WRKC935

Yeah, hams are fun when they end up with commercial radios. It is technically legal to program ham stuff in a Part 90 radio since they can basically use anything for a radio that will work on the frequency band they are allocated. For a long time they wouldn't program anything ham into radios at my shop. Then they figured they would have me do it since I was a ham. I wrote a 1 page agreement and instruction sheet for getting a commercial radio programmed with ham stuff. It basically stated that the owner was required to provide a spreadsheet with the column's that were laid out for TX and RX frequencies, TX and RX PL/DPL tones, channel alias, a column for channels in the scan list for the zone, high and low power and a couple other things. Then if they wanted anything commercial with transmit, they would need an MOU on letterhead from the person listed on the license or a chief or high ranking official with the agency or department that owned the frequency. The MOU's and the channel lineup would be kept on file and if a programming discrepancy was noticed that the sheet would be checked against what was in the radio. If it matched what was provided, they would need to pay to get it changed. We weren't going to be researching PL /DPL, TX frequencies or any of that. What was on the sheet was going in the radio. IF the sheet was wrong, the radio would be wrong. It set a price for a single zone with 16 to 20 channels. If multiple zones were requested, and it explained how to create the spreadsheet for that, it would be done on an hourly rate with one hour minimum. Which was at that time 130 an hour. I had a copy of it laminated and put at the front desk for the greeter / customer service person to have them read when they came through the door. It also had the contact info for the state agency that was in control of the state radio system and that they would need to get a radio ID from them and an MOU for the talkgroups they wanted if they were requesting access to the state wide trunked system. I already knew that they wouldn't issue ID's to private citizens directly and that some agency that was on the system would need to sponsor them to have a radio on the system, so that wasn't gonna happen. But when you establish a policy, and put price tags to it. It stops them cold. Oh, and we charged $500 for codeplug creation for a state wide system subscriber. Which is what we charged everyone else. Most of them would leave in a huff, a few would do it, and we were happy to have their money and their understanding of what they were going to get for it. I finally decided we weren't going to do anything with the ham DMR stuff or it would be strictly hourly rate to program with a 2 hour minimum. Because DMR on commercial radios when they want a bunch of group calls and crap takes a LOT of time to create. And the codeplug was a one off. What one guy wanted in his radio wasn't going to be in 100 radios, just his. The next guy would want different stuff in different places and it was all a big PITA so they were going to pay for it. And we didn't and don't program ham radios, if it didn't say Motorola on it, we weren't touching it.

I don't disagree, but I'm not sure where the lies and misinformation statement comes from. There are regulations on the books that restrict the stuff we are talking about. The FCC choosing to ignore the enforcement of those rules doesn't void them. And there are things that many of us do that violate those rules. The big one is running channels 14-22 wither wide band of in a radio that will not turn down to the legal power level. Then there are the guys with high power XTL's and such that don't turn their power down, running 100 watts on GMRS, either simplex or through a repeater. Hell, I will admit to the fact my one GMRS repeater is putting 75 watts out the back of it. Mind you it's going into a high loss transmit combiner, and that 75 in results in 18 out the other side. But it matches the receive very well at that level so I don't talk out farther than I can hear with mobile coverage. Portables can hear it farther than they can talk back to it, but that's a 10dB difference in power output causing that. And since it says NO LINKING I can't even add receive sites to equalize the portable coverage at this point. And again to your statement, who would know or care if I put up satellite receivers that were linked and voted back to the transmitter. The point is there are rules. You should at least TRY to follow them. Even if others don't.

No strawman to it. It might NOT have been what you were referring to, but I can promise you that even today with statewide 700/800 radio systems the ARES guys STILL 100% believe that they should have access to that system and every analog public safety repeater on the air. And it's not just the ARES crowd. The number of average hams that 100% believe that little blurb in part 97 about 'any means at your disposal' means talking to the Po Po is completely acceptable and expected. I had this discussion with a couple hams about 10 years ago. They were adamant that was what it meant. I had to talk to the FCC on business related stuff and ask them as a side question about it and that is exactly what they said. Ham operators can use any HAM frequency in the ham allocation during an emergency. But that was it. They went further to state that modifying a Part 97 (ham) radio was against the rules and at no time should a part 97 radio be used on part 90 frequencies. They also said that even if they were using commercial part 90 radios, that without prior authorization being issued that they would be in violation. They emailed me all of this and I actually printed it out and had it laminated and would stuff it in the face of the hams that were convinced they were authorized by the regulation to talk to the public safety dispatchers on their channels, from their personal radios, if there was an emergency. I run into this about once a month. Someone will bring a radio into the shop they want loaded with public safety frequencies they got from radio reference. Half of the stuff isn't even on the air any more. Hell, some of it I pulled from service. We just tell them that they need letters from the fire chief / sheriff / someone on letterhead with an MOU and we will be happy to program them in. Without the MOU in hand they get nothing.

