DONE

OK, then... We have a live one here. Part of what I do for a living is track down and market vertical real estate for commercial radio use. So while you may think I don't know what I am talking about, I can assure you I do. So I will now just spell it out. If you don't have interest from ham operators then you are wanting too much money, or your tower is crap. But it could be a combination of the two. There aren't but two reasons that a tower that is height X can be 'easily extended' 30 feet to height Y. It's either some crankup deal or someone got lazy and decided to not stack the rest of the tower. And you are in the same state as this https://www.kxan.com/news/national-news/ap-200-foot-radio-station-tower-stolen-without-a-trace-in-alabama-silencing-small-towns-voice/ So anything to do with a tower in that state is sketchy to begin with. But maybe that's where the tower came from to begin with. If you are actually wanting to generate profit from the site, advertising it on Craigslist ain't gonna help. Neither is finding hobby radio web sites and forums thinking you are going to find paying customers. And assuming you have already approached all the commercial radio shops and got laughed out of the building and are marketing to hams and GMRS users on web forums tells me this thing must be a peach of a tower. Which is why I mentioned that if the site is marketable and desirable you might consider listing it with the big three vertical real estate companies. They will come in, tear down your crap, put up a multi carrier tower and let you park your stuff on it and PAY YOU to do it. But of course the site needs to be desirable to them. My guess is it's not. So, like the ham's and numerous others have said. Good Luck.

Your first issue is you are marketing to people that don't want to pay for space. Ham clubs are notoriously cheap. And even if they have 4 repeaters to cover an area that could be covered by one repeater on your tower, those agreements are already in place and working. You mentioned that the tower 'is only raised to 70 feet' but could go higher. Is this some crank up tower or do you just have additional sections sitting there to be put on top? Is the tower properly installed and guyed correctly or is this on a property formally owned by a ham operator that started installing a tower and just never finished it? Wind loading and tower stability is a thing. And having hams tell you good luck is a concern unless you started quoting costs to them for rent and they lost interest at that point. There use to be places on most of the major vertical real estate companies web sites that you could register a location for consideration. If the site is marketable, they may come in and build a tower. But that will only happen if they have a tenant for the site already. But the site needs to be marketable. There has to be a need for anyone to want to occupy the space. And just because it's a good site for coverage of the surrounding area doesn't mean that area needs coverage. There is a lot that goes into mapping out tower coverage, first of which is population of the covered area. There are HUGE swaths of land out west that have zero towers. That's due to the fact there are people in those areas. There needs to be users in the coverage area for it to make any sense to build out that coverage area. And if this is a crank up tower, then no you don't have space below the top. Crank up towers are designed to come down. If you start connecting stuff to the tower below the top, then it will not retract. Not sure if that's the case here. But I figured I would mention it. EDIT: One other thing. If this is sitting on a 600 foot hill, it's getting to the point it's too tall for good local coverage. Special antenna's with down tilt would need to be used (very expensive) to drive the signal down and not at the horizon for it to have good coverage in close. I have seen repeater installs fail to cover area's close to the site but talk 90 miles out because the antenna was a high gain design and basically talked over the area close to the tower.

Quantar or an MTR2000 would be what I would use. Both are 100% CCS rated duty cycle so no amount of ham use will effect either one of them. The MTR2000 does offer something the Quantar doesn't for down the road. That being the STM32 interface that can be dropped directly into the chassis in the expansion card slot. That card allows for ALL digital repeater modes to be supported. I would think you could interface an STM32 into a Quantar as well, but it's not going to be as easy. Of course the Quantar will support P25 natively where the MTR will not. But again, you said analog only so that might not ever be a consideration. I would say that you might want to PM me on here. I have a couple VHF MTR's sitting in a rack that need a home and I am looking for a VHF Quantar for a project. Not real woried about the spur. I am betting that it can be dealt with easy enough.

A large VHF set of tubular aluminum can's might change tune based on how they were sitting when tuned. Anything built from extruded aluminum is going to have enough rigidity to be mounted in any configuration without it being an issue. A small 'flatpack' duplexer like the EMR pictured is probably the LEAST prone to it flexing from it's orientation. But mounting them on an uneven surface MAY cause issues. But, on the flip side of that, a flatpack duplexer is a NOTCH only type of filter and the bandwidth of the notch is wide enough that even if they were lightly tweaked, I seriously doubt that you would be able to see a difference on a tracking generator or a VNA.

