smalpierre

Well ... yeah! That's much better than a cobbled together getup. The only thing about that is you have to get the programming cables / adapters / software, feed lines ... so far I'm legit in this for 300 + about 100 in junk I had laying around including the feedline - which I think I'm going to not be using anyway now that I'm looking into what I have. It's probably going to be the very first thing I replace. Actually buying something like that was my FIRST choice. I looked all over ebay and whatnot, and it looked like all of them were in the 600 dollar range which is why I went with what I got. My controller supposedly doesn't rely on VOX though - but I'm not really sure about that. According to the barely understandable diagrams in the "documentation" it triggers the PTT on the transmitter. Im pretty sure the id-o-matic IV triggers PTT too, so that's another thing I'll look into. Anyway - that link also pokes a huge hole in the "you don't want a repeater because ... and superduper expensive" premise of the thread. Maybe the thread should be "If you really want a repeater, and are willing to put the time / energy in - here's pitfalls to avoid" instead of "You're too stupid and poor to set up a repeater"?

I was scanning today, and heard some traffic on GMRS 21 (462.700) - and it was definitely on a repeater based on me being inside a concrete block house on an HT, and at least some of them from the conversations sounded like they were also on HTs - and the courtesy beeps which were identical between everyone in the conversation. Also they were at least 12 miles away. That frequency isn't one of the "color dot" shared channels, but I'm wondering if it's possible that it's an old assigned LMR pair? One thing that leads me to believe "not LMR" is that business band was narrowbanded, and it didn't sound like it was narrow band - their voices weren't quiet, they were loud and clear. Is there a way to find out if it is an LMR assigned pair? edit: I'm aware that a business can use FRS, but is it legal for them to use GMRS for business use? Particularly GMRS repeater frequencies? Is it even possible for it to be a grandfathered LMR repeater pair?

Don't need a repeater to do what he wants to do. "repeater, and repeater capable radios" is the right answer, just to the wrong question. he clarified a couple of posts down from the top what his actual goal is - which is position reporting.

Ok, now I get what you're trying to do! For one - the Motorolas I believe are FRS radios, so they're limited to 2 watts (half watt on ch 8-14, but that's GMRS too) - and the Wouxun is a GMRS radio, so it can do 5 watts instead of 2 (the vast majority of FRS only radios I'm aware of are half watt on ALL channels anyway - if any are an exception I'd expect the Motorola to tx on 2w though). That's a good part of why you get better range with them. To do what you want to do on GMRS, a repeater is useless since location reporting on repeater channels is verboten by the FCC. I'm not 100% sure, but generally repeaters don't re-transmit sub audible tones like CTCSS, and digital modes don't work on an analog repeater - possibly for this reason (you need to use a digipeater, but I'm not sure the gorey details of why)... There are radios that do what you want to do, do it legally, and are legit GMRS radios that transmit with 5w of power - but the only one I'm aware of is the Garmin Rino, and it's pretty costly. It also btw - is repeater capable, but I'm positive Garmin has the location service turned off when you're using repeater channels because "verboten by FCC". Of note - just because it's 5w doesn't mean it'll get you the same range as the Wouxun - it might, but it might not. almost certainly get you a good bit more range than the FRS only radios though. The 700 isn't the only Rino - I think the 750 is almost twice the price, there may be lower priced ones, they might not all be repeater capable, and some might not even report GPS data over the radio, but I'd think they all would since it seems to be a defining feature of that series of radios ... They look like a really nice unit though, and it doesn't require a cell phone to get GPS data among other things. https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/rino700/EN-US/GUID-50387297-8833-415B-B1DF-5453CB1B4E09.html https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/576031

Yeah, I'm sure the repeater snobs will chime in - and I'm trying to keep this thread on the topic of "repeaters are useless unless they're ours, and they're superduper pro-grade" - but the quick answer is no, I'm testing and installing things now. I've used similar setups and got close to 10 miles. Most everything is 1 story out here on 1 - 5 acre lots, so it's not terribly dense or tall. not a lot of gigantic trees either. Certainly appreciate the weak links being pointed out - that GMRS-V1 front end is I suspect the first thing to go. I swept the duplexer with a vna, and it's not as bad as I thought it might be so I'm going to give it a whirl - but that was my second thought on weak links that I might have to replace later. Maybe the guys having problems with desense are relying on them being tuned out of the box? I'm not "that guy" - it's getting tuned as tight as I can get it with the equipment I have. If I have desense problems, I'll see if somebody at the amateur club would be willing to let me use a "real VNA" / spectrum analyzer to get it tuned. The Surecom controller I'd like to replace with an id-o-matic, but I have this one so I'm using it. I'll have to search for the threads on LMR-400. Then I'm thinking an upgrade to a more sensetive receiver with better filtering would help a lot. The one thing I don't think I'll have any issues with is my antenna - but if I do, i'll build another - or maybe just buy one? One thing idk if you saw - the GMRS-V1 is getting piped to a linear amp, I'm not relying on it for power - but really, if a remote HT on a duck can talk to it, it should be able to talk back even at HT power levels. Note that's a "should", not a "will", and my rig in the truck is a 50w with a decent antenna. I considered getting one of those b-tech 50w gmrs mobiles instead, but I figured it's probably similar to what I've got except in one box anyway. That and I already had the gmrs-v1 so it saved about 100 bucks and figuring out the cable to the controller. As for your base station simplex to HT's 7-8 miles out - I don't doubt that at all - that's kind of what I'm going for ... except the part about one person being tied to a base station which is 100% why simplex will not work for me - unless somebody out there has a magic bullet to get 2 HT's to talk 15 miles apart - and then I'm all ears, but at that point I'll be wanting even MORE range so ... And this brings us back on topic. One of the reasons I got into amateur radio was so I could play with the gear. One thing I wanted to play with was repeaters, and I found that it's kind of hard to do that when you have to get frequency coordination, and you don't already have experience (the old catch-22) and are in "the club" so to speak. It seems to me that the guys involved in frequency coordination are often all too willing to just give themselves a nod to a home based repeater, and make it really hard for anybody that's not in their clique. Enter the GMRS repeater. I can play with it and have the experience I want without some Radio Karen making my life difficult. Honestly - if it doesn't work AT ALL it's a win for me. I'll play with it til it does work, or I get tired of trying.