Here we go with the 'I need to mod my radio so I can talk to the Po Po, just in case." This has been asked and answered many times. That rule means that you as a Novice ham operator can get on the Extra class frequencies if you hear someone there and ask for assistance in the event of an emergency. Hammies think it means they need to MARS mod every radio they have so they can talk to public safety dispatchers. And that's not it. YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSE TO HAVE A RADIO WITH PUBLIC SAFETY CHANNELS IN IT. So regardless of any means, you aren't suppose to posses those means to begin with. Ham radios are NOT Part 90 and are NOT to be modified except for MARS operation. Again, I am agreeing with Randy here. And still can't believe it. What is Joe hammie gonna do when he tracks down that evil deplorable wanna be that's operating on their beloved local hammie repeater? Are they gonna march up to their door and beat on it with their ARES badge and bandoleer of radios so they look like a dork version of Poncho Via? Are they gonna wear their ARES yellow vest and puff out their chest and with all that fake authority tell them to stop doing it? Or are they gonna really take it too far. Pull the guy out of his house and beat the hell out of him on his front lawn? Then find out it was his neighbor doing it as he's sitting in jail for felonious assault? Maybe he will send him an real official looking letter with the ARRL logo and even his local club logo demanding they cease and desist. Cause the FCC ain't gonna do much unless it's pervasive and they get LOTS of complaints

In this sort of application, there is something to be said for commercial radios. It was mentioned 'did I just bump the channel knob' and that's a thing if you have one. Personally I would be looking at a CDM750 for this specific application and dealing with the 4 total channels that can be programmed in it. I realize that as you travel track to track and races to race that others might be on the same channel and you might need to move. But 4 channels should actually be enough to have something usable for the event. Of course the high dollar race teams all have a licensed frequency, so they don't tend to have issues with others interfering with their comms. The other thing with a CDM750 or similar radio is the quality of construction. Race cars are not luxury sports sedans with leather and adjustable 'comfort systems'. They beat you and vibrate and generally are a rough ride. I remember the difference in my Camaro just building in the cage and tying the subframes (unibody 2nd gen). Even with the mostly stock suspension system the car suddenly rode more like a log wagon and less like a pony car. And the solid motor mounts didn't help much either. CDM750's are dirt cheap since they are only 4 channels. No one wants them, they all want the CDM1250s and 1550s. I would be interested to hear how that radio holds up in a purpose built race car over time.

Does the radio work on other repeaters? That is as good as a watt meter for testing if the repeaters are similar distances away or the one that does work is farther.

Yep. me too. I understand doing it as needed. You never know who is on the other end and what ability to hear they may or may not have. Or if they can understand my voice. SO if they ask, I will give the call phonetically. But not every time. I got screwed by the FCC with a ham call of KB8VUL... now I get a TON of people thinking it's KD or even KE8.... but the VUL part, yeah, that's just a mess. So I do slow down giving my suffix. And it gets butchered a BUNCH. Now if I am on HF and trying to get a contact together for LOTW or something like that then I try really hard to let them know the correct call sign. If I am on the FM repeaters.... na. The only call sign you are REQUIRED to know per the FCC is your own. There is no requirement for logging contacts any more.

So there it is. Control, and the fact you have none. And other GMRS operators trying to move in on your woman. Maybe it is effecting things in the bedroom. Maybe I shouldn't have gone there. NAAA, your a control freak and want ALL GMRS users to conform to your interpretation of the service. That ain't happening. And worrying about guys that use phonetics for their call signs as a rule... your concerned about them? They ain't seen female reproductive parts since they were born and women don't speak to them like that unless they are getting paid to do so. That's who you are worried about. There are little blue pills for that if you aren't taking care of things yourself to the point those people are a concern. Because it is now an AOL chat room. It's being used as a social communications platform, like it or not. If you don't like it, call the FCC and turn them in. They will laugh at you same as we are. And they will do NOTHING. And telling me to take MY repeater down.... again, keep hoping, but I will tell you that ain't happening either. I invite all users and all types of traffic to my machine. If YOU don't like the content, the channel knob is right there on the front of your radio. Go elsewhere.

