gortex2

There were 2 versions of the R1225 made. The "High Power" version did 25 (low) or 40+ watts (high). Don't run an R1225 on high if you want it to live. They're famous for burning up. The high power versions are pretty easy to distinguish because they've got a pretty large set of cooling fins as compared to a typical MaxTrac or GM300 mobile.  Model number M44GRC90C2AA.
The lower power versions would run from 1-10 watts. They had a smaller set of cooling fins - similar to a typical Radius mobile. Model # M04GRC90J2AA
If you have the 1225 CPS Software, and the proper equipment, you can tweak the radio's output power for the high/low settings, but I wouldn't recommend going below 23 watts or so on the High power version. Trying to put it down to 15 watts is asking for trouble.
Repeater-builder is a great resource for Motorola repeaters.
http://www.repeater-builder.com/motorola/gr1225/gr1225-overview.html

So while I understand the want / need of a vehicular repeater for extending range of a portable radio, if you do this on MURS you open up the possibility of a non-licensed operator gaining access to GMRS repeaters without that person even knowing they are doing so.  Some MURS operator with the right frequency and PL code would access your vehicle repeater just like you would be. 
This is why you also can't do an in-band repeater on a FRS frequency.  Joe Blo with his/her blister pack radios is suddenly on the local GMRS repeater.  Yeah, that's not gonna go over too well. 
 
And honestly.  If you need access to a GMRS repeater that often that you NEED a vehicular repeater to gain that access, you need to be on a commercial frequency and not GMRS.  Of course at that point, you can get a VHF and UHF or whatever and have a vehicular repeater.
But the issue I see with all this is having two different radio services linked.
 

Had several XPR8400 repeaters in use myself for a corporation that responded to oil spills. Worked well, but had an issue with the fan going full speed, often damaging the fan. This was able to be rectified and adjusted. They also allowed for mixed mode use, which was great for a corporation that planned to go to 2 slot TDMA Trbo in the future.
As for MTR2000-MTR3000's, I have also had several power supplies fail on these models of repeaters in the past few months. Parts are hard to find, and Motorola is ending support soon of the MTR3000's. The MTR3000 is also a transition model that could do analog conventional and 2 slot TDMA, much like the XPR8400, which also came with that feature. If you never plan to use digital mode, the XPR8300 may be a cheaper and more available option.
As others mentioned, the current SLR5700 (50 watts) and SLR8000 (100 watt) repeaters are a considerably better option, but at new prices. If it were me and digital was never expected to be used, I would look for a slightly used XPR8300 repeater for GMRS.

Great to see this information up front and on top. I have administered P25 radio networks for a very long time, and repeaters are not for the newcomers. I have built portable repeaters for use in the aftermath of hurricanes: Katrina, Rita, and Wilma,and for incidents such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon (oil rig) explosion and resultant oil spill response. All of the advice given here is spot on. Repeaters are after you gain some experience running "barefoot"and simplex for a while.

Lets keeps this in perspective. Midland's radios are marketed towards your basic user who wants to talk between their kids while at a park and/or for off roaders who want to talk between machines. The people on this board are "more advanced" users of GMRS in general w/ things like repeaters and linked nets. Midland isn't marketed at us.

Software will continue to work. You just wont be able to download any new updates or versions. 
 

Just set my MXT-275 up in my Gladiator. 
Antenna run was super easy, on the JT there is a fire wall plug right on the diver side fire wall, popped that out dripped a hole in it ran the coax and done. 
There is a empty space to the right of the glove box I was able to mount the head out of the way. Power from the aux switch and a ground right there as well. Except for the left hand contortions working under the dash it was fairly easy. 
I don't have a swr meter for gmrs, but quick range check to my hg-905 sitting on the kitchen counter 2.5 mile down the road was clear coms. 
 
Need to get a meter and see what it's putting out and how well tuned the antenna was from the factory. Probably have to adj it some, that will be my next question to you all ! LOL
 

FWIW, I have ran into that quite a bit over the past 10 years or so. However, all of them were ad hoc and small scale.

I too use Radio Mobile a good bit for things from 2 Meter ham radio to 5Ghz microwave links and find it to be very close to actual tested results of a system built on the numbers provided by Radio Mobile.  The comments I made before pertaining to "the math" involved in calculating path loss and attenuation is what this software uses to create the coverage plots and the point to point link signal levels.    But you need to feed it correct information for it to give accurate results. 
 
