WRKC935

Folks need to get past this idea of 'more channels / frequencies' on GMRS. Out of everything that someone might want to change about GMRS, that's the one that's least likely to happen. The biggest issue is GMRS in is the LMR allocation for frequencies. We have commercial two-way above and below us. There are no more frequencies to be allocated to the service. And adding repeater pairs from the FRS frequencies really ain't gonna fly either because the interference issues that will be created by the bubble pack radios on those frequencies. Not to mention it would make all the current part 95 radios that aren't able to be flashed to add those repeater channels and make them obsolete. Which is what happened when CB was modified to have 40 channels from the original 23. While I don't like the idea of DMR or other digital modulation schemes being used on GMRS due to the issues that will create, it's a better and more reasonable option than getting more frequency allocation. They are NOT going to kick commercial users off their frequencies to give us more channels.

Absolutely. It's not as easy as doing a google search for a call sign. There is a bit of footwork involved and it's not possible in every state. But the biggest hole is the social media sites. People tend to have their personal info (name and location) on sites like Facebook and will then go on vacation and start posting pictures and videos of sandy beaches and sunsets for everyone to see while clearly being from Ohio, Indiana or any state without sandy beaches and drinks in coconuts. Point I am trying to make is that while, just like you stated, a simple Google search of a call sign will indeed get you the address and name of that person. Criminals have a number of ways to get that info. And they aren't going to be sitting in a room with a bunch of scanners listening to GMRS looking for someone to announce they are leaving town. The one that I always had an issue with was law enforcement running SSN and drives licenses over the air. Complete with car make, model and year. It's not hard to figure out that if someone is driving a newer Cadillac that you now have their DR number, address, name, DOB that they are a better target for identity theft than a guy in a 84 Reliant K-car.

Going back to the original post. While it's true that using you call sign does in fact identify you, so do your license plates. And while I don't believe that most conversations are going to open you up to a situation that could be either dangerous or result in being robbed while you aren't home, a bit of operational security is always a good idea. Things like not discussing a vacation trip you are PLANNING to take with others prior to your departure and return. I would never tell anyone over the air that I was going on vacation for any amount of time, unless I am planning on staying home. I don't discuss any departure or arrival times for even going to work. Not that I don't trust the people I talk to on the radio, but I am NOT just talking to them. Anyone with a radio or scanner can hear what's being said, and can act on that information. I do have a tendency to discuss the security camera's at the house, and the fact that there are multiple DVR's and I get alerts on my phone when a camera is tripped due to motion. I don't discuss actual camera locations, overlaps of coverage or weaknesses. Any discussions are typically about adding additional camera's. Which is a deterrent alone. But 'opsec' which is operational security said in a real cool way, is really nothing more than sitting and considering what you can and can't say / advertise about your day to day life. And the dumb stuff like getting the mail and newspaper delivery stopped when out of town falls into that opsec stuff. And it's a good idea to have that conversation with your wife and kids. We can't block anyone and everyone from knowing our vacations and travel plans. The work place makes it really hard to keep all that quiet. The bosses will want to know what's happening, and while you can avoid saying much, saying too little can be detrimental as well. And telling them outright that you aren't going to discuss your travel plans will only put them on edge. Mostly because it's not 'normal' to not brag about taking a cruise or going to Disney or similar far away attraction. But don't concern yourself with the idea that criminals are sitting around a GMRS radio waiting on someone to announce they are going away on vacation to go rob their house.

Maybe YOU should read what you wrote. I never implied that 30Mhz and below would NOT reflect. I did say that about anything over 100 would NOT reflect off the ionosphere however. Which is basically what this post says. And is correct. You said that VHF maritime radio would reflect, you never mentioned HF marine radio. If you ever operated Sporadic-E you know that it opens for a few minutes at the longest and then fades. It's not a consistent method of communications. Yes, this is an exception to the normal rule that frequencies above 100 Mhz pass through the ionosphere. Just like there were 10 meter (29Mhz) downlinks on some ham satellites. Of course they worked better when the sun spot cycle was in a null and the MUF for DX never got above the 15 meter band.