You Rick rolling people again? I will see your "GMRS" video and raise you a Amateur Radio EMCOMM PSA video

You can link them directly with the 'mygmrs' image but you will need to edit some files to do it. The way the system worked when it was up had a server that housed the database for the different nodes. That is the server that made it 'work' without the need to manually edit the files. The specific file is rpt_extnodes_gmrs. which was in the path /var/lib/asterisk. Here is the format of the file. 21700=radio@66.158.37.66/21700,66.158.37.66 21701=radio@67.52.45.142/21701,67.52.45.142 21702=radio@66.158.37.66/21702,66.158.37.66 21703=radio@67.52.45.142/21703,67.52.45.142 The 217XX is the node number, then the public IP address of the node / UDP port number used. Then the IP address again. You will need to edit that file, or create another file with that information in it so there is a whitelist and connection path to the other node you are trying to link to. BOTH nodes will need entered into that file on both Raspberry Pi's for it to function and connect. The reason I bring up creating another file is there is a script that runs every 10 minutes that updates that file. I don't know if it will blank the file if the server isn't available. I don't THINK it will but that hasn't been tested. For more specific instructions on getting it working, you should look up information on AllStar Link. It's the ham radio software used for lining repeaters that the system was based on. It's been around for a long time and is well documented on the web. There is also a different system called GMRSlive that has an image that directly allows you to configure it with this information and has a better interface for getting this going. The myGMRS image is really meant to be automatic and as such requires a strong understanding of Asterisk and the rpt app within Asterisk to modify it to work correctly. Disclaimer: What I posted here is for academic use. Choosing to implement a system using this information on a radio service it's not allowed to be used on is YOUR choice. I am only providing info, not telling you to break the FCC regulations regarding linking or any other FCC regulation. I don't care what you do. Just don't tell them I put you up to it. Because it's your Circus and Your Monkeys.... NOT MINE. EDIT BTW: I am waiting on confirmation that I can go into this topic with a full explanation of how to do this. Once Rich says it's OK I will post it, but not before. But what has been said here and a bit of google searching and research will get you where you need to go.

hamfest fleamarkets

Yes and no, but connecting two separate radio's together and calling it a repeater, like ham operators do is not a part 95 or even part 90 accepted 'repeater'. Wireline is remote link. meaning the TX and audio source are in two different places. Any remote control where the intelligence being transmitted outside of the shared specific RX frequency is wireline control. Meaning that what I am doing with an IP based console with the radio's at the tower site, a microwave link to the house and the console being operated from my house is 'wireline'. Of course, I am going to continue to do that, but it's still technically illegal.

I don't know that we would ever see the level of abuse that 27 Mhz CB gets. At least not the power level stuff. Reason being that UHF is line of site. It doesn't matter if you are running 10 watts or 10000 watts, the RF doesn't turn, and it doesn't 'skip'. So you aren't going to see people taking old analog TV transmitters and converting them to run on GMRS (yes it would be possible depends on the channel assignment of the old transmitter). And you aren't going to see them using old modified TV transmit antenna's that are slot design either. Those antenna's are stupid expensive and require a large (antenna's are 100 foot long and weigh 10K pounds assembled) on GMRS either. And even if they did, the curvature of the earth and the fact that UHF doesn't 'skip' like 27 Mhz will still limits the total distance that you can talk. And that says NOTHING of being about to receive. You're not gonna run a 'duplexer' at 10KW and be able to hear anything. Or even find a duplexer that will support that power level. So the maximum you are going to pull off is about 1KW if you ignore the 50 watt mandate and go for broke. And you still aren't gonna be able to run a repeater at that power level because of the duplexer thing. For a repeater you are really limited to about 250 or 350 watts with a single site repeater. The other problem with operating at those power levels is it's not gonna be portable / mobile. Antenna systems for mobile operations don't exist for that. And anything you can reasonably build that would work on a car is going to be a unity gain quarter wave. To start building 'gain' antenna's the element to element phasing networks would be HUGE to put multiple 1/4 or 5/8 wave radiators all in phase. Television antenna's, as discussed before, are 4 to 6 foot wide. There is room in them for this stuff. But even taking a top section (25 foot tall and 2500 pounds) and bolting it to the top of a suburban or van isn't going to be reasonable. And the fact that gain antenna's with much less input power will exceed the field strength performance of a 1/4 wave antenna at 1 KW, it's just not feasible. Take 1 KW and start working backwards, taking 3 dB of signal at a time. So 3 dB down from 1KW is 500 watts. Then 3dB more is 250 watts. The last 3dB down is 125 watts. So we are talking that a 9dB gain antenna with 125 watts is going to generate the same field strength as a 1/4 unity gain antenna with 1KW of drive power. And of course 125 watts is easy to achieve, a 9dB gain antenna that will support 125 watts is a shelf item. You see where I am going with this. And for those that don't know. FRS radios have antennas that can't be removed for this reason. Antenna gain and placement is far more effective than having a bunch of brute power driving your signal. For those that see the silly 20 mile talk distance for an FRS radio and claim it's not possible. It certainly is possible in the right situation. I have seen it done by tower crews working at height aligning a microwave hop that was 23 miles. Of course they were both over 200 feet in the air when they were doing it. But it was working. Ground level would work as well mountain top to mountain top with no obstruction between.

