WRKC935

Well, they are indicating that they welcome reporting. But the reporting they want isn't of the specific violation, rather the act of the violation causing interference to another user. So it basically reads they don't care unless you are specifically interfering with the operations of another on the frequency. Mind you I am not trying to say it's legal through a lack of enforcement, nor will this cause me to put my repeater back on line. I just banned from my equipment an entire group that owns and manages a repeater to the east of me due to the actions of another operator. He decided to send me this long text about an operator that was using their repeater without permission, then causing issues on a ham repeater. Problem was that I have been friends with the guy he was accusing for over 30 years. He expected me to get enraged about the situation, so I did. I banned him, and his group of repeater owner / managers from using my equipment. And I am about to the point I will be putting up a repeater on a different frequency that will have double the coverage of theirs and try to make daily contacts with the individual that he was complaining to me about, hell I may put HIS call sign on it and turn it over to him once it's operational, just to drive the point home. And I can do that as long as it doesn't interfere with the operation of their repeater and there isn't ANYTHING they can do about it. Of course I will not have he laundry list of demands to belong to their group and have access to their repeater either. Because, yes, I am that guy. Problem with banning all those folks is they / he (no names given on purpose) are the type that will turn me in for interference even when none exists. I have the GMRS repeater with arguably the greatest coverage in the Central Ohio area. And I am not going to risk, at this time getting a report of causing interference placed on me because I wasn't fair when I banned them from my gear. And the person that started all this, well it isn't the first time that he's caused issues. I am pretty certain that he's the one that got all bent a couple years ago when the operator up in the Northwest got drunk and was on the radio. I believe it was that same individual that contacted me then and ask what I was going to do about an operator that was 3 states away from me operating a radio while drunk. When my reply wasn't to his liking, he then got mad at ME for not doing anything about the actions of another operator. So I banned him then and forgot about it. Since I forgot about it, he got back on and I just let it go. Then he pulled the latest thing and I banned him and his group from my repeater. So he got to explain why his entire group got banned from the repeater. Because, again, I am that guy at times.

And in this case, they don't seem to want to provide that clarification. So let's try to decipher their version of interference, because that's the sticky part. There is a requirement to monitor the airwaves before transmitting on a frequency or any frequency used in the output of a repeater. So the situation would need to exist where two repeaters on the same frequency existed, one being linked and the other not linked. To create interference, a user would need to know there was a second repeater on the air in a given location that was not linked and know that it was in use when you keyed up into another repeater that is linked to that other linked repeater then causing interference. Here's the problem with that. No GMRS type accepted radios that are truly Part 95 compliant have a HUB defeats PL/DPL in them. At least none I am specifically aware of and others are welcome to comment if they do exist. Going on the fact that functionality doesn't exist in all type accepted radios, there isn't a way to 'monitor' the frequency prior to transmitting on a local repeater that shares the frequency with another repeater. So the fact that you are talking through a linked repeater in another state that you can't hear for obvious reasons, or that you grab the mike on your part 95 radio and go to use it, due to the fact you don't have a hub defeats PL OR an unprogrammable busy channel lockout that can't be defeated, you would be in violation of the 'interference' regulation in both instances but the FCC not requiring a busy channel lockout or hub defeats PL function in the radio that wasn't able to be disabled gives anyone that would do this a way out and arguable defense in court. Basically, it would use their regulations and type acceptance rules against them when they accused you of causing interference based on what they came up with for a reply to you. I am not a lawyer, and don't claim to be. I just take their logic in this case and their written regulations and turn them around as a defense.

So basically they are not answering the question and instead asking if you are aware of it causing any interference and then directing you, IF you know of it causing interference to report the INTERFERENCE. Not that people are doing it, but if the repeaters that are doing it are causing interference by doing it. We know that they know that it's being done. And they seem to be unfazed by that specifically being done and only seem to be interested if it's causing interference. I have no idea what the take away is on all thins, but is sounds like they really don't care or are willing to take a stance on it one way or another if there is no interference present due to it happening.