OK, Marine VHF is at 160Mhz. I said that hams use 145 Mhz which talks right through the Ionosphere to satellites. No reflection. Try to be nice, Nope. Ain't your BUD, so here it is straight. Anything ABOVE 100 Mhz for certain and most anything above 30 Mhz will NOT reflect off the Ionosphere. Which is what you said, which is incorrect. SO VHF TV on any of the upper channels and mostly on the lower VHF channels doesn't skip, reflect, DX or whatever you were referencing. Marine VHF also doesn't do that. Hence the reason that HF comms were required on ships over a certain tonnage by maritime regulation. And the reason that we had MORSE CODE requirements in ham radio for the amount of tie we did. Now that GPS and satellite systems are in place and required on ships, the HF radio requirement is gone. And BTW. When TV went digital, it quit being VHF all together. There are no VHF (below 300Mhz) TV channel allocations any more. https://www.antennasdirect.com/hdtv-station-list.html Look at the list and it will show the station channels are NOT where the claim to be and instead have moved to the UHF band and only claim to be on the original analog channel position. Bud

Not sure that's right. Part of analog VHF TV was below 100Mhz, but went as high as 210 Mhz. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_channel_frequencies But, satellite communications are done, at least with ham radio, at 145Mhz. Now, there isn't much satellite happening below that, and the reason is the reflection. But low powered handheld radios with modest gain antenna's are used with great success at 145Mhz. So there isn't much 'skip' happening on the upper portions of VHF. TV signals are NOT a good measure of coverage distance, reason being is thousand foot towers and 100KW plus ERP's. You can't sit and have a discussion of GMRS or ANY type of non-broadcast radio and compare it to TV or even AM /FM radio. The antenna heights and power levels are so much greater with commercial radio and TV stations that it's not even apples and oranges. Its apples and steak, or beer, NOTHING is similar when it comes to coverage. And broadcast anything is just that, broadcast. It's all one way. Now if you operate simplex (without a repeater) it's at least one way at a time RF, unlike a repeater that's listening to something and transmitting it somewhere else.

You shouldn't feel that way at all. There are some here that seem to relish in making derogatory or incendiary comments for no apparent reason. They fail to remember that folks that are new to radio may still be learning about radio technology and inquire about things that folks with 30 plus years of experience just take for granted. So again, welcome to radio and try to enjoy it's benefits, but like everything else, remember you might run into some individuals that aren't as friendly about it as others.

I am with the original poster. As a repeater owner, part of it is either listing the repeater as open and shutting off the requests, or checking the requests. The system does email repeater owners at their registered email address when a request comes in. So it's not like they aren't seeing it. If they have the function enabled for requests, then it would seem they want the requests. So they need to answer them in a timely manner. If they want the repeater listed but be private, to help eliminate interference, then it needs to be listed as such. But putting a repeater up, listing it on the site and then not bothering to answer requests is crap. If you don't have the time to do it, turn off the function or remove the listing. It's not rocket science. I understand that it cuts into your time. I had mine listed with requests for a while and after answering 200 something requests, I set the request function to off. It clearly states that requests are NOT needed and the PL for the repeater is accessible for any member of this board. It is open to all licensed GMRS users.

Couple things to point out. dBi and dBd are two different values. dBi is going to be 2.5dB less than dBd. Because the dBd "d" stands for dipole. Which has 2.5dB of gain above a isotropic radiator. Which is the 'i' in dBi. I don't own the Comet that others have talked about. The circles I run in and company I keep gets me DB-408's and DB-420's for my stuff. Those of course are the 2K dollar antenna's you mentioned. But a guy in Columbus put one up on his repeater and it was a night and day difference between the 6dBi antenna he got with the repeater and that one. It probably added 5 to 10 miles of range or better to his repeater, all other things being the same. No change in mount height. Now, be aware that you can have too much gain if you have a lot of height. The realized gain in an antenna is accomplished in moving the radiation pattern. Think about it like a 100 watt lightbulb. If the light is going all directions, at all angles, no specific direction or angle gets any more light then another. To create gain, an antenna take the unused light radiating up and down and points in to the horizon. The more this is done, the higher the gain. When you get the gain high enough, there isn't much radiation down. So with a bunch of height, you overshoot the signal where you want it to go. Mind you it requires a LOT of height. But if you are on a mountain, and get a super high gain antenna, the valley below will NOT see much if any signal. Just be aware of that.