Yes, I agree if they will accept that their role has changed and it's not going to be what it once was. Problem is that many of them feel that HF is the only method of communications in a disaster. They somehow believe that Texas is somehow going to be the people to contact from Ohio in the event of an emergency. I realize that NVIS can limit the distance. I realize that there are situations that do call for long distance communications. And I guess it needs to be said that my frame of reference is the local groups. Others may be doing something different but it seems the locals are stuck in the 1960's. Hence the comment of a solution looking for a problem. And I have said openly that there are other things that are ham radio that could be brought to bear in a disaster situation. AREDN is a big one. A completely isolated medium speed IP based data network could be a game changer. Employing WINLINK in shelters for citizens to email family and friends about health and welfare and carrying that traffic out of a disaster zone would be something. But I see some saying that's not who they want to support. They seem to think that the government entities are the only ones they want to deal with. And there is no microphone involved so it gets poo pooed and forgotten. Again, personal experience. But with that experience, I am not seeing THIS ham community wanting to expand what they can bring to bear and only want to show up to pass voice and some minor data via packet at 1200 baud. And I am not saying that the data transfer's aren't needed. But if you can do that, and ship 10 fps video at 800 by 600. Photo's and all the rest in a timely manner, wouldn't that be better?

First off, reliance on 'linked repeaters' for emergency service, outside of stuff built out to public safety standards (meaning NO Internet links) is a bad idea. You are putting reliance in something that's probably not going to work. Second, GMRS is NOT an emergency use service. Yes, it's radio, and it could be used for that purpose, but so can childrens walkie talkie's. But it's not ideal. The underlying technology and equipment would support it. Before the advent of the huge 700/800 Mhz radio systems, public safety used UHF radio in many locations. But getting back to the linking. And I am not going to debate the FCC's latest opinion. Only the methods used for linking, why they are not good for mission critical communications and what actually would be useful for linking and why it's not possible with those technologies. Common use linking was being done over the Internet. And the connected Internet relies on a multitude of things to function. Power and management being the top two. In a SHTF situation, power isn't going to be available everywhere in most cases. Never mind the repeaters will require power. But a local repeater can be solar / wind powered in some cases with battery backup for nights and windless days. But you are NOT going to be able to maintain power everywhere that needs it in order to keep the Internet working. So reliance on it is a dumb move in truth. So what do the public safety systems use? Mostly microwave linking. All equipment is housed in the same location and the links are wireless, so as long as the towers are in the air, the links are running on the same power source that the repeaters are. You have local control of that. The solar / wind system can power all of it if it's built out to support it. The drawback to it is the distance you can run microwave links. The practical limit is about 30 to 50 miles. So you aren't going to link large distances with it without additional hops. The tower heights to get those distances are NOT going to be reasonable in most cases for you to have in your back yard either. 200 feet of height on both ends is going to be required for longer distances. And if line of site isn't available, it's not going to work at all. Coupled with the fact that when you have that sort of tower height to work with, the UHF radio propagation (how far it will talk) will exceed the distance the microwave can communicate due to the lower power microwave systems (typically they are under 1 watt) and the path loss of the higher frequency (GMRS is 465 Mhz and microwave is above 2 Ghz). So then you run into taking up multiple repeater pairs, or running simulcast on a single frequency which is possible but expensive and requires additional technical skills and specific hardware to implement. Then you get into the issue of being linked to other places that don't care what your situation is. By that I mean that if there is some wide area situation unfolding and multiple major population centers are being effected, population center A is not really gonna care about the issues that population center B is having. They have their own problems. People for get that there is more to managing a disaster situation than just being able to communicate it. If Columbus Ohio is burning, Cleveland is NOT going to send fire trucks if Cleveland is on fire too. So you deal with your situation by yourself. The truth is that localized communications in a disaster are FAR more important than wide area linking. If you and your neighbors all have the ability to communicate locally, then you have the ability to assist each other and check on their well being. If there is a shelter in place situation and someone 3 blocks away needs some bottles of water, then getting them water is a possibility. If you are informed in Columbus Ohio that someone in Ft Wayne Indiana needs bottled water, and there is a shelter in place mandate, are you gonna drive 200 miles to get them bottled water? Of course not. This is why ham radio isn't really relevant in disaster communications any more. And are a solution looking for a problem that no longer exists. They tout that they can communicate anywhere, relying on HF radio for long distance communications when the people that actually NEED long distance communications have satellite phones and then own HF nets to communicate on if needed. The technology that public safety uses now is vastly superior to the old FM technology that hams and GMRS uses to communicate. SO don't worry about linking in a disaster situation. Build out a couple repeaters that have good backup power or alternate power sources from the grid and go with that. It's going to be money better spent.

