gortex2

Was a member of REACT for many years in CNY until they basically ceased to exist. Late on we started to play with GMRS but our area was so large and no one wanted to commit. Sad to see the group fall apart. They were well respected unlike the ham clubs of the time. I know there are still some teams thru-out the US that also still use GMRS. Cool to see some old history like that.

The L Bracket works well and in our county when we were on lowband installed hundreds on chiefs vehicles. They worked ok but in CNY Winters required a new NMO mount jut about every year. I found the enclosed mount from Larsen did perform better in this environment. Again it puts the antenna not in the best location but we couldn't convince a volunteer chief to drill a hole in his $50K truck. I actually use the flat stainless bracket on my wifes JK for her VHF antenna. Serves the purpose but if i could find a way to mount a 1/4 wave on a jeep thats what it would be. Her UHF and 800 are all pepper shakers inside the rear window on a plate with 3 NMO mounts.

So in my 30 years in public safety radio I have seen varied responses on all of this. Normally the higher the frequency the better a magnetic mount will perform. Normally this is because in UHF and 800 you are talking to a repeater or system, whereas VHF or Lowband is normally simplex or a base station. I have had very good results on mag mounts in the UHF and 800 bands, but all tests have been on trunking systems or good repeaters. In the Search and Rescue business 99% of our traffic is VHF simplex. We have some locations we know if they have a magnetic mount forget it. I have done tests at those locations with new mag mount antenna next to the base of a NMO and the NMO will talk out and hear when the mag mount does neither. In addition we have some pretty remote areas we operate in and even the NMO mount can have some effect on the efficiency of the antenna. I found the better antenna NMO mount is the Larsen enclosed mount vs the standard Motorola. I now install these in all my SAR installs for the VHF radio. UHF I stick with the standard Motorola NMO but the UHF radio is on a P25 trunking system. YMMV....

look at the power directly from the transmitter with duplexer removed and a 50 ohm load. There is a chance the PA is shutting down for some reason.

Thanks guys thats a great topic. At the old shop i worked at we did a similar training day for our sales folks with the same setup. They didn't understand why it took us an entire day to run hard line vs 9913. After seeing the differences in cables they also understood why the cost was so much different.

Interesting wall mounting... guess if yo use the fiberglass you dont have to worry about ground loops The one on the tower looks like mine ! We had some pretty stiff winds over the summer and it appears the tower guy didn't crank down the top braket enough. In the spring they do tower inspections so going to have him re-align it then. Mine if only a DB404 or Id send him up now. Sadly I have seen antennas sit like that for years and still work fine, yet minue would topple to the ground the day i need it.

Depending on the type of the duplexer it should work fine on 462.625 with no issues. I tune my "mobile duplexers" to the middle (650) and have all three frequencies in my GR1225 in my Motor home. That way when i get someplace I can change if there is interference on the channel.

I had some in storage. I can't get there until the weekend but will try to dig one out.

I know this topic comes up every couple of months. I have a group of friends who are radio guys. In the past we used MURs, then GMRS, and even some public safety stuff. Most of them are hams also but not all. Solution. Get a UHF Land Mobile frequency and do what we want on it. Yes coordination can be a pain, but most of the frequency coordinators can give you a good idea of frequency use in your area. I think all in all we spent around $500 but they got a license, do DMR and used the same repeater site they had for the GMRS stuff. Bonus was as guys want ot come online they no longer have to get a GMRS license. I know this isn't the goal here, but if your set on a DMR radio go this way. We still use multiple GMRS repeaters.

When i was in area in the spring at the NASCAR races I heard chatter on a few GMRS channels. For the October race only had my HT so didn't hear much. I have a .650 repeater in my Motor home when i am on track in Spring.

I would caution the use of LMR400 on the antenna cable. Lots of issues for folks with the foil covered braid.

Your address shows watervliet ny so I would start with the 2 local MSS Pittsfield and Wells. I believe both get over $75.00 an hour. Your not talking a cheap project as was stated above. Just a single repeater (depending on what you have) install could cost well over $1000. If you need equipment keep adding. Shops are in the business of making money as they should....

A bad antenna and coax can cause headaches for GMRS (or UHF in general). I have multiple repeater at tower sites that have great coverage but are installed properly with 1/2" or 7/8" heliax and a real base station antenna. I have removed one of them for a temp repeater in the past doing similar to what you are doing. Never have i gotten decent coverage. LMR400 as others said is not the best for this. I have found 1/2" andrews superflex has been good for a temp setup. I run it on a 25' mast with a DB404 antenna and get decent coverage.

So it really depends on the location and the subscribers being used. I actually have a low power GR1225 GMRS repeater in my motorhome. I hit the antenna at 5 watts. Being this is run on batteries for days while on the road I can't draw alot of power. When I use this system i am only using 4 watt portables, so if i can't talk in there is no reason to have the repeater transmitting 25 watts. Back when i worked at a MSS this was one of the ways we would balance radio systems in factories and buildings also. You could reuse the frequencies in an area as alot of times the channel would not make it outside of the building. Every repeater should be balanced. I tried to explain this to a local ham club who is a "i need 100 watts out" when all they have is HT's ......