And that right there is what I am afraid of happening on GMRS. I don't make many friends by running repeaters and having that sort of thing go on. That would get Net Control banned from my repeater pretty much on the spot if I heard it happen. Newbies hear what we do and will imitate it because they don't know any better. That's the reason we don't let folks get drunk off their ass and talk on the repeater, because the minute one guy does it, everyone else thinks it's OK if nothing is said. But I would still rather hear some one three sheets to the wind on the air, than a guy that believes he needs to ID every 10 minutes and use phonetics for his call every time he ID's when he's full quieting into the repeater. Again, personal opinion but we all have those.

No, that wasn't said specifically. Just commenting that it's NOT required, and can be annoying when you have people that do it all the time on an FM repeater, regardless of the service. And I did say that on HF it certainly has it's place. Of course I got gifted with Victor Uniform Lima, which sort of sucks both phonetically and with CW for trying to work a pile up. So I went a different route dealing with that. Big Amplifier, bigger antenna. Gonna slip an audio compressor, gate and processor in the mike path and get the 'voice of God' thing going too. But that's another story for another time. And there will be no doubt that some will find that as irritating as I find phonetic call signs used on FM repeaters as a default rather than only when needed. But yeah, there is a bit of jealousy in there too. I would rather be hollering some like Kilo Siera trying to work a rare bit of DX than Victor Uniform Lima. Might have to put a digital voice recorder in the audio path as well and just have a button to do that.

So, I am gonna scuttle all the SAD HAM dreams of full phonetic call signs here and now. There is ZERO requirement for a call sign to be said phonetically. It is done when needed to communicate a call sign to a receiving station when signal levels are not great and you are wanting to get that information through. My call sign as assigned by the FCC is WRKC935, NOT Whiskey Romeo Kilo Charlie niner three five. NO WHERE on my FCC license is listed anything similar to that. Or even sort of close. All it says is WRKC935. Ham is the same way. KB8VUL is my ham call,,,, not the phonetic equivalent. Hammie's use phonetics a lot on HF and for good reason. You are trying to communicate great distances at times with less than 100% copy-able signals and are fighting noise (QRM and QRN) to make contacts. We are not using HF, SSB, QRP (weak signal) and typically not using simplex, we are talking through repeaters that provide us solidly copy-able signals. So using ITU phonetics, LEO phonetics, or adhoc Phonetics (crap we make up on the fly) just adds to the syllable count. I know guys that do it, some have a Z at the end of their call sight and can't help but say Zed. Other guys are all phonetics all the time. But there have actually been questions raised by others if ONLY giving your call sign phonetically is actually legally IDing you station at all. Because we come back to what was issued by the FCC. Especially if non-ITU standardized phonetics are used for a call. Consider this. How many radio stations, commercial radio operators, public safety dispatchers or for that matter, ANY other radio user outside of Ham radio use ITU phonetics outside of maybe the military use phonetics for anything outside of reading license plates, VIN numbers and other specifically alphanumeric number/letter groups including their call signs. Phonetics are used to save time when signal degradation is expected, such as in HF or weak signal communications. And it has it's place there. Not on FM repeaters with full quieting signals. Or when someone is copying alphanumeric groups that need to be accurate. If there was a specific requirement for us to log every contact we made with date, time and call sign then it MIGHT apply, but only if you are ask to REPEAT your call because the other party didn't get it accurately. That's my take on it. Of course you know what they say about opinions.

This is going to be an application that will require coming up with something on your own. You are going to need to design it and build it, or have someone do that. Obviously there was an option for them, and I don't doubt that there were a few factory made units. But those don't seem to be surfacing. Either the few that were purchased are still in use, or they were scrapped instead of making it to the secondary market. But designing an amplifier for this application shouldn't be all that difficult, at least if you have some sort of accessory connector on the radio that has a keying output for the low band to control the amp. It's going to be a bit more complex than a CB amp due to the requirements for proper biasing of the driver and output transistors for proper linearity due to it being FM and possibly P25 (don't know if the radio does digital modulation on low band. Power output is going to depend on your amplifier design, which will no doubt will need to be multistage since the initial power level being amplified is rather low. But if you design for a 10 dB increase in power per amplifier stage, then it's just how many stages are needed to reach the desired power output level starting with what you have. The other positive to this is it's low band (30 to 50Mhz). By that I mean that things like the trace length in the circuit board don't really become a factor at those low frequencies. If this were 900Mhz or even 440 to 450Mhz then even the design of the circuit board, trace capacitance and inductance comes into play and needs to be considered for the design. But again, that's not really a factor here.