Wish you would have lead with that. So what you are asking is sort of possible, but will require some work and performance is NOT going to be what you would expect from a proper antenna. At the end of the day the radio want's to see a 50 ohm impedance at the antenna port. Easiest way to get there is an antenna designed for that frequency. If you don't have that option, then you work with what you have. A perfect antenna will present a non-reactive, non-capacitive pure 50 ohm impedance. But few antenna's are 'perfect'. So what you end up with too much capacitance or inductance in the presented load. Which can be countered with addition of the other. Meaning if the load is inductive, you add capacitance, and vice versa to get the presented load back to 50 ohms. Problem is the more you add, the narrower the bandwidth. With an antenna that long, it's going to probably be inductive, so you would need to add capacitance in series of the feed to bring it down. But that would need to be worked out with an antenna tester that will show you what you need to do. Point is that it's not an impossible task, but you are going to need to get your hands on an antenna tester, not just an SWR meter to get it figured out and do some research on antenna design to figure out what you need to do to correct the feed point impedance.

Well, NO

And while OffroaderX gave you the high level explanation. I will go deep into the why. First issue is GMRS isn't HAM radio. Meaning the repeater is going to be owned and operated by a single individual and not a club. They will not see or understand the concept of it helping the community once they read up on what the GMRS service is. So that's your first hurdle to overcome. And while it's easy to show reason for ham radio repeaters to exist since the government has emergency services all over the rules for ham radio. The ARRL has emergency services all over the place on their web site as well. GMRS is NOT by design an emergency service. It can be used for that, but it's not documented as being part of that. Again more of the same issue to overcome. Second is ham radio operators and what the city might have experienced in the past with them. Hams, under the guise of the whole EMCOMM / emergency services umbrella seem to have a mentality that they are OWED access to any and every government owned tower, tall building and shit house with an antenna mount on it. After all, in their mind, they are going to show up when all else fails, sporting a big red S on their chest and their orange vest will magically turn into a cape as they save the day. But the truth is they will get access to a location, do a horrible install of some crap radio equipment that they have to go work on every other week. Of course someone will need to meet them at the site every time. So they quickly become a nuisance. Your problem again, the city people will not understand the difference between GMRS and Ham radio,, and there really isn't a technical difference. A repeater is a repeater. Ham repeater / GMRS repeater, only difference is what programming is in the thing. Now they may not have had a bad experience with ham operators. But you can't really know that going in. At least if you are not a ham operator and know the history of their group and the city. Next issue is a case of if they let you do it, they have to let others do it as well. And that can turn into a mess for a number of reasons. Again, this isn't for any sort of documented emergency services so bear that in mind. They may say no just for that reason alone. Now we get into what they may or may not expect you to do if you are granted access. First is professional bonded tower climbers to do the antenna work. And possibly a professional radio shop to install your repeater. All of which is going to cost you money. Next is rent for the space. Tower access is a valuable thing. And most local government's know this because of the glut of cell towers that the carriers want to put everywhere and local governments seeing as an eye sore OR they see as competition for their water tower / radio tower for them to lease space on. And if you are on there taking up space and creating loading of the tower, then other paying customers can't be in that space. You would be surprised how they are getting wise to this. Even to the point that many are having extensive antenna mounting structures installed on new and refit water towers they own in hopes that it turns into an income stream for them. Not sure what you budget is, or what reoccurring costs you are up for, but understand that might be part of it. Have fun, and good luck.

