission thing seems flawed. This isn't a business radio license. You've put up a repeater on a limited shared resource (only 8 pairs) and then expect people to catch you on the air (without knowing your schedule) so they can ask if they can use it? That makes as much sense as having somebody wait at a toll booth until the attendant decides to show up for work. Suppose somebody takes the time to finally catch you on the air and ask. What exactly is accomplished? Does it satisfy the King? Does the King approve or will the King go have to chase a baofeng on vox that's been strapped to an ice cream truck because the King behaved like an Oaf? Let's be honest here. The only thing this permission thing is doing is feeding an ego.

Just looked up the 4740, it's a familiar face! I have one buried at my moms place somewhere. Early October we have a hamfest in Melbourne Fl. If I spot one in the cheap pile I'll grab it and let you know.

Marc, I dont know what a Red Rock is. The Miami 725 is up and running. Just got on from Homestead and machine is downtown. A preamp will be added in near future to improve receive sensitivity. I have to edit listing as it ended up on backup site for .325 ham repeater which is at 750'. ----------------------------------------------------- The responses I've seen here are interesting and I guess I can attribute it to location. Most ham repeaters here are personally funded. The clubs are broke lol. Those putting up the machines do it for all to use. The few closed ham repeaters are looked down upon and heckled. You want a closed repeater? Get a cellphone. This mentality carried over to GMRS repeaters put up by hams.To each their own. You guys are all welcome to use the Miami 725 when in town. No permission needed.

We did one of these tests a while back. UV5R on dual band magmount on a van to UV5R with stock ducky in a pickup. On UHF we got 5 miles on flat ground in rural area. Tried switching between wide and narrow band and it was actually worse on narrow because the baofeng doesn't implement it right.

What about a small neodymium magnet double stick taped to dash using VHB tape?

Do some creative searching on OfferUp. I've made a few good scores. What Johnson rig you looking for?

The responses don't surprise me. Seems counter productive towards getting people interested in a radio hobby. You want to talk money, we're currently burning in a brand new hytera ip addressable repeater going up with a DB420 antenna. Easily over $3k without counting duplexer, lightning protection, and cable. This will be at 950' in downtown Miami. Open to all. Part of the reason it's being done is the general "you stay off my repeater" vibe we picked up from looking at the local gmrs listings. It was baffling to see how unfriendly this side of the radio hobby can feel.

those are rebranded baofeng 888's. that's a 2w, 400-512mhz radio that can be programmed with Chirp. They can be had for $10ea shipped on ebay if you look hard enough.