This is due to the manner that they are linking the repeaters. My guess would be that they are using control stations that are tied into the repeater that is local to that site. That radio listens to the output of the repeater closest to it and when it hears that repeater come up it puts the local repeater in transmit. Then the next site does the same thing. With ASL or other IP based connectivity, that is not needed. All the repeaters have a controller that talks to all the other controllers (nodes) and via the IP link all the repeaters are put into transmit at the same time or reasonably closely. If there is latency in the network link the PTT will get to the sites first, before any of the audio traffic, because if the network is delayed, then all the traffic is delayed. So the way it works, the issues of needing to key it and wait aren't going to apply to the method used be at least the GMRS repeater owners here.

Not sure if I said this here before or not. If I am repeating it, then it needs repeated. The FCC is reactionary in enforcement. Meaning they need a complaint to investigate before they will begin looking into anything. The problem with videos like this, factual or not is it drops a 'hint' to others that something that someone else may or may not be doing is illegal. Now if you have a bone to pick with the individual or group that is doing the thing that the federal agent said is not legal then they call in a complaint. I shut my crap down for this reason. I am straight forward with people and have zero filter when it comes to telling someone they are being dumb. Of course, they get all incensed about being told they are a dipshit and that opens ME up to get investigated. So as long as what I am doing is 100% on the up and up, there is nothing to look into. But I did go back through the enforcement records of the FCC and there was ONE complaint filed about some guy that was transmitting a carrier for an extended period of time and causing interference. That was in the last 5 years. So one complaint in 5 years time that was investigated. So while the odd's are that I would see an investigation on my actions personally, I have pretty good odds that wouldn't happen, but they are not a 0% chance. So mine is gonna stay off for the time being.

I have not used it up to this point. But I have looked at it as a possibility for that. Much of my family lives within the coverage area of the repeater, at least if they are using a base antenna and radio. I started assembling bases and antenna's to put at family members houses so there would be a way for them to communicate with each other and myself in the event of a communications failure, storm or other situation. If for nothing else, piece of mind. The repeater is on enough power backup that I am not concerned with it failing due to anything short of a tornado hitting the building and tower. But I am still trying to convince the wife to let me put a radio in her vehicle for this use. She doesn't understand that the cellular network can be fragile in certain situations and a way to communicate outside of cell calls isn't a bad thing.