Yeah, we have a local ham repeater that is like that all the time. The trustee thought it had to be open squelch so it was. It has two different IDer's on it. It's actually fun to play with. Top and bottom of the hour it will ID. Actually ID's every 9 minutes without use. But top and bottom the hour, Let it ID. Then key up and ask "WHAT REPEATER" It will ID AGAIN. THen ask what did it say. It will ID a third time. All this in a course of 30 seconds. And it ID's overtop of who ever is using it too. It's so bad it ran off all the local users because of that BS. I had to pull the thing out of the logging recorder because it was filling up the hard drive. Had 30 resources in the thing. That was always top of the list for record time

Yeah, I would REALLY like to agree with you on this. The problem is you're right about the whole plant your flag statement, and people's ego's. Is my fix a "my dicks bigger" or I'm a bigger dick fix? Yep, 100%. But the situation he faces is untenable, and it would seem that there is little logic, reason, or courtesy being applied here by the two repeater owners. We dealt with folks like this back in the CB radio days where guys with big base stations and amplifiers would chase people form channel to channel being difficult with a wonderful little circuit, 9 feet of thin green wire and a 9 volt battery. The circuit was a wideband oscillator that created whines, howls and other noise across about 10 Mhz rather effectively. They were painted green and brown to hide in tree's and had several fish hooks on them so they would get caught in a tree. Pop on a battery, hop out of the car, and toss in the guys tree in his front yard or a nearby tree. They weren't super powerful. Only worked well for a few hundred feet. But if you were that close, you couldn't hear anything. Battery would last about a week. Some of the more difficult clowns took multiple applications for them to see the light. But a week of listening to what one guy described as a cat and a racoon humping was about the most correct description. I don't like to resort to crap like that. I would rather that people got along, were cordial and courteous to each other and saw the light of cooperation when it comes to stuff like this. But if clown number one on mountain top A and clown number two on mountain top B can't seem to get that concept,,,, more direct measures should be employed. And since BOTH of them are on the same PL tone and frequency. Putting up a third repeater with one of those annoying hammie VOICE IDers seems the correct route to take. You know as opposed to a CW id with no tone present at 20 WPM... I would think alternating a recording of a CW ID performed with voice over of a 3 year old doing it from a Morse code chart and a recorded voice with something like "this is the WRKC ahhh oh WRKC 9 3 5 repeater on a frequency of 462 DOT 6 2 5 Mega Hurtz , it's megashurtz right?,, not kilohurtz. YEa Yea,,, four hundred and sixty ... two million,,, six hundred and twenty five thousand hurtz. So 462.625 Megahurtz. With a P L of ...... you get the point. Back to the PL being the same. Those clowns are gonna hear that, every 14 minutes. Alternating. Because they are setup to hear THAT PL. One or both will vacate the PL, possibly the frequency in less than a week. And how do you word your complaint to the FCC in that instance? Well me and this other guy were warring with each other on the frequency and PL and a third guy came in and put up ANOTHER repeater on that frequency and PL too. Because we were interfering with each other. He decided to do it as well. And his IDer is really obnoxious. I am sure the FCC will be laughing at the clowns as they hang up the phone.

Yeah, that's a good case for getting in an argument with one repeater owner making sure that the other repeater owner hears it and you are getting into both repeaters equally. I know it's causing 'harmful interference doing it on purpose,,, but no more so than having two repeater owners on the same frequency and PL acting like they don't know the other one is there. People do things to be difficult. This is one of those times. My stance is when you have two people doing crap like that, you become equally difficult. Of course my version if difficult is a base station antenna at 120 feet sitting on the highest hill in the whole county running a solid 50 watts. Or to REALLY add fuel to the fire. Add a third repeater right in between them on the same frequency and PL. Only that goes at the top of the tower. So 240 feet AGL and 1560 above sea level. That will spool them both up equally.