Here is the other part of what this can do but folks seem to forget it's importance.  It will also show the mobile to base signal expected signal levels.  Now with simplex operations, this is not overly important as two mobiles that are 20 watts or 2 portables that are 2 watts are going to be reciprocal in performance, in other words, if A can talk to B then B will certainly talk to A.  With a repeater this is NOT the case.  Now you are talking about antenna height differences and power differences on the level of 10 dB.  For reference a 10dB increase is basically you add a zero.  If you have 2 watts and increase it 10dB you have 20 watts.
 
So then the whole I NEED 50 WATTS for my repeater starts to show it's uselessness.  Because no matter how far your repeater may talk out, if you can't talk back to it, it don't matter cuz it will not work for you beyond that point.  And to drive that point home I was range testing yesterday while on a service call.  I went from Johnstown Ohio to Indian Lake Ohio.  I finally fell out of the system (my repeaters) at Bellefontaine,Oh.  At that point I was hearing the repeater on and off and was not consistently able to bring the repeater up.  Here's MY setup.  I am running an MTR2000 (both repeaters) one is set 50 watts and the other is a 40 watt repeater.  These are both connected to a 4 channel transmit combiner that has 6dB of loss through the unit.  This runs to a stationmaster antenna with 8 dB of gain through 200 feet of 7/8 cable and a 1/2 inch jumper to the surge suppressor.  That works out to about 3 dB of loss.  So a total of 9 dB of loss and an 8 dB gain antenna.  The air distance for this is 60 or so miles.  and it worked on BOTH repeaters equally,  so the 10 watts of difference had no noticeable effect on the range I was able to attain.  And I was talking back from a van with a 35 watt mobile and a unity gain (the little wire motorola style) antenna.  Not some high gain antenna.  This speaks volumes to the importance of antenna height. 

@WRKC935 This is also the argument (both GMRS/HAM/LMR) when one claims they want to put up a "high power repeater" or "add more power" to their repeater. The question is why? Thinking logically, at the same antenna elevation, 99.99% of your users are going to be 50W or less. It doesn't help if the repeater can get out 1000 miles your users can't use it. Most repeaters utilize good antennas (9-12db gain), and after you figure your cable losses, fittings, jumpers, duplexer, etc. you end up at a break even point, or a small amount of gain. Anything between 100W and 50W to the feedline ends up with a nearly identical in/out range and decent coverage, provided the antenna placement is decent.
For GMRS, your primary concern is build something that the duty cycle won't burn up.

I run the MTX series in both my jeeps. I have yet to run into an issue with repeaters or simplex. With that said throw the antenna in the trash that comes with it and put a real NMO mount in the vehicle. If the repeaters are good repeaters at good locations you should not have much trouble. 

The XPR is built like an old school radio. Its basically got 2 mobile radios inside with special firmware. Alot of times they burn up the TX radio so guys swap them around. All the ones we had went thru an external PA to keep the radios from. I'd probably grab the R1225 before an  XPR for GMRS. The only + the XPR will allow is DMR on Ham and Commercial channels.
 

I run the MTX series in both my jeeps. I have yet to run into an issue with repeaters or simplex. With that said throw the antenna in the trash that comes with it and put a real NMO mount in the vehicle. If the repeaters are good repeaters at good locations you should not have much trouble. 

1) I think "307" was picked only because it is also the phone area code for Wyoming (easy to remember)
2) Using a PL filter allows us to monitor a distress channel (freq + PL) without having to listen to everything else on that frequency.  Short of outlawing the use of one of our very limited frequencies for any use other that distress, using a PL filter is a good way to encourage more people to monitor for distress calls.

Alright.  Since I am the guy with the tens of thousands of dollars setup and the commercial install I believe I need to interject here.  Never did I say that a small repeater system is useless.  And there are COMMERCIAL repeaters available that ARE indeed two mobiles in a box with a controller between them.  And those work find if that is all you need. 
My point was if you are going to put up a big commercial grade install that you need to NOT pull the crap of wanting fee's paid for access, as this level of install has a huge footprint that will interfere with other repeaters on the same frequency in that footprint.  And the frequency resource is limited for repeaters.  I am all for guys that want to put up a repeater on their roof or short TV tower and be able to talk 8 or 10 miles.  This sort of thing SHOULD be encouraged.  But you still need to be aware of others on the frequency and try to find a quiet pair to set your repeater up on.   
The other thing that needs to be said here is IF you are going to stick an antenna WAY up in the air and cover a 60 to 80 mile radius, you DO need to have good commercial equipment and not two portables with a back to back cable between them and a cheap duplexer.  And here's the reason.  If you are the only one that will be using it, and the usage is light, it don't matter.  But with a big coverage footprint there is a good chance that it will see a lot of use and portable radios are NOT designed to be run at that duty cycle.  The commercial repeaters I use for GMRS are 100% CCS (continuous commercial service) rated.  This means they are designed to be transmitting up to 100% of the time, 27/7/365 and live.  If you were to try that with the two back to back mobiles the transmitter would not survive the abuse, even with a fan and additional cooling.   Now, my repeaters are only logging 30 to 45 minutes of use a day currently... but that number keeps increasing.  And that's fine.  I built it to run all the time, and offer it for free to all licensed users in the coverage area to use at their leisure.  But I would hate to see someone put in inferior gear at some remote site and it die when it was needed.  That situation is actually worse in my mind than it not being there at all.  Because if it's needed and expected to be operational.  And that operational repeater is part of someones emergency plan, then it needs to work as such. 
 