Well, I am with Randy,,,, yet again,, and this REALLY needs to stop. You are going to find clowns that think they are calling for the release of nuclear weapons from NORAD when they get on the radio. And that sort of operational technique does need to be called out so it can be corrected. This can be done politely, by gently reminding the operator that their call sign as issued is WRKC935 and NOT Whiskey Romeo.... you are operating on an FM repeater with good quality audio and the phonetics are not needed. Or, 'YOU AIN'T CALLING FOR THE RELEASE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS YOU CLOWN. STOP WITH THE FING PHONETICS ON THE FING REPEATER AND TAKE YOU SORRY A DOWN ON THE HAM BANDS WHERE THE REST OF THE CLOWNS ARE HOLDING COURT.' One of course is a bit less direct than the other. And occasionally the phonetics are needed from the guy that rattles his call sign off like he's selling cattle at an auction. Of course, 'HEY DUMBSHT, this ain't a Barrett Jackon auction and you ain't selling a Superbird. You wanna repeat that for the rest of use that don't speak auctioneer?' Again, the phonetic route in this case is probably better. Depends on if you own the repeater or not, and if you want anyone using it or not. Do that on someone else's repeater, especially to the owner of that repeater and he might decide that you need to tune to a channel other than his and kick rocks.

Why do I catch this nonsense first thing in the morning and feel compelled to even bother to say something? First off WTF are you talking about? Are you referring to someone putting out there call sign on a repeater to see if others are also on the repeater? You answered that question in your own before anyone else ever could, THEY ARE BEING SOCIAL It's sort of HOW THEY CHOSE TO USE THE SERVICE. WTF do you care? You decided to post about it here so it must really effect you. Do you loose sleep at might over it? Does it plague your dreams? Is effecting your performance in the bedroom? The cure for any and all of that is tuning your radio to a channel without a repeater and turning off the scan function. Then you will NOT hear those pesky SOCIAL GMRS users calling out their ID's morning noon and night being social. And Randy, if you are looking for a topic for a video how about No being a TROLL

I will agree with Randy (OffroaderX) and others. Don't put all your egg's in the GMRS basket. But I think the off road guys will agree, more is better. IS GMRS good for off roading, yes, most likely. But it can't be the only radio or method of communications in your rig. A CB radio is a great addition, and possibly a ham radio, if you have the motivation to get the license. But, repeating what others have said, A Garmin InReach is going to be king. But you need to understand the differences in what and who you are calling, and what level of 'emergency' you are in the middle of. A flat tire, if you don't have any ability to change it is a problem. If you are in a creek bed and there a flood warnings then it's an issue. If your rig has flipped, and you are stuck under it in the creek bed and there is a flash flood warning, then you need IMMEDIATE assistance. That's the InReach, forget GMRS and all the rest. The other thing to consider is are you wheeling with others. As many have said, never wheel alone. And that's really sound advice. But it's not always reasonable, or we sometimes choose to ignore it for whatever reason we can come up with. We don't know your rig, setup, or what level of extreme wheeling you are doing. Trail running on groomed trails is far different from rock bouncing in Moab. And we don't really know how remote you are running. If your trails run behind family homes that are occupied all year long, it's not the same as there being one cabin in the woods for 5 miles in any direction that while could be broken into in an extreme circumstance for shelter, would otherwise only be occupied one week a year during some hunting trip. Gauge what you are doing with what you are needing. Ultimately it's cheap insurance to have more than you need than not enough communication ability. And even then, the InReach, as far as I know, will work anywhere at any time. Something else to consider as well. And this goes against the historical thought process. T-Mobile is now partnering with StarLink to offer cell service via satellite. That might be an option worth considering as well. The phone of course should have some app on it that will pinpoint your location via satellite, like your GPS does. Again, something below the InReach. You have to understand that the InReach is like calling 911 without saying anything. They just send people to that location and they will come quickly. Inreach has some text function, but it's mostly a distress beacon. A 911 call will generate a similar response, but with more information being given to the 911 dispatcher, they can send a proper response to the actual situation. If they don't know what or who to send, everyone gets sent, and it's treated as a life and death situation.