Yep, understood. Went back and read your rules. Obviously I am NOT welcome.

And I am trying to start arguments. Right.

Never said there was a club. Situation was just a repeater that someone was charging access fee's for. Point is that if you are putting the money in your pocket and spending it on yourself, then you are profiting. If there is a 'club' that is established as you are indicating, and what I said applies, then it's embezzlement, because you are taking CLUB money and spending it on yourself. Either way YOU are profiting. Don't forget that a club needs to keep books for their money too. And all that stuff you mentioned has receipts that go into a ledger. And if the yearly income minus the years receipts don't equal the bank account then the money went somewhere. And if you are the only one handling the money, then it's on YOU to explain it. If you can't, then it's still a problem, legally. We're not discussing forensic accounting here. This is as simple as balancing a checkbook. I realize they don't teach that in school anymore. But it's not that difficult of a concept to grasp.

There you go again, trying to talk as if you know,,, when clearly it seems you DON'T. We OWN THE SITE. The tower, property, building, all of it. So ALL costs are the responsibility of the owner / business. Yes, it's now an LLC. That I donate a LOT of time to which pays my way to have access. I wired it, installed the generators, battery plants, provided thousands of feet of cable. Every repeater at the site in use outside the two county owned repeaters. That I support via the business I work for. There are no 'free' tower sites any more. At least not around here. Everything and every place that at one time was accessible because the engineer for the station, or the owners of the site were friendly to ham radio have all sold off or have put their sites under commercial tower management and they all want over a 1000 a month in rent. A civil engineering study done before you can even get a contract written and require one of their 'approved' tower contractors to do the work or installing the antenna and line. And of course since the new TIA-222 standard just went to I from H, most towers don't pass and you are responsible to have the tower reinforced to meet the standard with your additional loading. Cell companies don't care, A tower serves hundreds or possibly thousands of users. They are making lots of money and they see it as a business expense. When it's hobby radio, ham, GMRS or whatever, the numbers keep them off the towers.

Now, remember that this is coming from a guy that has an open repeater that covers 7 counties and REFUSES to take money because it's too much of a PITA to do so. YOU sir have NO idea what running a repeater actually costs. Outside of the 20 bucks a month your electric bill went up with your garage repeater that has a 5 mile range. Tower SITE.... 48K purchase price. Another 30K in electrical, roof, materials. 300 bucks a month in electric bill 200 a month in property taxes. A 300 dollar LIGHT BULB that has to be changed every 2 years. We change it ourselves or that would be a 3300 dollar light bulb. 300 for the bulb, 3000 to climb up and change it. Although at some point we will need to invest in a powered rope ascender that will 'pull' one of us up the tower when we are too old to physically climb the 230 foot ladder to access the light. Think battery drill powered winch. SO, paying 25 bucks a year, or even 10 bucks a month to access a repeater that has coverage in 7 counties is a STEAL as opposed to just the electric bill.

