coryb27

Why does every new license holder want to setup a repeater? I would like to shed a little light on some of the important things to consider if you recently got your GMRS license and now want your own repeater.
 
First thing to consider, are there any open well placed repeaters in your area that you are able to use? I can assure you most repeater owners want people to use there repeater. Owning several repeaters I can assure you all are welcome and encouraged to use my machines.
 
Do you have access to a location to host your repeater? If your answer is your garage roof you should reconsider. Your garage roof will give you about the same coverage as simplex. Unless you’re on top of a mountain and all your users are at the bottom you will never be happy with this setup.
 
GMRS is not as popular as one would like to think, unless your repeater covers 20 miles or more you may find you only have 1 or 2 users in the area. Unless you already have a group of friends together you may want to consider this before spending money on a decent well positioned site to install your repeater.
 
So you found a nice high site and the price is right, all you need to do is get the repeater installed, sounds simple right? Some thigs to consider first and foremost are the costs because they can add up quickly. Are you on a commercial tower that requires a license and bonded climber? If so this could be by far your largest expense depending on your area. I have spent $600 to $1200 on a climber; I have had quotes as high as $2500 depending on the amount of work and heights involved.  Keep in mind commercial sites require certified mounts, hard line cable, cable clamps, engineered grounding solutions and commercial grade antennas. No tower owner is going to let you install a comet antenna and 200’ of braided shield coax.
 
This brings me to my next point, the antenna. Because of the costs involved with climbers you will want to expend your budget on the antenna. Remember a $2000 repeater on a $200 antenna is going to work about as good as a $200 repeater.  Whereas a $200 repeater on a $2000 antenna is going to work like a $2000 repeater. On my first repeater I was gifted use of a 150’ tower, I installed a DB-420 on the top and 160’ of 7/8 hardline. Total cost of equipment for the antenna install was $2500, with the climbers labor coming in at an additional $800. This left me with enough to purchase an old Motorola R100 repeater running at 25W. To my surprise it had 30 miles of coverage, all due to the cash spent on the antenna and waiting for a decent spot.
 
Things happen, more so if you have an antenna 200’ in the air with a conductive cable connected to sensitive electronics. Antenna issues, feedline issues, repeater issues all cost money and I promise at some point you will have issues that need repair and require your money!
 
It is my opinion that the GMRS community does not need another 2 to 5 miles repeater as it just becomes background noise. What use is a public listed repeater if somebody in a mobile can’t use it 5 miles away while moving or the portable coverage is only a mile? If after reading this you are still going to build a repeater for your garage more power to you, just don’t expect 20 people to show up if it only reaches a mile.
 
As the owner of several GMRS and Commercial repeaters I can attest to the amount of money and effort go into my repeaters. I have only touched on the basics, if you add in any kind of testing services, duplexer tuning, addition of a combiner channel to an existing tower system, RF engineering, rent and insurance your costs can sky rocket. The best advice I can give any new licensee is to try and use the available systems in the area. Take the time to learn a little about what you’re doing and to assess the usability of the service before investing in a repeater for the sole reason of saying you own one.

You are asking the same question that this entire topic is about, I have also provided an answer to your question and here it is again. Echolink is HAM, this is GMRS. Most of the HAM linking systems are based on Asterisk using the Allstar network. Asterisk is the same system that is being used to link GMRS repeaters using the network here at MyGMRS or one of the other GMRS networks that has been set up. Some allow simplex nodes some don't. The MyGMRS network is repeaters as they are more useful. I would suggest you go back an read whats already been posted as your question has been answered already. As well this forum has a topic dedicated to just this... Below is the link you could have found by reading my other post or simply using the forums search box at the top of the page. I don't mind helping or answering anybody's questions so long as you first attempt to find the information on your own. Answering the same questions over and over because people don't want to take the time to look is annoying and a big turnoff.
 
https://forums.mygmrs.com/topic/295-repeater-linking-discussion/

You are asking the same question that this entire topic is about, I have also provided an answer to your question and here it is again. Echolink is HAM, this is GMRS. Most of the HAM linking systems are based on Asterisk using the Allstar network. Asterisk is the same system that is being used to link GMRS repeaters using the network here at MyGMRS or one of the other GMRS networks that has been set up. Some allow simplex nodes some don't. The MyGMRS network is repeaters as they are more useful. I would suggest you go back an read whats already been posted as your question has been answered already. As well this forum has a topic dedicated to just this... Below is the link you could have found by reading my other post or simply using the forums search box at the top of the page. I don't mind helping or answering anybody's questions so long as you first attempt to find the information on your own. Answering the same questions over and over because people don't want to take the time to look is annoying and a big turnoff.
 
https://forums.mygmrs.com/topic/295-repeater-linking-discussion/

A fixed station would be an RF link from one repeater to another.