OK, but lets look at this from the other side of the coin for a minute. First is what's required for a linked repeater. Yes, there is a linking device and some sort of audio interface. Then there is the medium that is creating the link it self. This is typically going to be the Internet, but P2P Microwave technology can be used for a closed system with some semblance of redundancy that will deal a failure of the connected Internet. But you are NOT going to link a system the size of the MidWest group totally on Microwave hops. The towers are too far away from one another and the Maximum link distances are much shorter than the coverage area of a 2.4 or 5.8 Ghz hop with even the best dishes available. So to have minimum overlap to conserve frequencies as much as possible, there would need to be intermediary's in those links that didn't have a linked repeater on the tower, only a set of Microwave links to extend the distance enough so there wasn't miles and miles of overlap of repeater coverage. But the most important part of the linked repeater system is going to be the repeater it self. And that is going to be as stable and operable as the power supplied to it, regardless of the ability to link out to the system. My repeater would fall off the system do to my microwave link failing, but it never went off the air all together. It just stopped being linked when the link medium would fail. Now, I provided a second repeater with similar coverage for local access. I told folks that were local to use that repeater for local conversations and how to tell when their conversations were local via the sound of the courtesy tone on the linked repeaer. But my point is that my repeater wasn't going to fail because the Internet went down. So for Emergency communications, it was built out to be better than the public safety system that we have in this county. And that's still the case. Since I support that ssytem I can tell you how it's powered. Yes it has generators that are propane with thousand gallon tanks, but the UPS / battery system is only good for about 30 minutes. So when a tank goes empty, they have 30 minutes to get a PROPANE truck on site to fuel it. And the links at the sites are powered off that same system. My battery plant is gonna run my site for 24 hours as it stands right now. The diesel generator has a 100 gallon tank that I can fill with diesel fuel from any source that has diesel. The county has equipment there that they have committed to fuel the generator per the tower lease during a major outage (the system there is the backup to the other propane fueled system). They have a fuel truck and a 20K gallon tank of fuel to feed that delivery truck by. And they have 24 hours from the time it runs dry until the battery plant goes flat. So if you are following all this, MY repeaters are backed up better than the statewide public safety communications system. And if they can't feed it, I have 24 hours to go find fuel (diesel) get it to the site and in the tank before I go off the air. And I can extend that by turning off other equipment and only running the public safety gear and the GMRS repeaters. So reliance on my gear is gonna be assured. Even a full failure of the repeater is only a minor issue as I have cold spares sitting there to be cabled in place and spun up. And before you ask about the tower failing, anything that will bring the tower down will destroy the building first. So again, My repeater isn't going to fail. There are a number of the repeaters on the MidWest system that are solar. They too will continue to operate without utility power or the Internet. Now linking repeaters during a major disaster can be sort of useless, especially if those links cross great distances that are not easily to travel. If I am having a serious issue in Ohio, people in Wisconsin are not going to either care all that much or be able to provide much in the way of assistance in a timely manner. Which is the argument I have had about the whole Ham Radio HF communications thing. We just don't need it. Local comm's inside and directly outside of the effected zone, sure. Three states away, not hardly. But that seems to persist in the minds of the hams for whatever reason. So why link at all? First thing I would say is it provides a way to draw people to GMRS to begin with. Getting people involved is the first step. Repeaters with traffic on them will draw more people in than repeaters that are silent. That goes for Ham and GMRS. If you link a bunch of them together, a short conversation will turn into a large round table discussion from people in multiple locations. This breeds extended discussion and radio friendships that frankly bring people together that wouldn't communicate otherwise. I have met people on the radio that I have now also met in person that are literally hundreds of miles away from me. Had it not been for linked radio, I would have never met these people. So there is that as well. The other thing it does, since it's generating traffic, is it gets locals to recognize each other and builds on the local community of GMRS operators. That breeds cooperation and brings people together of varying technical back grounds that can assist each other with technical issues, creates study partners and groups for other radio endeavors and license study for them to get ham licenses. And once those people that are local to each other realize this, and that the repeater they are on will work with out the link when the Internet is down. They can create groups, look in on each other, and support each other in the event of a disaster. So while linked repeater in a disaster aren't really a handy thing, unlinked repeaters are. So, since you brought up the discussion of Long Distance calling. I am gonna slap you with a history lesson so you know where the moratorium on linking came from to begin with. If you look back to Class A Citizens radio Service from the 60's and the infancy of GMRS which started in the 70's, you might remember that the telephone company AT&T was the ONLY long distance carrier at that time. And most any telephone call outside of your local exchange was considered long distance. Pay phones were also a thing. So AT&T, concerned with their long distance fee's being circumvented by people linking repeaters lobbied the FCC to disallow linking via the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network). And the FCC obliged them by codifying that in the regulations. It was done for that reason and that reason alone. Public safety radio service was mostly done at that time across dry pairs of phone wires and it was a know to work solution. But public safety wasn't going to be circumventing a long distance bill by doing so. That's where it originally came from. The ramblings of the guy in that video proved only one thing, he doesn't know his history. So how do we move forward? That's the real question. The FCC. like any other governmental regulatory body moves very slow if at all on changing anything. But enforcement efforts on current regulations will change with the federal funding of the body. If their funds get cut, their enforcement will increase to increase their intake of money. And the fed's are certainly not the only governmental entities that will increase their enforcement when faced with a financial shortfall. Every little town and burg when faced with money problems will first and foremost increase enforcement of traffic violations to generate revenue. So past that, what COULD be done. First thing is the FCC doing two things. First is allowing linking by any means. Requiring that linked repeaters will maintain their operation without the linking medium being present. Requiring that if you are putting up a linked repeater, that the area that repeater is covering is also covered by another non-linked repeater that has the same usage requirements that the linked repeater has. Meaning if there is some club fee to access the linked repeater that at minimum that membership is also provided access to the other non-linked repeater. Second thing is distance between linked repeaters or coverage overlaps. You are going to want a bit of overlap, but there should NEVER be two repeaters that are linked to the same system that overlap coverage by more than 25%. Back in the day when you had to use a slide rule and four pencils to calculate the coverage of a repeater, it was difficult to figure out the coverage of a repeater. Now, it's on line. You put in the height, power, antenna gain and line loss and it will spit out a map that is reasonably accurate. No rocket science involved. Another possibility is setting aside certain repeaters as the only ones that can be used for linking. This will address the coverage issue in a different way. If you only have two or 3 pairs that can possibly be used, then overlapping coverage gets eliminated due to technical issues created by not having your pick of pairs. If you want to link multiple repeaters, spend the money and simulcast on a SINGLE pair from multiple sites. Yes, it's possible, yes it's silly expensive, but it's completely doable. I am not gonna go into what's involved, but Internet links are not gonna be any part of it for the simulcast portion. And those systems, because of the requirements, will be redundant and high availability. But, here again the FCC needs to change things. Lastly is the FCC once it changes things is it gets back to enforcement of the changes. Get letters out to people that are violating and get them to cease and desist their inability to follow the rules. This stuff can be fixed. We don't need more pairs, we don't need digital radio technology to address these things, we just need a bit of change and a bit of enforcement help to get things going. And ultimately, GMRS people that find that radio is fun, by default will go get their ham licenses, which generates MORE income though licensing fee's for the FCC bank accounts.