Yeah, we never had any of that locally. ATC wanted 650 bucks a month and a 3500 dollar civil engineering study done for a ham antenna on a LONG LINES tower that had not seen a tenant ever since it was purchased from AT&T back in the 90's. I know others have had luck with that, but had to have a 503 status in place for it to become a reality. I was never much for clubs because people get idea's in their head that their position in the club somehow equates to their overall importance. And I have seen that fester into guys that would tell seaters / servers at a restaurant their name AND call sign as if having a 2 by 3 actually meant something outside of the ham community. And paying 'someone' for tower services. Again, my dealings have been with ATC. But they ONLY allow their approved crews on their towers. I have had tower companies tell me I needed to get someone else because they were not on the 'list'. And I don't typically charge folks either,,, or not nearly what we charge commercial clients. I just prior to the latest FCC debacle spent probably 30 hours setting up two interfaces for R-Pi's for linking and remoted into their nodes getting them up and running. The one guy gave me like 90 bucks for the effort, and it was a situation that he wouldn't let me refuse to take his money. I actually try to avoid taking money for anything labor related to radio because it's sort of a conflict of interest. Not that the shop I work for would even bother with anything GMRS related. But I think you and I are mostly on the same page. I do believe that linking has a place in the service though. But it needs to be done MUCH differently than what's currently happening. I know I have said this elsewhere,,, but not sure about here,,, so I will repeat it. I think that linking has a place, but so does single frequency simulcast. I think that within the general coverage footprint of a repeater that no other repeater pair should be linked to that repeater. If there is a coverage null, then simulcast needs to be employed to mitigate that coverage null. And it should be required of repeater owners to NOT link to repeaters within their coverage footprint. If a system goes from town to town, then OK, but not in the same geographic area. It's wasteful. I also believe that a linked repeater owner needs to ensure that there is another local coverage repeater with a similar footprint in his service area. I am not saying that every linked repeater owner needs two repeaters, one linked the other not. But I am saying that a conversation where both users are accessing the same repeater, and no one else is involved, needs to NOT tie up repeaters outside of the coverage area of the participants of that conversation. The ASL image EVERYONE is using to link could be easily modified to recognize different PL's and link ot not link based on the PL being used. Or another repeater be installed if none exists. Lastly, the 'interference' issue. As you know part 90 still requires hub function (listen CSQ before transmitting) on type accepted radios. Part 95 radios don't have that function. So they can't do it. I know that FB6 and FB8 frequencies don't have that requirement. But those freqs are tied up and there is a 'waiting list' for them to become available. ANd of course GMRS is NOT FB8 or market frequencies. We all have equal right to them as license holders. But a receiver on the repeater output coupled to that same Pi with a bit more software modification could address the interference locally that would be caused by other simplex users in the coverage footprint of another repeater not being heard by someone 100 miles away on a linked system.

Well, the tower mine is on was 48K..... used. Of course it came with 1.3 acres of land and a building. Equipment isn't overly expensive. Unless you compare it to the cost of a subscriber radio. But It does cost money to get it off the side of your house and getting the antenna over 50 feet in the air. And there are typically some sort of reoccurring costs involved with tower space. That's where the cost of ownership starts to move people away from it. Yeah, a garage or basement repeater can be done for a reasonable expense, if you know what you are doing. But I think that you are forgetting that there are people like you and me that have the equipment and expertise to pull equipment out of the trunk of your car, and put it all together with equipment that we have on hand. Start to finish. Mind you we rig the tower with equipment I own. I have 1200 feet of rope, a Cat head winch, the proper blocks, harnesses and such. Then I have the tools for prepping the cable for connector installation. Cable grips to hoist it and the rest of the crap required to do a proper antenna install. Not a mast pipe bolted to the peak of a roof. The only thing I don't own outright is a service monitor with tracking generator / VNA to tune the duplexers. That belongs to the shop I work for. But I have instant access to it. I / we are certainly in the minority with having all that. Now I didn't buy all that new, but there were costs involved. Does the average GMRS operator need that sort of stuff. Not really unless they own a bigger tower (240 feet in my case). But owning a tower, it's pretty much a requirement to have that gear. And I don't know what tower fee's are where you are. But they ain't cheap here. Ebay pricing and hamfest finds pricing for a MTR2000 or Quantar at around a grand. A 600 dollar used duplexer. A DB-420 antenna is gonna be a few hundred. Then some length of 7/8 cable that was pulled off a tower that's still good.... figure one or two bucks a foot. You're right. Not expensive. The day rate for a tower crew to install it on a 200 foot tower. That's gonna be 6 grand. So your USED repeater system, installed, is going to be around $8000. And that's not taking into account a cabinet, snap-ins for the cable, or some means to connect the cable to the tower. And if it ain't YOUR tower, you have to do what the owner wants done. No wire ties or other 'good enough' home remedies for lashing the cable to the tower. So that price can easily balloon to 10 grand. And to this point you haven't paid a cent in rent. When we bought the site, we just paid up front for rent. But going rate is 1000 plus per month from the big three tower companies. So even at 48K. That's ONLY 4 years of rent. Sure there is a 200 dollar electric bill, taxes and the like. But it ain't the cost of renting space from others, and since it's owned, we don't have a requirement to use an 'approved' tower crew. So again, repeater systems ain't cheap. Those of us that can do this stuff, and have the proper tools to get it done, sometimes forget TCO (total cost of ownership) of things. I use to scratch my head about a brake job on a car costing a grand. Because I have done a number of them myself. But I didn't consider the 20K in tools I have acquired over the years. I was doing it with jack stands and a creeper (replacing rusted brake lines) but I didn't consider the building, lift, employee's wages and all the rest in that cost. Of course I still do brakes on my older vehicles. But there again, I have the right tools and knowledge to do it.