Again, where are you placing the surge suppressor's? They typically are inside the structure, either directly mounted to or wired to a ground bar located right at the entry point. Surge suppressors are a serviceable item, so they need to be exposed to be replaced after they fire and short. Not wrapped in putty and tape outside. Where do you come up with this crap?

Even though this is about as far from the truth as I can imagine, I am gonna give you to benefit of the doubt to explain this, WITH links to real documentation proving what you are saying is true. Even if I know it's BS and in truth NOT EVEN possible. I mean seriously, just give me a part number for the Burndy lug that's a single .25 (1/4 inch) hole that I can connect to an MTR repeater ground screw. Let along the one for a 10-32 screw hole that would be on a radio. Never mind getting the 500 bent into shape to connect to the radio. I have to see this. Do you have pictures? Are you using the 500 cable as the method to mount the radios on a desk?

Remember that I personally work in the commercial two-way field. Ham's and GMRS folks have the ability to disconnect their gear. Police and fire don't. And again, a public safety dispatch site really can't. They need stuff up and operational all the time. The stuff I am talking about is what gets done with their setups and what keeps them on the air. If you disconnect your antenna line from your radio then it's no different than leaving it connected IF everything is properly grounded and bonded. Because the lines, tower, and equipment is all still grounded. Something I forgot to mention with grounding and bonding. And the reason you bond the coax cables to the tower at the top, every 100 feet down and then at the bottom where the cable turns out of the tower and goes to the building is the magnetic pulse that happens if the tower does get hit. Due to the extreme currents that are present during the event (strike) there is a significant magnetic field that surrounds the tower. We all know that a wire will have a field around it as current passes through it. It's how motors work. Now crank that from a 6 volt battery to lightning. EVERY conductor that's around that structure taking the hit is exposed to that field. And remember that we pass coils of wire in magnetic fields to generate power. Again, little DC generator hooked to a light bulb with a couple small magnets will light a light bulb when we spin the generator with our fingers. Turn that up to lightning power and magnetic fields. So we BOND the coax shield, since it's a conductor back to the tower to equalize that induced current and voltage and shunt it back to the tower and ultimately to ground. There is a LOT of science to bonding and grounding of towers and antenna systems. There are some of use that have went down that rabbit hole and have a reasonable understanding of this. And I will say this, keeping it simple. Cars get hit by lightning, even though they are on rubber tires. And the reason is that 6 inches of rubber ain't enough to keep an arc that's thousands or tens of thousands of feet in length from hitting a car with 4 inches of rubber. And they get hit because they aren't grounded. You ever get a bite from a car getting in or out? It's a thing. But a glass jar isn't gonna keep that genie in the bottle any more than 4 inches of rubber is gonna keep your car from being hit. IT has to be grounded properly or you are INVITING a strike.

RG400 is silver plated conductors, double shield and Teflon dielectric. It's what Motorola specifically uses for all their commercial radio jumpers up to 800 Mhz. If you are not familiar with putting connectors on cables, it's a better move to just buy premade jumpers that are pretested and verified to be good. The bit of extra money is worth the piece of mind you get in knowing they will work and are assembled correctly. For 50 or 100 watts, its fine, the losses are not that significant in the 24 inches of cable that going to a different cable would really make a difference in system performance. And the cable is flexible enough that you don't have to fight it like you would LMR400 or any other .429 diameter RG8 class cable. If you REALLY can't be convinced that it's the right stuff however and want that extra diameter, the go with RG393 jumpers. Same construction as RG400 / RG142 (142 is a solid center conductor) but it's the .429 diameter. Your looking at about 15 bucks a FOOT for 393 if it brand name like Belden. And if you ARE going to build your own cables, buy brand name connectors and not the crap on Amazon. There are good connectors on Amazon, but there is some really cheap stuff too that for a repeater, I just wouldn't bother. Remember that repeaters are a fixed station. Meaning once you install it at a location, it's just gonna be there. They don't get moved around like from place to place. Better 'stuff' being used to build it means less screwing with it and less problems down the road.