UHF Motorola Maxtrac 16 Pin radios are all over now. The PA wasn't the worst of the bunch and the last 2 I picked up were under $50 each. Being GMRS is wide band and most folks can't use these for much else they make great GMRS repeaters. I have 4 set up in different area's and while none are used alot they all function and are easy to setup and build. MY last unit cost jsut under $300 for 2 MAXTRACS, a mobile duplexer and a power supply.

The ICOM F4TR was a LTR trunking radio from ICOM. Ironically I sold all of mine programmed on GMRS also to people. The cable is like $10 and you should be able to locate the software pretty easy although it is in DOS and will not run on most new computers. I programmed the buttons pretty simple on the ones i sold (scan, talk around and power level)

Are you looking ot change the website or the forums ? I think there is a real need for the website to be able to be updated with inaccurate info (old repeater sites). As for the forum I think its good. I'll be honest I come here for GMRS only. I go to RR for ham or commercial stuff. Keeping somewhat on a single topis is good and think there is good balance here.

Its a really slick mast kit. Sometime we only use a few poles and other times use all of them. For a fast deployment with not all the poles we don't even run guy ropes out and it works fine. We have a small VHF dipole antenna that is pretty light so it rarely moves the mast.

For hard line some radio shops will sell scrap (under 50') for a reasonable price. I have picked up 35-40' chunks for under $50.00. The smaller the shop the more likely they are to sell it.

How big of a mast are you looking to use ? Our SAR team purchased the mast here on ebay - http://www.ebay.com/itm/ANTENNA-TRIPOD-29FT-ALUMINUM-PORTABLE-TOWER-MAST-KIT-NEW/361384099911?_trksid=p2047675.c100009.m1982&_trkparms=aid%3D888007%26algo%3DDISC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131227121020%26meid%3Dc8638571b9a64db4b78809ad1b1b3bc3%26pid%3D100009%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26sd%3D360908000786 It works awesome and is light enough to carry up a trail. As for cable I tried various options from RG213 to 1/2" superflex. When all said and done we had the best luck with RG142. The loss for 30' is not enough difference than the 1/4" superflex hard line and holds up much better. I liked the 1/2" and 1/4" hard line but after both were kinked in half on the first deployment i knew they wouldn't work.

It can be done but gets tricky with the frequencies we have to work with. I have 2 GMRS repeaters about 10 miles apart. Both TX on the same channel, but i do use different RX PL tones. On one end i do dump the RX audio into a gm300 on another channel and send it to the other site (utilize RICKS on both ends). This essentially lets me talk on both repeaters in a poor mans simulcast. I try not to use it often as there are some issues but its great to make a "call" to someone then we switch channels. The issue is if you are between both repeaters you will hear simulcast distortion, and really rough. I have played around with switching the TX on one of the sites, but the nice thing is I can hear someone calling where ever i am. I am lucky and have a 60' tower at one site so have plenty of seperation for the yagi. I also run filters on it, although its not the best. Remember we are talking within 1 MHz. Its not ideal but can be done. My next phase is actually siwtching out to a comparator and voting the audio.

As Steve pointed out you need a license for pretty much any frequency. As a Public Safety agency you need to pay for coordination fees. Expect to pay around $300+ to get a VHF pair coordinated. The other this that was mentioned was talk to a local radio dealer. When our team started out with radios we got free air time on a local LTR trunk system donated. We had to purchase our own radios but the shop gave us a great deal on some lease and rentals that where in poor shape. It got us thru until we could get repeater sites, frequencies and equipment. In another county we operate we actually found a school district that had a VHF repeater system. They allowed us to use the channel on off school hours. Being 95% of our calls where on weekends and night it worked great until we could get our own site.

Most SAR teams utilize VHF for this exact reason. Our SAR team assists with multiple trail runs thruout the year and VHF is the only way we can cover the terrain effectively. We have access to UHF, VHF and 800 and by far the best bang is VHF. Depending on the amount of territory a VHF repeater is a bit more involved to set up and use but will be easier once complete. We run on Public Safety frequencies (have about 12 channels licensed to us) which allows any one on our team use a radio. The issue we had with GMRS was people not wanting to pay for another item. We still use MURS randomly for close by stuff but rarely as we have a car-car channel. MURS will not allow repeaters but depending on distance may be ok for your adventures.

There are many ways to "extend" a system but all involve money and technological know how. There is voting systems that would allow for receive input to be better and simulcast but thats gets pretty expensive pretty quick. I have a similar issue in my area and solved it via the "poor" mans voter system. I use the same repeater pair on the second repeater, however the receive input PL is different. This way I can still hear both repeaters and if i can't get to one i switch channels and try the other. As long as someone is in range of both it will work well. Some LEO's in the state used a similar system with a North and South repeater but used the same transmit so if they forget to change "zones" they still hear dispatch. This is definately a user training issue but is probably the cheapest way to do what you want to do. I guess you could also install a tower tall enough to get into those canyons but i doubt the cost would benefit the advantages.

They do and I have tried. a couple got it when the fees dropped but thats it. A few have also went for there HAM ticket instead. I guess part of the issue is our VHF and UHF Public Safety repeaters work so well in addition to the P25 trunking system we use folks dont understand the benefit. In addition being all volunteer and buys all our gear ourselfs already costs a member upwards of $1000.00. I'll keep hinting to them all about it and hope someday more will jump on the boat. Until then I'll just keep installing repeaters until i run out of frequencies !