Yes, actually, but you need to be handy with a soldering iron and understand the guys of your radio. There are boards that are designed to decode PL and then pass audio to the speaker if it hears the correct tone. These were from way back when radios used reeds and other forms of PL decoding and encoding. But if you had one of those boards and inverted the output so it would MUTE the speaker on a certain tone and allow all other audio to pass, it technically could be done.

I don't disagree with any of that. And the truth is that I would love to just turn my crap back on and go back to business as usual. But the person at that meeting wasn't some disgruntled GMRS user or sad ham, he was a FCC field agent that seems to be a member of this site. And specifically stated that. While the regulations are nothing new, neither is the FCC regulation of CB radios being 4 watts. Yet the FCC does nothing typically to enforce that on running 10 thousand times that level of power. But the other piece of it is this, as stated before, the FCC is reactionary to filed complaints. At this time they are not investigating violations without a complaint, but that is subject to change at any point. My concern is what the enforcement action will look like IF it happens. It's one thing to get a letter or a visit from the FCC and them telling a repeater owner you have to stop doing X or we will fine you. And that I could live with. But I am not in a position for them to decide to build a case, do the monitoring and then say 'On these dates we observed that you were running a linked GMRS repeater'. The fines for doing that are 1000 bucks a day and we know you did it for 10 days so here's a 10K NAL. Please mortgage your house and send us the money. And it can go either way.