Yes, there is always going to be a difference. You bond because coax connectors are NOT high current rated. The circular mills of the shield conductor is also not sufficient to minimize the resistance of the conductor. This is why you don't use split bolts and crap to do your grounding. It's all CadWeld or 15 ton compression lugs / connections.

Another, and a bit more in depth explanation / fact with lightning grounding and bonding. And the reason you ground EVERYTHING. Wires are NOT a perfect conductor. No matter the wire size or length, copper wire does have a resistance. Meaning that a voltage applied at one end of the wire will NOT be the same as the voltage at the other end of it depending on the voltage and current in the wire. More over, and this was mentioned before. The ground, no matter the number of rods, plates, screens or whatever you bond together in your grounding field. That connection to the ground is NOT perfect either. So, when a strike happens, a direct strike. The voltage (potential) of the equipment with reference to earth ground (0 volts) rises with the strike and then falls. Now this can be thousands or possibly tens of thousands of volts. So, that being said. If you DON'T bond everything together and the tower takes a strike. The radio is connected to the tower. The power supply is connected to your safety ground for the utility feed. Between them is a potential voltage of thousands to tens of thousands of volts. The radio and the power supply are sitting next to each other and the radio case voltage is 50KV, and the power supply case potential is 0 volts. Guess what happens. Bang. Flash. Smoke. If everything is bonded, it all goes to 50KV or whatever voltage, and then back to zero. And you are protected from that spike. Because it all went up and down. It's the difference in potential that causes issues. And a crappy ground field and good bonding practices are far SAFER than a great grounding system and half the gear not being connected to it, and in truth, its worse than nothing at all because it really creates the possibility of the difference in potential in the radio room. Now, no one has discussed the reason we ground to begin with. And the primary function is NOT to handle a strike. That's a secondary function. The primary function of a grounding system is to keep everything connected to it at ground potential and at 0 volts with reference to ground. The CB guys will tell you about their coaxes popping while they are in a glass jar and disconnected from the radio. This is the MOST DANGEROUS situation of all. Reason being is that antenna is going far above ground potential by thousands of volts until the air breaks down as an insulator and it arc's off. Lightning will always take the path of least resistance. To understand that, you need to understand the whole 'potential' thing. The short version is that lightning will strike the place that has the highest charge on it. If your antenna has several thousand volts on it and the tree next to it don't and the ground don't then boom, the antenna gets the hit. The higher in the air something is and the higher the potential that thing has, is gonna be the point that the strike happens. So then we introduce grounding and bonding to the mix. When you ground the tower, feed line, antenna, obstruction light, and all the rest of it. All of it's at the same potential as the ground that it's sitting on / in. All that static build up, which is what causes the coax to arc off in the storm, is run to ground and that keeps the potential low. For the radiating elements on a non-grounded antenna like a long wire or a dipole for HF work, a surge suppressor is used. And they have multiple things internally that help keep the potential low. First is a resistor that has enough resistance to NOT effect the SWR or impedance of the antenna system. Now the second part is a gas discharge tube. These tubes are rated to 'fire' or short when a voltage above a certain point is reached. This is where the power or wattage rating comes from on these. Because we know the resistance / impedance of the circuit (50 ohms) the voltage across that 50 ohm load will result in some power level. So the firing voltage is some percentage above that voltage. It's why hams running mismatched antenna's will fire their surge suppressors when running reasonably low power levels but the antenna instead of being 50 ohms is 700 ohms or something like that and they are using an antenna tuner to lie to the radio and show it a 50 ohm impedance. The impedance doesn't change in the antenna and cable past the tuner, it's still high. THe tuner is what matches it. BUT, 100 watts is 100 watts. IF that's what you are putting into the antenna when it's operated in it's bandwidth and presents a 50 ohm impedance then the voltage is X. But if the antenna is 700 ohms and the power is still 100 watt's the voltage is NOT X any more, it's far higher. And that surge suppressor will fire at that point. But back to the point of keeping everything, but mostly the tower, at ground potential is this. If the top of the tower is the same potential as the ground around the tower, then the lightning will go find a tree somewhere to hit. Or it will hit the ground because the top of the tower doesn't look any better to lightning than the ground around it. Don't bleed off that static charge and that tower will take hits. And a tower that's been hit a couple times will get to the point it looks REALLY good. Reason is that the ground rods will encase themselves in glass or whatever dirt is around them as the get hit. The more often they get hit, the more buildup happens. In sandy soil, they will encase themselves in glass. And at that point you have no more ground. The whole system will need to be dug up and replaced. I have seen this.