Not really. As mentioned, it's easy to show if you are putting any dues money in a specific account and only using that money for the repeater. But, for the sake of numbers. Lets say you have 50 users that all pay 20 bucks a month. That's $1000 a month. You are just dumping all that money in your personal bank account. You can show a 100 dollar a month electric bill at the site. You can show a 100 dollar a month site rent. And you can show two service calls from a radio shop at 500 dollars a trip for the last 12 months. So the 'dues' income is 12K. You have receipts for $3400 bucks for the last 12 months. If you don't have a minimum of $8600 in your bank account, you are profiting from the repeater. Because YOU spent the money for something outside of the repeater upkeep and maintenance. And again, I am speaking based on the RULEs / REGULATIONS as written, not what's being enforced. But, first thing is a file from the FCC, probably for MORE than what you are taking in per year in dues. Second is the FCC informing the IRS of the 12K per year, and operations of a for profit business. Now if you have all your ducks in a row and are claiming that as income, and depreciating the repeater, line, duplexer. Writing off the electric bill, maintenance costs and all the rest, then it's a business anyway. So no one is gonna do that. So the IRS smacks you. If you aren't doing all the business stuff, then the state will what their share too. And may come at you for operating a business without a license, insurance, or whatever other laws they have on the books. So we are back to, I put up a repeater. Everyone with a license is allowed to use the repeater WITHOUT paying a fee, dues or any of that. I put it up for my private use and ALLOW others to access it. Then when it's questioned, it's my repeater, for my needs and others are ALLOWED to use it. No business intent at all. Because the county is a tenant on our tower, we had to establish a business, move the ownership of the tower to the business, and all that stuff. It was a PITA. But the tower owner gained a tenant by doing all of it. Since he dislikes ham clubs as much as I do, so we don't even claim it's a club house.

No, not really. I have direct access to 12 radios from my desk sitting here. Mind you they are remote controlled via a dispatch console system and are at the tower. I am actually looking to add to the setup since I don't have 10 or 6 meters covered currently on individual radios. But the Yeasu 847 I can connect to via Remote Hams does offer me access to those bands. Not looking at 220 at this point, but I do have 900Mhz on analog, DMR and P25

Oh, he's just trying to start another argument with me. I swear if I said he was intelligent and handsome he would figure out a way to protest the statement. But he ain't and and I wouldn't, so we will miss at least THAT discussion.

Well, if you are operating on someone's repeater, and have been 'told' (documented) to NOT use their repeater, then the complaint is malicious interference with the repeater. Which is one of the few things that the FCC will in fact look into. But the repeater owner needs to have documented proof that you have been informed that the repeater is for private use, which is also legal under GMRS, and you are still interfering with the repeater. Randy mentioned that there are FEW enforcement actions in the GMRS service. But those that do exist are for interference. Now here's the rub. If you are contacted by the FCC about interfering with someone's private repeater and you tell them it's a paid repeater. Then, since they are doing an investigation, they MIGHT look into that. If the owner has his documentation together and can prove it's either a club machine and he collects 'club dues' or he can show that the money collected is ONLY for the maintenance of the repeater, he's in the clear. If not, then he might get a notice too. But YOU are getting a notice if it goes that far. Regardless of what he's going or not doing legally, you are interfering with his repeater. Interference is one of those really broad regulations that most anything fits into. Broken radios that are transmitting off frequency is interference. Putting up a repeater on the same frequency as another one in your town when there are other pairs open. Again, interference. This one needs a bit more to it, like the new repeater owner needs to KNOW there is another repeater there, or at minimum your repeater needs to be well documented as preexisting the new one. And your not gonna get any assistance with this if your repeater is on your garage and talks 2 miles. But a high profile machine that is documented and public, yeah, the FCC is gonna be on their side of it. But, in this case, being told, with documented notice (first class mail with signed receipt) that you are interfering with the operations of a private repeater can get the FCC's attention. But it's gonna need to be more than a telephone call to the FCC office to get the ball rolling. But if the repeater in question is well used by other's and they are paying their fee, and you aren't. It's not difficult for the owner to request the membership file complaints, and actually get part of them to do so. If you get multiple complaints from multiple license holders, you are going to get a letter from the FCC about your actions.

Only thing I can say is it wasn't well hidden if it was that easy to find.

Don't worry about it. But you really should do a search on a topic or question before making a post. People do come up with new questions every day. But, there are also some things that have indeed been beat to death.