Well, here is the argument against that. While users can go buy dirt cheap (less than 100 bucks) radios for talking on a repeater. Repeaters are NOT cheap and are out of reach for many. So the repeater owners are the ones that fill the need for repeaters in the GMRS service. It's not the lack of channels in most area's. It's a lack of repeaters at all in those area's.

OK, I think a number of folks saw this coming. It sucks, but it is what it is. Answering the question of NOW WHAT?!?!?!? Couple options. First is moving linked repeaters to ham frequencies and re-establishing links. If you are interested in doing that and need guidance get a post started in the TECHNICAL Discussion part of the forum and we can work from there. The technology that is the in the background for the system is the same stuff that Ham's are using to do their linking. You are gonna need a new SD card and new software. Of course you need to be a ham and will need your repeater reprogrammed. Lets not open 30 threads on the topic. One thread and we will support each other and get it done. I am gonna check with Rich about something offline before go any farther. But there may be options for those that are hard core and have decided that they will continue to remain linked. Or to rejoin the links if their node drops off. More to come on that.

All this over a post about GMRS regulations.

You didn't do anything wrong at all. This topic has been openly and feverishly discussed for a few months now. Even to the point that one of the Facebook groups decided that any mention of it would get you banned from the group. I actually left the group over that. I wasn't banned, I just wasn't going to be told that it was 'bullshit' and it wasn't to be discussed. I have tried to discuss the topic from both sides of it. I owned and maintained a linked repeater for several years. I took it down because I was waiting for the FCC to be definitive with the regulation. This latest update to their website, and then a second update 10 days later with actual specific regulations being cited as the basis of any enforcement actions going forward was a final nail in the coffin. As mentioned, I am not thrilled with the direction this went. I do support the idea of linking but I support the idea of it NOT creating issues where a number of repeaters in a given area are all linked and carrying the same traffic. For good coverage, there is of course going to be some amount of overlap. But we don't need a lot of overlap. I also support the idea of a requirement to have a local repeater anywhere there is a linked repeater with similar accessibility. But that was not to be.

While I don't know that the FCC strike teams are suiting up in swat gear to, smash in their windows And kick in their doors. Waiting to cut out the deadwood. Waiting to clean up the city. Waiting to put on a black shirt. Waiting to weed out the weaklings. Waiting to smash in their windows And kick in their doors. Waiting for the final solution To strengthen the strain. Waiting to follow the worms. Waiting to turn on the showers And fire the ovens. For the illegal linked GMRS repeater operators (really doesn't rhyme with For the Queens, and the Coons, and the Reds and the Jews) but I don't write songs much. Wouldn't you like to see GMRS be great Again, My Friend.... all you have to do is follow the worms

So here is the rub to that argument. Where there any locals within the coverage area of that repeater on CH 19 actually active on that net? Linking aside, if someone is using the repeater channel for it's intended purpose, then you have to give way to that. Now if you are in one location and the users were in another location and tying up local communications then yes I agree with you. That shouldn't be happening. An I have always had an issue with that sort of thing to the point when I had a linked repeater, I had another repeater that was local only that folks were told to use for local comm's. That was one of my few rules with using my repeaters.