The part that you are forgetting is that in order to have a linked repeater, you first and foremost need a repeater. Now depending on the repeater linking controller, it may well run as a stand alone repeater when there is no link present. Mine did before I shut it off. It ran without link several times while it was on the air. But the repeater still provided coverage within the area that it was able to (about a 30 mile radius). The local repeater I have had the same range, ran on a similar antenna system and was run at the same power output. So a linked repeater shouldn't just die if there is no Internet to support the linking. It just doesn't carry the traffic across to other repeaters. Far as generator and battery backup. The 48 / 24 / 12 volt plant will carry the SITE, not just the one repeater, for at least 12 hours. The generator that will come on when the utility fails will go for 48 on diesel and then if it runs out of fuel, the plant picks back up and takes the load giving me time to fuel the generator. I source 48 volts from a rectifier currently and that charges the battery storage, about 600 Ah. Off that 48 volt system I have five 40 amp 48 to 24 volt buck converters in parallel. So that will net me up to 200 Amps of 24 volt power. That feeds the repeaters at the site. Then there is another 450 Ah 12 volt plant that runs off a 75 amp rectifier that runs the 12 volt gear. That will be migrated to 48 to 12 volt buck converters and the 450Ah battery string will be connected in parallel to the 48 volt string, which rewired will add 150 Ah to the 48 volt plant. My goal is 1000Ah capacity with solar and wind generation. If I can build a system that will generate 60 amps for 10 hours, I would be able to run the whole site off grid with a cushion. Currently, with everything transmitting I only draw 30 amps from the plant. That will increase as I move more equipment to the plant, but it's still a manageable level to hit with both wind and solar. Now, it's true that the linking will fail for sites that have terrestrial Internet service running the links in most instances. But if a system owner has microwave links then the failure doesn't happen unless he looses a site, and that's dependent on the way his microwave links are configured and deployed. If the system has redundant paths, then the failure becomes less likely. But that does require a microwave mesh or at minimum a ring of links so the traffic can continue to flow. Now all that is of course meaningless since the FCC is coming out and saying that you can't link repeaters. I turned mine off, and I am waiting to see if there is going to be enforcement actions based on the statements made by the field agent in the video. If they aren't going to enforce it, or if there is a change to the regulations, I will fire my gear back up and see about expanding a network in Ohio. But I am not gonna be the one to find out the hard way we can't be linking. My most probable course of action at this point though is to move the repeater that was linked to ham and find an ASL group that will let me link in and run it that way for the time being.

Well, I took mine off the air. Which was the ONLY active linked repeater in Ohio. So now there are none in the state. I did enjoy having people to have actual discussions with. But I am not gonna wait to have the FCC decide to tell me I can't be doing it and giving me a fine in the process. I actually had two repeaters on the air, one was linked and the other one was not. This was done to combat the issue that you mentioned. There needed to be a repeater that locals could use to have local discussions that weren't carried across 4 states when the users having that conversation were 10 miles apart and no other users were involved in the discussion. And of course, my repeaters had the same coverage so there wasn't an issue with one having better or different coverage than the other. But that no longer matters as I have shut the one down. But I am curious, how many repeaters do YOU have on the air? You seem to take issue with three of the repeater pairs having the same conversations actively going on, and mentioned 2 more repeater pairs being used. So that's 5 of the 8 pairs in use, leaving 3 others that could be used. Are you seeing it as somehow limiting your ability to put up a repeater? Are the repeaters in question private use only and you don't have access to them? Do you have equipment and a tower site that you can't put a repeater on because the pairs are all taken up by others? Or is this a case of I need something to complain about, and this topic seems to be adequate to fill that need at this moment in time? Repeater owners of OPEN repeaters tend to get tired of listening to people complain about what they are doing with their equipment by people that are guests of their equipment and efforts. I certainly am.

Well, the one in your area HAS gone away. I shut it off last night.

At 1 hour 19 minutes and 48 seconds THIS web site is specifically mentioned by the FCC agent that is speaking. He seems to be a member here, and as such he knows and by extension the FCC KNOWS who is doing what.

Couple things. First is try loading a standard Raspian image to the card and verify that boots. While it says that it will boot and have the IP address of 192.168.something, and you can access it remotely. I would advise connecting it to a TV or monitor via HDMI with a USB keyboard attached so you can see what's going on. Pi 3 units are notoriously power hungry and not having enough power from the USB source will keep them from booting. First thing you should see when booting the Pi is a rainbow colored splash screen. It that's not being displayed or a lightning bolt shows up, it's a power issue. Try a phone charger or similar. Running them off a USB port on a computer rarely works.

Yeah, there is some info out there that the tower actually rotted out and fell and the station was off the air far longer than is being reported.