You can do a not for profit and not be a registered 50x. The 'trick' is that anything you take in you keep record of. You put those funds in a specific account that's only for repeater maintenance and you don't pull / spend that money for anything outside of that. If you do that, and it gets questioned. You have records of the incoming and outgoing money and it's a mute point. If you are just dropping the money in your personal account or similar and spending money out of that account then you REALLY need to be careful about tracking what's coming in and what's going out. And if you aren't doing any of that, then if it's looked at, they will consider it for profit. But the first thing that would have to happen is someone get mad and file a complaint on you / the repeater owner. Now this does happen when someone gets told to get off a private / pay to play repeater. The user gets his feelings hurt and calls the FCC to inform on the repeater owner. Now, is that gonna bring the FCC to their door. Who knows. At this point, the FCC has said that they will ONLY respond to INTERFERENCE related complaints. Of course, this ain't that. So again, who knows. But is it legal to 'charge' for access to a repeater? And the answer is, it depends on what you are charging for. IF it's 'CLUB DUES' then yes 100%. If it's actual access and there is no club, then all the stuff above applies, records and such. And to have a 50x you about need a club or organization to have that tax status. Personally I just don't bother with fee's or due's because it's a pain in the ass. Trying to NOT piss off people while running a wide area coverage repeater is not worth my time. If someone hands me some money to support the repeater, I put it towards the electric bill, or tools, or other stuff for the repeater. And honestly, I have has the repeater on since 2021 or so, and the grant total of donated money has been 90 bucks. So again, not worth the hassle.

Wow, we doing THIS AGAIN?!?!?!! Fixed stations are communicating with other fixed stations. Linking aside. If you have a repeater at a remote location, and a base station at your house, when you are talking on the REPEATER, that's fixed station operation. If you go to a simplex channel and talk to a mobile or portable radio, then you are operating fixed BASE. So ONE radio can operate in BOTH manners depending on how you are communicating. The other situation is simplex between two base stations. Both are 'fixed' or not mobile / portable. Reason for this is to NOT create unneeded interference on the frequency by operating at a power level above the minimum required to maintain reliable communications. Repeaters and other base stations have added range due to their elevated antenna systems over a mobile or portable and of course have antenna's with more gain as well. This isn't anything new... commercial has had this same regulation for years. The difference is in part 90 commercial they refer to the radio as a CONTROL STATION. It's still a 'base radio'. This is also how you get the maximum antenna height regulations for fixed base operations.

Yes, PLEASE USE ITm, as often as you like. If you hear me in there, say hello. All are welcome to the machine. If you can get into the Columbus 575, again, use that one too. We want people to use these repeaters. And don't forget about the Morrow 550, it's open as well. I have put a good bit of time and effort into getting the repeater on the air, and really do what others to use it. That's why it got built. The comment about the folks that build 'big repeaters' wasn't a knock. I am one of those guys. The 675 talks from as far Northwest as Mechanicsburg, West to London, South to Lancaster and East to Zanesville. It's got a big footprint. Yeah, I have a couple radios at the house if the wife wants to get in contact, but she just always calls my phone. So please, feel free. And anyone else reading this in the Central Ohio area, get in there. You ARE certainly welcome. I got spooled up because we have people that want to do nothing but complain. And it drives off new guys, or makes them question if they should be using other peoples equipment. And the truth is that's why it's there to begin with. If I just wanted to chat with my wife, I have several other methods to do that with. First is the obvious cell phone. Everyone's got one of those. Then there is the IP phone system at the house that I have a softphone application on my phone for. Runs across an encrypted data link from my cell phone via a VPN tunnel to the house and then allows her to call me at my 'extension' number like calling another phone on a business phone system. Then there's email and text, and voice message texts, and CB radio and the list goes on. Now in truth. Having a repeater that has that sort of coverage, and not leaving it fully open to all licensed users, to me, that's BS. Make no mistake, it talks a long way, and it would be very difficult for someone else to use that pair. So if I built that out, and then denyed anyone else the ability to use that repeater, that would make me an A-hole in my eyes. That's the one thing about the garage repeaters, you can have one or two in every town, on the same pair, and they don't interfere with each other since the coverage is small. Mine ain't that at all.