Why didn't I think of that? Not much for mountains in south florida.

I haven't got an SSB rig yet, and it's been eons since I played with a SSB (CB rig decades ago) - but I'm curious about how you could possibly talk mobile - mobile 70 miles away with GMRS considering it's UHF FM. VHF/UHF are line of sight - at least they are on FM. There is a LITTLE bit of difference between the radio and visual horizons, but I don't see how it's possible to communicate 70 miles away on UHF regardleess of power, much less limited to 50w. I mean - maybe tropo ducting, but that's very very far from reliable, and could theoretically get you way further than 70 miles to random places - not sure if that would even be doable on FM though. Consider even two average trucks with roof mount antennas - they aren't even 10 feet high, but lets say both are 10 feet up, running 50w. The horizon is 4 miles for each, and even with radio waves bending a bit, I don't see getting out much more than 10 miles simplex. I'm not saying it's not possible to go further, but 70 miles? I'm very interested in equipment that's capable of even 50 miles reliably. Even with each station stopping and putting up a 40 foot push up pole, it's looking a lot like 20 miles for reliable range. I'm also interested in finding out more about SSB propagation, and how and why SSB on VHF frequencies (and even high HF frequencies like 10m and 11m) seem to far exceed line of sight distances. I didn't think modulation would change how a frequency propagates, but maybe because it's so sensetive it can pick up RF that's scattered through the atmosphere a lot better than FM? Does it take something like high gain directionals to do it? I've seen old CB's (12w on SSB power limit iirc) - get 40 or so miles out - but that's with a base antenna on a roof... still it's pretty significantly further than the horizon. Anyway - the original question - how do you get 70 miles out of mobile to mobile on GMRS - heck, even 40 miles? Edit: Since this is the amateur section let me rephrase that: How can you get 40 miles simplex mobile to mobile with a 50 watt rig on UHF using FM

I'm not saying you're wrong, because you're not - but sometimes technical specs can be misleading. Think cars and horsepower. Some measure at wheels, some at crankshaft, some "derate" horsepower in various ways for whatever reasons ... I would suspect Yaesu to be much MUCH more conservative in their metrics, and I'd expect Baofeng to be extremely optimistic.

Yes - that IS the idea of this topic, and I 100% disagree with the entire premise. MY REPEATER does what I want, and you can't do what I want simplex. I'm in it about 400 bucks - the cost of that Retevis they sell on this site (which ... I'm dubious if it's really part 95, most of them have Tx / Rx freqs reversed but those also aren't advertised as part 95). You missed the part where I said it isn't for everybody - namely people that want a "boxed solution" that they hope to get 20 mile radius coverage. I didn't say ANYTHING about the rules saying your repeater can't be in a commercial installation. The part where these commercial repeater setups are illegal, is that the transmitters are part 90, not part 95. I didn't say ANYTHING about how it's hooked up to the antenna system, or exceeding power levels, etc. Not that I really CARE (so long as TX doesn't exceed 50w and doesn't cause interference), because the part 90 equipment is WAY better than any part 95 equipment I've ever seen - better filtering, and the transmitters are WAYYYYY better - and there is a train of thought that there's a "gray area" regarding part 90 equipment - but if you really want to get down to brass tacks - that "gray area" could easily change with an opinion issued by the FCC addressing it one way or the other. I also didn't say that strapping 2 HT's together with a cable, turning on VOX, and stuffing it into an ammo can was a viable solution. As a matter of fact, the prolification of those kind of systems that made me want to set up a repeater - except not doing dumb things like "simplex repeater" or transmit on 5 watt, or antennas near ground level without having adequate separation or a duplexer, or ... yeah - you might as well simplex if you're using those for the most part. The only thing those get you is that you can maybe talk a little further - effectively doubling the effective range of HT's in the BEST use case scenario (repeater is exactly halfway between both people)...

