gortex2

Just use a quality mount and you'll be fine. I have 6 NMO in the roof of my work truck with no issues.

GR1225 is not a continuous duty repeater. The Motorola Quantar and MTR2000, GTR8000 are. I had created a post with some new out of box repeaters but only a few I would rely on for 100% continuous duty. I think you need to determine 100% continuous duty or q quality reliable repeater. A repeater than can stay keyed 24/7 is a step up from a good quality mid use repeater. Most repeaters sold are what I call mid duty. They may claim 100% but I've seen some keyed for a day and burn up a PA. Then there are home built ones out of mobiles that are not reliable to put at a tower site. Good for a garage home site.

I use Comscope/Andrews Hardline (LDF4-50A) for mine but many can't afford it. If you want ebay and other places short chunks go on sale randomly. Some have had OK luck with LMR400. Keep it short and make sure you seal all connections from water and it would be a good start. I run the DB404 at minimum on all my repeaters. The Laird FG series is a nice starter antenna if funds are short. I do carry one in my camp stuff for my camp repeater.

Here is a perfect mount for your radio. Just add a PL259 to Mini UHF adapter and be done. https://theantennafarm.com/shop-by-categories/shop-all/mobile-antenna-mounts/nmo-mobile-antenna-mounts/266-permanent-hole-mounts/283-nmo-3-4-hole-mounts-mini-uhf/12818-larsen-nmokhfcxmpl-detail Antenna Farm is a great place for decent quality mounts for the hobbyist.

Your using a CCR mobile and your worried about a few watts. Power isn't everything in UHF. Throw an NMO Mount in and hook it up to the radio and use it. That 5 watts will do nothing noticable.

I dont see much different in the display to be honest. What is really better ? CH ? Tone ?

CCR radio with poor shielding. A quality LMR radio would not do that. There is a reason many commercial repeaters are not cheap. Filtering and shielding in repeaters is very important. You could have grabbed a GR1225 or VXR7000 repeater cheaper that you spent on the 2 mobiles.

You are way over thinking this. A standard quality NMO mount will be fine for the vehicle. The Laid mount that has been linked in other posts is perfect for your use and will cost less and perform just as well. There is absolutely no reason to use LMR in a vehicle install. Even in our command posts with many radios we dont run LMR. Its all quality NMO mounts. They are made to go above the headliner and take about 5 minutes to install in most new vehicles.

No Balun needed. No loops needed. As said use it. If you find you are having trouble with coverage upgrade your cable to LMR400. LMR240 is about 5.25db loss per hundred so you have maybe 2.6 db of loss. Should not be noticeable for our current situation. LMR would effectively cut that in half. I would not worry about grounds in the attic. I have a few antenna's in the attic and they work fine.

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.