And we are back to the "Guys that build BIG repeaters" want people to use them. I have banned exactly ONE person from my repeater. I did that because he got mad at ME for not banning someone else from my repeater. So since he didn't want to hear the guy on my repeater, I banned him. In this day and age, don't think your leaching off an open repeater owner. If he wanted money, or assistance with labor or anything like that, he would ask. Or he would close the repeater and start charging fee's for access. As a repeater owner, I can tell you this is true. We haven't invested the time and money into building out this stuff for it to sit dormant. If you have repeaters in your area that are OPEN, with posted PL/DPL codes, and they state they are open access repeaters. USE THEM. That is what they are there for. The owners WANT people to use them or they wouldn't be listed as open. Don't expect them to invite you yo them. Listing them as open and posting the codes or having the codes announced over the air in some cases, is all the invitation you are gonna get. But don't think you are leaching. You don't build a repeater system out that covers multiple counties for your own private use. It's done because they want to support the GMRS radio community. Because, not every GMRS user has the access to a tower or the ability to build out a big repeater. Those of us that do, to this to support others.

I don't know how it got to this. I will tell you how it will end though. There seems to be an almost 'ham club' mentality about having a repeater. Long ago, someone told me if you found a town with 2 hams in it, there would be a minimum of 3 ham clubs. Because each one want's to have his own thing, and then the third club they are both members of. GMRS repeater ownership (and I use to see this a LOT in ham too) somehow is some status symbol, or just 'part of having the license'. People will stand up a medium to poor coverage repeater hanging an antenna at 20 feet in the air just so they can hear their call sign in CW on the air. Not that they know CW or know it's correct, but it's THEIR repeater. Never mind there is a monster coverage repeater or two in the area that everyone has access to, they need to do their own thing for whatever reason they have. SO here's the outcome. Guys that build monster coverage GMRS repeaters do it for others to enjoy and operate on. There is no other reason to build a repeater like that. It's far easier and cheaper to just build one with the antenna on the end of your garage and be done with it. This happens at a cost in time, money and labor. You don't park antenna's multiple hundreds of feet in the air using LMR400 or RG8. Antenna's that will put up with the wind at 200 feet do NOT come from Ed Fong, Retivis, or Comet. And they certainly aren't cheap. When the little play time repeaters start pulling the users away from the big repeaters, and it's not the asset that it was, or the owner doesn't see it that way, they will QUICKLY decide that it's not worth the effort to keep theirs on the air and the big repeaters will go away. You will go from being able to talk across an entire county on one repeater to hopscotching across a city from repeater to repeater trying to carry on a conversation that would have been no problem on the big repeater. And you can sit here and pontificate all you want about that not being the roll of GMRS. NO ONE care's. Figure it out. That's what it's being used for regardless of what you say, the regulations indicate, or the FCC has conveyed. It's a social gathering medium. Pure and simple. So while it may be meant for that use. It's what it's being used for. I just personally experienced a setback with a project at my site. We crested $400 A MONTH for the electric bill. I was looking to run an inverter to power part of the gear that will not power off DC any reasonable way. But converting 48 volts to 120 volts and the feeding servers don't make them draw less, the draw went up significantly. Which lead me to look at what I am sitting on. I have a bunch of good 75 and 105 Ah AGM batteries that would sell easily for 50 bucks a pop. Just the 48 volt plant batteries are worth a grand. Then there are another 12 divided between the 12 and 24 volt plants. So another thousand plus dollars. IN BATTERIES, sitting there so that others can use the repeaters I host for NO cost to them. SO yes, when it seems that Elvis as left the building and the repeaters aren't getting used, they will be shut off, sold off and I will NOT care in the slightest. I can't wrap my mind around why we are getting on here and COMPLAINING about the actions of others. Are these other repeaters interfering with YOUR repeater? Are you unable to put up you own 20 foot antenna for your own repeater that will equally not serve anyone, and have less coverage than two walkies on simplex? I fail to understand the issue here. Do you have thousands of dollars in equipment that the user base is slowly dwindling away because they put up their own repeaters and they choose to go hang out on them and talk to no one because no one is in the coverage footprint besides them?