You do realize that there is a 'technical challenge' from the stand point of the repeater owners (considering ham here mostly) in getting the repeaters linked. Sure you can buy a certain repeaters that basically have the linking built in (DMR) or a certain repeater and linking hardware that is basically plug and play. But there are ways to do this that do require a soldering iron and a bit of knowledge and skill to get it all working. Which is the way I went with it. And to be honest, I was told to NOT do it that way because it's harder, and typically doesn't work well. I overcame all those challenges and made it work. So there is a feeling of accomplishment tied to that aspect of doing it as well. SUre there were easier (more expensive) ways of doing it, but I chose the harder, but less expensive route to get it done. Now, I will give you this. I REALLY don't like what the Pi-Star hot-spot movement has done to DMR and other digital modes when it comes to Ham radio. I own a couple of the things but rarely used them. When I do use them it's typically for checking my P25 repeater that's linked out as a testing tool to hear what my audio sound's like. But I do have a Quantar repeater on the air that's linked via a Cisco router to the outside world. It works as a local repeater or a world wide linked repeater depending on the TG ID that's transmitted into it. And that is a user choice. But the idea of doing ham radio were the RF path is across the room to a hot-spot and then on the Internet doesn't sit well with me. And I don't see what it has to do with ham RADIO, since there isn't much 'radio' being used.

I do believe that I went on to say that I have no issue with being direct. I understand that there are people out there that will not use linked repeaters. I understand that there are folks that even disagree with the fact that linked repeaters systems exist. And that's fine. We all get to have an opinion. But it still goes back to the ownership of the equipment at the end of the day. There are those of us that do support the idea, and have linked machines. Now I am not gonna tie up 4 pairs with repeaters that completely overlap coverage by linking them together. I will be the first to say I disagree with that thought process. But some having some level of overlap is gonna happen with a system that has better than average coverage. Some overlap means there are no holes in the coverage of the system. Could it be simulcast and all on one frequency, yes. There is no technical reason that it couldn't be. But there is the additional equipment that's required like a GPS reference. Those are a grand or so a piece. And whatever unit is used should be used at every site to eliminate issues. Then there is the receive voter that's required. Again, JPS voters aren't exactly cheap. And GMRS repeaters are paid for by their owners. Lastly, the repeaters have the repeaters have to match as well. No mixing of MTR, Quantar, with a Kenwood and a Tait stuck in there. If you are running Quantars, they have to be used at every site, the firmware needs to be the same in all the units as well. Lastly, you need to know how to do it. There are some of us out here that have that knowledge and have worked on these types of systems at a professional level. But ther is no requirement for a repeater owner to be a commercial radio tech. And hiring a commercial radio tech to build something like what I am talking about here is gonna be 100 to 150 bucks an hour. SO more out of pocket costs. So while it's certainly possible from a technical standpoint, the practicality of it isn't really there. Oh, I forgot the thousands of dollars per site that is required for the channel banks and microwave links between the sites. Simulcast links can't be run on the Internet. The latency variance is too great. But my point was this. It's the other guys gear he's talking about. Nothing stops him from putting up his own repeater. And again, I understand that some folks don't like linked repeaters. And that's fine. But griping about it in an open forum, when they don't have anything on the air isn't really the way to garner support for his stance.

Alright, there is a lot to unpack here but I am gonna try. First off, you don't have control of the repeaters around you because they don't belong to you. They are other people's equipment and are under their control. What you can do in this case is put up your own repeater and choose to link it, or not, and for that matter make it completely private where you control access to it completely. Because it's your equipment. "Making Contacts" Well, here's the thing with hobby radio. You can choose to do anything you want with your license once you have it. You can just rag chew on simplex or a repeater, or you can use it strictly for family communications and communicate with no one else. And everyone else has that same wide range of choices on what they choose to do. There is no requirement for you to use other people's repeaters, or talk to people on those repeaters. And by the sound of it, and the minute you said "I am not trying to come across as a jackass" I sort of knew that was EXACTLY what you were doing. See I never lead with that. I will tell you ahead of time I am being serious if I have a bone to pick, and I do it. Mostly because just like you, I am entitled to my opinion and have no problems voicing it. See, you come on here, praising the repeater owners and then pointing out your issues with their repeaters. Are you a repeater owner? How many repeaters do YOU have on the air? I have repeaters on the air. One is linked and one is not linked. But that might be subject to change. But it isn't going to be linked to the same system as the other kinked repeater since the coverage matches for both machines. The second one at some point will be linked to other repeaters in Ohio. Anyway, I can do that since I own the equipment. It's my choice to do with my gear what I see fit to do with it. But if you feel that the repeaters owned by others are 'clogged up" build your own repeater and use it how you see fit. That is part of what your license allows you to do. There are others that don't like the linking, and have came in here and voiced that before. They all got told the same thing. Go do your own thing, you are certainly allowed per your license. But questioning the actions of others, when it comes to THEIR equipment is not going to earn you much respect or acceptance by them.

