gortex2

In the past it was referred to community repeater. I still use multiple tones on my repeaters for specific reasons. One tone is for normal chit chat and another is to call my parents base radio. They dont want to hear all sorts of traffic all hours of the day and just want to hear if myself or a certain person wants them. I did the same in the past for my control station at home. We had a good repeater in a county park that used the travel tone for hikers to use. We used another PL for SAR folks and a third for another user group. It basically allows certain users to only hear the user group they want to hear. Yes there is training involved in a community repeater but they are still used in the LMR world.

The 8500 comes in mid power and high power. All of mine are mid power (45 watts) as there really isn't a need for high power on anything I use. My radios are used for work to some extent but alot of public safety also. Been doing SAR work for over 25 years and have been involved in the communications and command side for many of them. They are great radios but most will never own one due to the cost factor and availability at this time.

It would still be considered a repeater in the rules and is not allowed. They are different services. If you want stuff like this go to ham where you have much more choice on what channels link to what channels.

You can not mix MURS and GMRS. Different rules.

@WRVS497 Here is a good link with many decent LMR units. https://theantennafarm.com/shop-by-categories/shop-all/mobile-antennas/gmrs-mobile-antennas Personally I use the Laird BB4503 on a lot of my friends vehicles if the 1/4 wave doesn't work. Its a solid little antenna.

No spring. Alot of the cheap springs are part of the RF path. A quality LMR antenna will have a braid inside the spring coil to transfer RF from the mount to the whip. The Nagoya is a CCR antenna and the only people who praise them know nothing about antenna's. Its normally hams or users who got on amazon and bought them who read how good they are. The Midland option is a decent unit from what folks say. Personally all my stuff is from LMR providers and is MSI, Laird or Larsen.

Id replace the antenna with a NMO Mount Mag Mount and standard 1/4 wave antenna. https://www.amazon.com/PL-259-Antenna-410-490-Centimeters-Connector/dp/B07NZ246YL/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1F6BCL7X9ZHB6&keywords=1%2F4+wave+uhf+nmo+mag+mount+antenna&qid=1676469393&sprefix=1%2F4+wave+uhf+nmo+mag+mount+antenna%2Caps%2C65&sr=8-3

APX 7000/7500 and APX 8000/8500 are the only Motorola radios that can be dual band. They come in any flavor. I have many of the splits in the 7500 series but have migrated most gear to 8500 to have all bands (VHF/UHF/700/800). The 7000 series only came in dual band (v/u, v/8, u/8, u/u) XPR are only single band.

The Bridgcom is one choice and if purchased from Mygmrs would most likely come programmed to what you want and ready to go out the door. You would then need decent cable and a good antenna. While you can build a repeater out of boxes normally its easier to buy a complete bult unit. I had linked some others in another post here. Remember antenna cable and antenna is am important part of the system. You want the best shortest cable you can use and a good antenna.

As stated the software is NLA from Motorola unless you have a myview account and have purchased it in the past. Then its downloadable. Depending on what you want to do it may be cheaper to drop the radio at a local Motorola shop unless you have programmed them before. Its not chirp so learning curve is pretty steep. If you plan tons of custom stuff you will need to learn it. If its a dozen channels find someone local to you.

How did you ask for access ? It says you need to go to the website - http://sdecom.org/contact

I don't have the software that I can share, but you can get it from ICOM pretty reasonable. Its not like MSI. I am old school and still use the OPC-966on my VHF radio. I know a few in SAR use the USB one but I've never had good success with the aftermarket stuff. The radios are pretty good and have pretty hot receivers.

As @Sshannon said in mygmrs store there are examples of repeaters for sale. https://shop.mygmrs.com/collections/repeaters-and-accessories You can also look at the Midland Package that just came out. Its very similar to the RT97 but in a KISS method. There is no licensing of a GMRS repeater with the FCC. Its covered under your license. Many folks list it on mygmrs.com but its up to you. Regardless of the repeater you need to manage expectations. Locations and antenna height are far more important than power. a RT97/Midland on a 5000' summit with a good antenna will talk miles further than a 50 watt mobile with an Ed Fong antenna on your garage. Repeaters are good tools when implemented properly but can be costly to do if your expectations are a 50 mile radius. My GMRS repeater at home gets about 10 miles on a mobile with a GR1225 (25 watts - 15 to antenna)/ DB404 and 10' of LDF4-50 Hardline. If I could get it up in the air I could get more but it covers my area I need to cover fine.

This is correct. But a repeater will only work if it can hear the handheld. Normally a repeater antenna is higher up than a handheld. Your case sounds like a good option for the new Midland repeater package deal.

When I was with a shop we used W & W Manufacturing. We even had our own "labeled" battery thru them. I have had great luck with them and still use them to this day for both SAR and my own personal stuff. I have some that are almost 20 years old and still working good following proper battery use. They are very good to work with. http://www.ww-manufacturing.com/Results.asp?Keywords=692&OEM=%&Product=%&Category=6&Manufacturer=48

The only one that showed up was the one you put on the page. The closest per the map to you is probably crawford but doubt you can get to it from your location. Your in an area that is almost impossible to put up a tower unless its private land and even then the APA will block it like crazy. Your only option is to find a friend on a summit of one of the hills and see if they will put one up on a roof of a house or garage. You'd have a little better luck on ham radio but not much.

We use UHF for a multi county trunking system. I have used both the laird and a 1/4 wave. In the end both my UHF only antenna's on my F150 are 1/4 wave laird black. They are not much taller than the laird and have been almost bent flat in a car wash and parking garage. I doubt the Larid would have faired that well. On car to car comms my 1/4 wave always out performs the Laird. Being all fireground stuff is simplex I stuck with the 1/4 wave. Oh and it cost $12

Found some pics in this forum - https://forums.radioreference.com/threads/low-profile-phantom-antennas.380379/

last 3 with PL. 550-141.3 or name of area. call signs are useless to me.

Not a midland but have opened up the LAIRD UHF and its just a circuit board with copper plating. Some of the other RF related forums have had guys post pictures. I'd be more than happy to break one apart for testing if someone ships me one.

This comes up often. Maybe do a search on the site ? Here is one from last month -

Are you logged into mygmrs and not just the forum ? They both have logins. If your not logged in you can send a message.

It may not be an open repeater. Just because its there doesn't mean its available for your use. The map shows one in Temple that is open. Hopefully the ham was using a valid GMRS call sign.

Uh, since when is RG58 bad for UHF on a mobile radio ? There are hundreds of thousands of Police, Fire, EMS radios thru out the US that have an NMO with RG58 on them in UHF, 700, 800 Mhz. I have 6 NMO Mounts on my truck and 4 of them are RG58 standard Motorola NMO mounts. 2 are LMR as the new multiband came with it.

Glad you got it worked out. I found a couple of sites that listed that but said "may or may not be in radio" so I didn't suggest it. Again this is due to non standard tones. Not sure why some manufacturers use them but it does add some confusion.