gortex2

I'd start with a cheap watt meter on a radio and feedline. As I say over and over thats the most important part of any system.

Our first tower site for our SAR team was owned by a concrete company. You could almost not see the building with growth. We told them we would clean up the site, mow all year and help fix windows doors etc. We were there for 5 years until we moved to a county site. It was a great partnership and we left the place much better than it was. With that said we were a 501C3 with insurance. Without that it may be a stumbling block in these days.

Also depends on the repeaters. I have 2 narrow band repeaters online. The 275 sounds great on them.

All of mine work just fine. Have3 of them in 3 vehicles.

They may control there own towers but thats it. I doubt they manager the public safety towers nor any of the commercial providers. With that said depending on location most of the commercial providers (american tower & crown castle) are going to require liability insurance as well as a hefty monthly fee for antenna at x feet up the tower. Your better off finding a private tower owner (not many) at a business or something that is no longer using his tower. In the NE there are many towers with UHF antenna's sitting on top for when they had SMR radios before cell. Alternatively a good piece of property and a 50' tower is not a hard thing to accomplish as long as there are no restrictions with the town/municipality involved.

6:" you should be good. I ran 2 UHF TLMR antennas in the back of my GC for years (total of 6 mounts on the roof). Never had Sirus/XM drop out nor issues with UHF

Well all my fcc licenses are above line A and everyone has to have Canadian approval....takes well over a year to get a channel approved....

Uh... 500' of LMR on uhf is about 15db of loss. You'd have about no power at the end. 3db is a cut in half of power. A good repeater will use good cable. I just optimized an antenna and repeaters this week that is 275 high. Cable is 1 5/8 with a loss of .445. Sweeps show 1.2db of loss. 50 watts leaving duplexes with 8.1 db of gain. Thats basically a 7db gain in the system. The difference between public safety and critical infrastructure like this vs a hobby is money. Very few on this site would pay the cost of parts let alone tower crews cranes and such.

I laugh at commercials that like this....I leave my house and have no cell. I guess I don't have to worry about using too much data in my area...lol

As above mentioned TRAM. The 1486 is a single band antenna and you don't have to go the HD or Lowes to try and find the proper PVC pipe. The Ed Fong requires the thin wall pipe and not the standard schedule 40 PVC. It varies by stores and locations. I have been in some areas that folks looked at me like an ghost and other that had racks of it. So the Ed Fong is $60 when it gets to you and you still need to go find parts. Not to mentioned there are a lot of NMO style base station adapter kits that allow you to test some various mobile antenna's which may be a better option.

Lot of better antennas on the market for the same price

Yup one my biggest complaints with linking is this. Hams come to GMRS and think everything should be linked and have nets....Not me. But thats just my opinion.

Thought I'd share my opinion on the MXT115 for various uses. I started with the MXT115 for my parents. Simple and cheap. Since then I installed one in our Kubota RTV for around the property as well as on my Kubota BX. I have 10+ acres as well as neighbors etc. I run a GR300 with 25 watts out of the duplexer into a DB404 at 30' at home. It works great for a 5 miles area (way more than needed). We are planning a trip to the GC this summer and plan to take the jeep and our new CTC. While setting the trailer up I decided to have GMRS, and WX. Ended up just sticking another MXT115 in the CTC. Small yet perfect for our use. Our CTC runs off a Jackery 300 that gets charged during the day while we drive. Again simple and effective. As with all Midland stuff I threw the supplied antenna in the dumpster and installed a Larsen HF NMO mount in the roof with a 1/4 wave antenna. I can pick up 3 WX channels at home in my driveway on the 1/4 wave so most likely stick with it. I do have a Larsen Triband I plan to bring in case I need better. I run the Tri-Band on the JT for my 8500 anyway. Our main use for the trip will be to talk to wife or myself when using the MSI talk about we carry also. Mostly campground communications when at bath house or shower. Anyway wanted to share. I plan to get a few more when i come home from my trip for our other utility vehicles around the property. Love midland or hate them these are all over in use for stuff like I am using them for.

Wasn't aware it had that certification....I have a box of them someplace from an old public safety system. Only drawback is its in band. If your on GMRS CH20 and use a LP CH1 maybe you wont bother the mobile but most in band stuff causes issues.

Only issue with dual heads normally are cables between. I have done it as some business's and public safety locations but it can be a challenge. Kenwood was not bad on the 890. I ran the cable thru some 1" conduit being you could tape the plug flat to the cable. The new MSI stuff will go in a 1" conduit also. Again limited to control head cable length but a good option sometimes. Personally at home I have remotes in multiple rooms that I can change channels talk and RX. IP has changed the world in that aspect.

Well if using the correct cable it can't be plugged in upside down. Valid point though.

Remotes or dual head setup is what you want. In reality you could just put a speaker in one room. Anyway as said you can't have 2 radios able to TX on one antenna without a control station combiner. You could install 2 really good antenna systems for the cost of one control station combiner and not have the 6-12db or more loss.

Thanks for the update Marc. I want to grab a 575 also to play with but can't justify the cost when my 275 works fine and where I need more power the APX does the trick ! ?

Oh and as reference all my vehicles have APX 8500 mobiles with the GMRS bank in them. I still find it simpler to use the midland....

Ive said it in the past. I run the 275 in both my Jeeps and the 115 in my parents vehicles. Also had a 115 in my Motorhome we just sold. I have yet to find issues with any of the radios. With that said I run good NMO mounts and 1/4 wave antenna's on all of them, except my mothers Renegade. We have a Larsen glass mount on that. They work great on my repeater. 99% of my traffic is simplex when traveling for Jeep events or camping. When at a camp ground I had my repeater in the MH and would use sometimes. Even when traveling up and down the east coast I have yet to find a repeater I could not access that I wanted to. I guess its all on what you expectations are . I find the ease of use and basic controls a plus especially for my parents who are in the 70's. Been doing GMRS for a long time and other than my public safety gear all my GMRS stuff is Midland for the purpose above. Simple. Reasonably priced. If your in an area where you are bouncing all over repeaters and split tones and such I guess they aren't the best option but I find many worry about that when its not really an issue. YMMV

Personally I think the RT97S is ideal for 90% of the folks who want a quick repeater. Location and antenna is everything. If your only using a 4 watt HT to talk to the repeater it will work just as good as a 50 watt repeater. People get hung up on that part alot. IF you have a great site, good antenna system it will work really well. My sites all run Part 90 repeaters (MTR2000, Quantar and MTR3000).

same way...just select ZA

I have a few sets. Got them on sale a few years back for xmas gifts and never opened them. Let us know how you like them.

Your right not all hams do stupid stuff but many do over and over. Its worse now than ever. I had a HAM last week tell me he doesn't need a GMRS license because he just got him ham license. As of late many getting that license dont even know there own rules. The advent of CCR doesn't help. I have been a ham for 25 years as well as a commercial operator and in Public Safety. You have no idea the amount of folks I have met over the years that had no idea about rules or regulations. In the SAR world the biggest issues we have with radios are the hams who mod there radio to use on SAR frequencies. So yes I guess I've not had the please to deal with alot of smart hams over the years.

Rich correct me if I'm wrong but as long as the user logs in and updated the repeater yearly this wont happen correct ?