To explain it really simple. If you have a ground rod on one end of your house for your service and another one at the other end of the house with your radio gear and they are not bonded together. If you have a strike, even a ground strike at one end of the house, a tree near the house, or whatever at that end. The lightning will COME IN the one ground, go through your equipment via the safety ground (bottom pin on power cord) across the equipment / power supply, into the radio then back out to the coax or ground wire, then out to the ground rod it's all hooked to. That is the difference of potential that is talked about. The ground is NOT a perfect conductor. And it's not unreasonable to see 50 Kv or more across 10 feet of ground during a strike. I install public safety radio sites, including ones that are co-located dispatch centers with radio towers. Key part of this is the dispatchers wear headsets that as far as lightning goes, a direct path exists between the top of that tower and their headsets. You BOND everything. The headset jack gets bonded, the furniture, the equipment, the racks the equipment is in, the radios, the wiring between the radios and the console electronics, the coaxes entering the building with a surge suppressor, then outside the building, at the base of the tower, every 100 foot up the tower and then right at the connection point to the antenna. The tower gets bonded to all this. Then there are ground rods on every leg of the tower. Those are bonded together, called a tower ground loop. Then the building has a ring around it with ground rods every ten feet again in a loop. Those rings are bonded together, there are lines that go out into the property with more ground rods that are every 10 feet. All the connections are done with CadWeld or 15 ton compression connections with a hydraulic press. All that is bonded to the service entrance ground. Then in the building, everything that is metal that is a fixture gets grounded. Meaning file cabinets, conduits, desks, window and door frames. Anything that not immediately movable. Of course, air handlers, plumbing, and the like are also bonded back to the ground along with the building frame if it's conductive. A lot of people will question the required wire gauge, stating that a number 2 wire could never hold the current of a direct strike. And that's only partly true. Lightning is very fast. Wire will carry a very high amount of current for a very short amount of time. Anyone that's ever shorted something across a battery will recognize that whatever it was didn't instantly turn to plasma and vanish. It takes some time for the wire to heat up and then catch fire. And longer for it to burn in half. It's that fact that allows a number 2 conductor to take the abuse of being hit across and not just being vaporized. Yes, there are instances that heavier wire is needed. Like the ground rings, runs longer than 50 feet and situations where a multipoint grounding bar is located where a number of devices are connected to a single point with number 6 wires. But a number 6 wire, at least with the R56 install standard, is the minimum required wire gauge for any ground and if it's connected to a ground bar with other devices or grounded objects, then the wire going from that ground bar back the the master / main ground bar needs to be a number 2. OH, and what you are referring to as a 'house ground' is the electrical service ground. And at a tower site it IS bonded to the site grounding system. Google the R56 standard and read over the site grounding requirements for a tower site.

ASL (All Star Link) is right there too. ANd it's the ASL code that myGMRS was using. It's what Freedom Nation is still using. And the DVSwitch phone app will connect to a node directly with no server in between if you know what you are doing. I personally don't bother with any of that and just use MotoBridge since I have direct wireline connection to all my repeaters with it. In addition I have numerous other radios that I have full control of IE, zone and channel selection, front panel button access and control. All the good stuff. But, ASL, or even the old image we were using for myGMRS can be modified to be connected to with the DVSwitch app. My guess is it was never talked about by the admins because it would have been one more thing to provide assistance and support on if they were to have mentioned it would work. I have seen it work, I have made it work. I am NOT going to help anyone else with it. They can figure it out on their own just like I did or give up in disgust.