 

MY point was people jump on here and say i can't hear folks, can't get repeaters cant find friends. Thats not what GMRS was ever intended for. Yes some areas have groups but 95% of the GMRS systems are for a certain user group. Ever since this entire merge with FRS its gotten worse and worse. I dont know why people think they can go buy a radio and start calling for people to answer. If your looking to get into clubs or chat with new users great but most of the areas that wont happen. I have GMRS to talk to my users on MY repeater. I also use GMRS (more FRS) on Jeep rides to talk to the guy in front or behind me and thats it. I dont expect to just jump on the radio and call up folks. 

GMRS is not about finding contacts and chatting with others. Its more of a service for families and such. There is a major disconnect between users thinking GMRS is like ham radio. 

Let’s not derail this thread. If the original poster wants to start a GMRS radio group, that is their right. If one individual is not blessed to have the discretionary resources for original equipment plus the ongoing operating and maintenance expenses for a repeater and a group of folks decide to share the expense of doing so, so be it.


Michael
WRHS965
KE8PLM

There is absolutely no reason they can not charge a monthly fee to help maintain equipment or cover tower lease fees. I know Attica repeater coverage is exceptional. In the past I had a group of folks that used my repeater and not official but we all pitched in for the electric and tower space. Its not free everywhere. Our SAR team pays $35.00 a month for electric at a site we use for 2 UHF repeaters and APRS. Money has to come from some place. My repeaters ae closed for this reason. I pay to maintain and put them up. You want free get your ham radio ticket and go use them. 

There is absolutely no reason they can not charge a monthly fee to help maintain equipment or cover tower lease fees. I know Attica repeater coverage is exceptional. In the past I had a group of folks that used my repeater and not official but we all pitched in for the electric and tower space. Its not free everywhere. Our SAR team pays $35.00 a month for electric at a site we use for 2 UHF repeaters and APRS. Money has to come from some place. My repeaters ae closed for this reason. I pay to maintain and put them up. You want free get your ham radio ticket and go use them. 

VoLTE on FirstNet is unusual. Not to say nonexistent (BeOn), but unusual. FirstNet is primarily a data service. My experience with LTE has been very poor - consumer-grade junk that sacrifices coverage for data speeds and falls down even in populated areas. For essential communications, we use encrypted LMR, and the SWCRS system when longer range is required. WQVS960 has done an outstanding job building that system.
I understand the desire to record traffic, but forcing repeater operation without provision for contingencies is negligence no matter what the justification. Radio inhibit commands keep the unit from working at all, not just on the system.

There is absolutely no reason they can not charge a monthly fee to help maintain equipment or cover tower lease fees. I know Attica repeater coverage is exceptional. In the past I had a group of folks that used my repeater and not official but we all pitched in for the electric and tower space. Its not free everywhere. Our SAR team pays $35.00 a month for electric at a site we use for 2 UHF repeaters and APRS. Money has to come from some place. My repeaters ae closed for this reason. I pay to maintain and put them up. You want free get your ham radio ticket and go use them. 

Private company charges for use of its equipment! News at 11!
You're not entitled to use somebody else's repeater, and it's quite reasonable to ask for money to offset construction and maintenance expenses. Sites aren't free, you know.

This isn't entirely true. There are "closed" repeaters that are intended to be used only by club members or members of specific groups (such as Search and Rescue).
This seems to be the exception for the most part; many ham repeaters are "open" to all licensed hams to use freely. In fact, for most that I'm aware of, use of the repeater is encouraged, likely to increase traffic and give people someone else to talk to. Unlike many GMRS users, most hams I've met like to talk to others whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Drilled 8 holes in roof. Ran cables down C pillar to radios on back wall.