Obrien Potato's (or my take on it) 3/4 sized cubed potatoes, enough to fill a 12 inch cast iron skillet half way up 1 pound breakfast sausage green pepper (I do half of one) cut into small pieces half a yellow onion cut into small pieces Brown sausage, I tend to hold back enough sausage for 4 small patties, but that's my preference. Break sausage into smallest pieces possible with spatula. Brown / cook potatoes in olive oil with Paprika (enough to lightly cover cubed potato's) garlic, salt and pepper to taste While those are cooking, cut up onion and green pepper. These need added just as potato's are starting to soften and brown. At that point add the onion and green pepper. Add browned sausage to potato's and stir it all together. serve with a sausage patty on top This one is a staple for us. I make this for breakfast or dinner. BTW, if I am posting it here, I make it in cast iron. But then again, i only use cast iron skillets to cook in. Sauce pans are the normal stuff but my skillets are all cast. I rarely cook in anything else.

Per a discussion on the MidWest system the other day, here are a few recipes that I discussed. Feel free to add to the post with your own favorites. Foil bags Pound of raw shrimp pealed and devined pound of smoked sausage sliced red skin potatoes corn on the cob broken in half ears Butter (full stick cut up) Old Bay seasoning to taste (I like a lot) Place ingredients in double layered foil envelope (foil folded in half and rolled shut then a second layer on it over top the first). cook on grill until potatoes are done. Can also be made in dutch oven in a stove Turn foil bags half way through cooking. I cook this between 350 and 400 in the grill or stove. Attention needs paid to it after 15 or so minutes to keep from burning it. Cook until potatoes are getting soft. Sausage 'Stew' No idea on real name. It's just really good. Cavenders Seasoning. Probably 2 tablespoons, but the more the merrier. pound of smoked sausage Sliced Red skin potatoes cubed to 3/4 size Red or Orange pepper corn on the cob broken to half ears one 2 liter of root beer or Dr Pepper Original recipe called for 1 or two cans and the rest water. Don't bother with that. Use the FULL 2 liter. Enough liquid to cover the contents for boiling Combine ingredients and light boil until potatoes are almost mashing soft. Serve in bowls.

While your numbers of repeater owners might be a bit off, repeaters being expensive is 100% true. Now there seems to be inference by the question, why would someone want to put up a repeater, much less multiple repeaters and not be able to 'charge' for their use. The short version is because we are in a situation that we can afford to do it. Some of us do it because we travel in the states and area's we cover so we always have access to the system. Others have a line on free or reduced cost gear and use that gear as we see fit to build systems. Most of the repeater owners have a standing invitation for GMRS license holders that have access to towers of significant height, to provide equipment to place on those towers with some stipulations pertaining to any rent, or other reoccurring costs to be paid for by the person or persons in the operating range of that repeater. We have the means and the knowledge to get it done, so we do it. And be assured that most owners are always looking for a deal on used gear that fits the needs of the system. None of the major players are running mobile radios and a repeater controller as a repeater. Everyone is using some sort of public safety / carrier grade equipment so it will stand up to the abuse of being keyed for hours on end during a net or a busy time. Repeaters that are NOT 100% duty cycle rated will not hold up in these applications. So there's part of the why. The other parts. It's a hobby. Take car collectors, big game hunters, motorsports competitors, coin and currency collectors, and a number of other hobby's. They spend just as much if not more on their hobby's that we do as repeater system owners. One owner has admitted he has over 100K invested in his repeater network. And knowing what he have, I have no reason to question that number and in truth I bet it's actually more. But these things are done over time. Lastly, and here's my motivation. The tower I have access to and the equipment I have to do this most people don't have. Since I do have it I sort of feel obligated to provide the service since I can. It's a unique situation to be about to park an antenna at 180 feet on the highest point in a county and put up a repeater on that antenna. I want people to enjoy it. If I didn't I would just sell all the gear and operate on repeaters provided by others, except when I got started, there were no others. So I did it myself and others have since followed my lead. And we continue to look to expand.