Well, define 'abandoned'. There are a number of towers that are owned by someone, all over the US that are not currently active, but are not by what I believe you are inferring, abandoned. Many are indeed owned by the major vertical real estate companies like Crown Castle or American Tower. Some are owned but private individuals or businesses that are not in the vertical real estate business, but do own the property a tower sits on. You are no doubt asking because you want to put up a repeater and think if you can find an abandoned tower, that you can just roll up in there and get to work putting up a repeater on it and no one will care. Well, good luck with that. First issue is there isn't a piece of property anywhere in the US that's not owned or claimed by someone else already. And if there is a tower on it, someone put that tower there. As a person that manages and maintains a tower. Like a real tower, not a 20 foot pipe on the end of my house, but a 240 foot microwave tower sitting on 1.3 acre's of land with a building. Here's what you face, IF you can find an abandoned tower or one that someone will allow you to have full access to. First is an electric bill. Because you simply are NOT going to find some rich benefactor that will not only allow you access to their tower, but pay your power bill as well. Second is the building condition. If it's truly abandoned, and unused, then it's not being maintained. So the roof will leak, the door may or may not even close. You may face it being full of animals, birds and lots of poop. Bird poop will give you an incurable disease. Don't remember what it's called, but look it up, it's a thing. So getting the building ready to put a repeater in might require a hazmat suit and respirator to just be in and out of the thing. And mold.... yeah, gonna be plenty of that too. Now, getting the power turned back on may well require permits, and civil engineering plans with PE stamps to obtain the permits. We had to do that too. More money. If the crack heads have been there stealing wire, then you are rewiring the building. Again, been there and done that. More money. Then there is the tower. What shape is it really in? Is it a guyed tower, or free standing? Is it rusted or in reasonable shape? Guyed towers will hide dangers. The anchor heads will rust just below the ground and you will not see that if you don't dig them up. Simply attempting to climb a tower with that issue may cause the tower to fall, with you on it. Then there is the base pier, the grouting and all that other stuff that since you are asking this question, you know nothing about. You don't posses the knowledge to even judge the structural integrity of the tower to begin with. This can create TWO issues. First is simple. If you are on the tower and it falls, you die. Second issue is you have someone else on the tower and it falls, they die, and you get sued by both the tower owner in front of 12 people that have equally no clue about a tower but know YOU were allowed to access it and it's down and someone died. And not only will the family of the dead guy be suing you, but so will the tower site owner to claim you were at fault, and responsible, but also to protect himself from that family from coming after him. Just depends on who gets to the court house first with the lawyers to file the suit. A friend told me once ' I can't afford free" and free towers typically very few can afford, and they don't figure that out until they have made some level of commitment to do something with a site that they have no business being involved with. But I will tell you this. There are NO FREE ABANDONED towers anywhere that you are gonna just walk into and put up a repeater at without significant cost. And remember that we haven't talked about repeaters, cable, antenna's or any of that yet.

Repeater to repeater yes. Repeater to a phone app, not so much. Motorola's WAVE will do it but only for MOTOTRBO repeaters running in digital. There are other commercial solutions, I can think of several, none are cheap. I was referencing phone linking. But, the systems that link phones to repeaters are the same systems that link repeaters to other repeaters in analog.

There are a number of other ways to link your phone or another node to your repeater. It's just not as easy as downloading a program, installing it and configuring it with some basic information. All the repeater linking that was done on GMRS, or at least a vast majority of it was done with Asterisk which is an IP PBX with an add in that allowed it to pass E&M and PTT. E&M in a phone system existed from day one. Before dialing a phone was even a thing. E&M is Ear and Mouth. Or for radio people TX audio and RX audio. Then you add a bit of 'telemetry' in the form of COR (carrier operated relay) and PTT. All that software needs is a destination address and that destination address to allow connections. With the system that was hosted by MyGMRS, there was a server that applied updates to the nodes to maintain the list of active nodes. But if you go into that list on the node and manually update it, then it will work fine without the database server feeding it. There are a few systems still out there that are GMRS related that are running the same node software and allow you to connect via certain phone app's that were designed for ham radio AllStarLink and other RoIP (Radio over IP) systems that are using Asterisk as there back end. Now setting that stuff up and getting it working is more involved than just getting a radio interface from Amazon and connecting it to a Windows machine where there is a web server out there managing all the linking and simply allowing you to find your node in a list and connect to it. You will now have to work at it to get it to happen but it's certainly possible if you put your mind to it and want to learn some Linux and Asterisk configuration along the way. And it can absolutely be done in a full stand alone manner that only requires a phone with internet access and a computer or Pi connected to the Internet with some fiddling with your router / firewall to allow the traffic in from the web. If you have carrier grade Internet access, then it becomes a bit more complicated, but still not anything that there isn't a solution for.

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.