The reference to the 10 mile thing - I was talking about simplex - more specifically mobile and HT's, particularly mobile/ht to mobile/ht communication. A base station is no different than a repeater if you're talking base to mobile, it's all about antenna, and height. You can talk base to mobile same ranges. To say "just use simplex, you don't gain anything with a repeater" ignores literally everything except a narrow set of use-cases. My situation there is no WAY I could "just use simplex" - I'm in the suburbs - wayyy far out near agricultural. It's VERY flat around here. I want to be able to communicate with family / friends within a 10+ mile radius from my house, and everyone within that radius to be able to talk to each other. If I have 2 of us - one on the far side, and the other on the opposite far side - tha'ts a 20 mile haul. I don't care if you have an awesome NMO mount antenna on each car pushing 50W - you are NOT going to be talking to each other. It's just too far over the horizon even if you bulldozed everything in between and made it marble smooth. I could talk BASE to mobile with my antenna where it is (about 30 feet up), but simplex? I'd have to be sitting at the station. What happens when I want to talk to them when I'm out in the garden? With a repeater, I can do it. What happens if I have 2 people 5 miles separated on HT's? They're not going to be talking simplex, but they can on the repeater. Also - while ham radio is great for experimenting with things, and trying this that and the other thing - it is NOT friendly to experimenting with repeater setups. You're not going to get frequency coordination worked out so easily for one. GMRS is a great place to get started, figure out what works and doesn't, and how to get what you want accomplished. Then if you REALLY want to, you can go spend the tens of thousands to do it "the right way" (according to the gatekeepers) and do the whole professional setup thing. So it really chaps my hide when some smug "Radio Karen" has the audacity to tell me that what I'm doing is stupid, isn't going to gain me anything, and that it's "out of my league". My setup so far is in the 400 dollar range counting every last connector. It's a crumby Surecom 628 (I think - it's supposed to operate PTT instead of relying on VOX), a 70 dollar duplexer, 70 dollar LMR400 clone (75 feet), 2 baofeng HT's - one a GMRS-V1 so it's LEGAL unlike their part 90 repeaters they program for GMRS, a 100 dollar 50w linear amp (really 30 to 40 in reality probably), and a quarter wave ground plane antenna I made and tuned to 465mhz to be in the middle of TX / RX. Theoretically it'll get me out roughly 10 miles. I'll be SUPER happy with 6-7 miles to HT's. And for a bonus? I get to play with antennas - maybe I really need to tune it for the transmit frequency and RX doesn't matter? Maybe I start experimenting with RX radios to get killer sensetivity and excellent filtering? Maybe I decide to experiment with duplexer tuning? Or maybe I decide to swap out the controller for an Id-O-Matic (which I probably should have started with)? Maybe I experiment with antenna placement? Maybe I decide to try to make it a mobile setup with solar and battery bank? These other mobile setups I've seen are more or less total junk - especially that Retevis they sell on this site (it's got TX and RX frequencies backwards, so it's TOTALLY against GMRS rules, even more so than those part 90's and won't work with any real part 95 radios) ... I'll get to learn a LOT more about repeaters than I'd EVER learn in amateur radio. But what do I know? I'm just a plebe that doesn't have 20 grand to spend on a "real" (and illegal!) gmrs repeater!

You shouldn't have any problems at all. If you're REALLY worried about it - go ahead and put a thin little bit of dielectric grease on the teeth where it bites through the paint on the underside, and if you do that, you might as well put a teeny bit on the threads and contact point on the connection underneath and above where the antenna and cable screws in. Even a mag mount where it couples to the ground plane via inductance (?), a bedliner coating shouldn't hurt it.

I saw it mentioned in another thread - I was looking all over for its info :/ Thousands of dollars later, a repeater at 900 feet gets taken offline ... because somebody couldn't stop being a jerk. If they're unauthorizedly keying up and won't stop - they're jamming, and turning them into the fcc isn't the worst idea. I was hoping to work that thing from way up in Palm Beach county too :/

Technically they CAN, but legally absolutely without a doubt "NO".

I've read at least 2 or 3 people in here saying that a cheap cobbled together repeater is useless, just use simplex (what can you do with this that you can't do with FRS), and how you're not going to gain any range, it's way too expensive, and way too technical for most licensees, what are you going to get out of it ... I guess some people just started with a mountain of equipment, truckload of money, and all the know-how! You know what I get out of a cheesy sub thousand dollar repeater setup that I can't get from FRS? Almost 10 miles in any direction reliably to HT's. Oh, and unlike these fancy high dollar commercial setups I keep hearing about "needing" to make a useful repeater? It's not illegal. I also have fun building, and improving, and geeking out on techie things. Are you guys really getting 10+ miles simplex on HT's (on bubble pack FRS radios no less!)? I didn't think so because that would be absolute poppycock! I'm so glad I never listened to guys that kept saying "you can't". I'm not saying everybody should go set up a repeater, but the idea that they're useless unless you spend tens of thousands on a commercial type install (which again - is most likely not legal to begin with) is patently absurd. Not everybody has the same goals, or is in the same situation.