Quietly moving us to narrow band....

Looks correct to me, I think BoxCar's made a mistake or is quoting from a different reg.

Not this Corey!
 
Now that you have my attention you will get my Opinion.
 
WX over GMRS, annoying to say the least. We have a garage repeater in my area that tells as the time, date, humidity, temp, ID and website every 30 min. As soon as a SAME WX alert comes thru it breaks in with the NWS for 2 full rotations of the message. To make matters worse it adds it to the end of the gibberish info it sends out every 30 min. Under a SAME alert this thing will spit out 5 min of worthless channel blocking information to nobody every 30 min. During this time the repeater is rendered useless and could hinder real emergency communications.
 
In my opinion this is not what GMRS is intended for, if you have a need to monitor a WX radio buy a weather radio and leave GMRS out of it. Last thing we need on our very limited amount of spectrum is GMRS repeaters broadcasting something that is already broadcast to most of our population.

Not this Corey!
 
Now that you have my attention you will get my Opinion.
 
WX over GMRS, annoying to say the least. We have a garage repeater in my area that tells as the time, date, humidity, temp, ID and website every 30 min. As soon as a SAME WX alert comes thru it breaks in with the NWS for 2 full rotations of the message. To make matters worse it adds it to the end of the gibberish info it sends out every 30 min. Under a SAME alert this thing will spit out 5 min of worthless channel blocking information to nobody every 30 min. During this time the repeater is rendered useless and could hinder real emergency communications.
 
In my opinion this is not what GMRS is intended for, if you have a need to monitor a WX radio buy a weather radio and leave GMRS out of it. Last thing we need on our very limited amount of spectrum is GMRS repeaters broadcasting something that is already broadcast to most of our population.

I thought that question was just answered in another very recent thread, perhaps within the last two weeks.  
OPEN REPEATER INITIATIVE

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You are asking the same question that this entire topic is about, I have also provided an answer to your question and here it is again. Echolink is HAM, this is GMRS. Most of the HAM linking systems are based on Asterisk using the Allstar network. Asterisk is the same system that is being used to link GMRS repeaters using the network here at MyGMRS or one of the other GMRS networks that has been set up. Some allow simplex nodes some don't. The MyGMRS network is repeaters as they are more useful. I would suggest you go back an read whats already been posted as your question has been answered already. As well this forum has a topic dedicated to just this... Below is the link you could have found by reading my other post or simply using the forums search box at the top of the page. I don't mind helping or answering anybody's questions so long as you first attempt to find the information on your own. Answering the same questions over and over because people don't want to take the time to look is annoying and a big turnoff.
 
https://forums.mygmrs.com/topic/295-repeater-linking-discussion/

Not this Corey!
 
Now that you have my attention you will get my Opinion.
 
WX over GMRS, annoying to say the least. We have a garage repeater in my area that tells as the time, date, humidity, temp, ID and website every 30 min. As soon as a SAME WX alert comes thru it breaks in with the NWS for 2 full rotations of the message. To make matters worse it adds it to the end of the gibberish info it sends out every 30 min. Under a SAME alert this thing will spit out 5 min of worthless channel blocking information to nobody every 30 min. During this time the repeater is rendered useless and could hinder real emergency communications.
 
In my opinion this is not what GMRS is intended for, if you have a need to monitor a WX radio buy a weather radio and leave GMRS out of it. Last thing we need on our very limited amount of spectrum is GMRS repeaters broadcasting something that is already broadcast to most of our population.

I don't think linking GMRS repeaters is trying to make GMRS something it is not and will never be. We have been linking machines for a few years now and its been great. It has expanded the area of coverage from 30 miles to 3 states with the ability to connect to several other states. If you have friends and family in a different city or state you could still enjoy using GMRS with them by simply linking a repeater in each area together. The owner of this site has a nice system in place, check this out https://link.mygmrs.com/map

Funny no matter what Forum linking comes up in it always starts a POTS debate, one that's been beat to death. Nothing I do is over POTS, in fact the Asterisk server is sitting on optical fiber and the nodes on dedicated point to point connections or cable. As an IT professional of 25 years I can assure you DSL is not POTS. Unless you are doing an auto patch to a POTS line or using dial up for your internet chances are your internet has been been off the last mile for years.

Not this Corey!
 
Now that you have my attention you will get my Opinion.
 
WX over GMRS, annoying to say the least. We have a garage repeater in my area that tells as the time, date, humidity, temp, ID and website every 30 min. As soon as a SAME WX alert comes thru it breaks in with the NWS for 2 full rotations of the message. To make matters worse it adds it to the end of the gibberish info it sends out every 30 min. Under a SAME alert this thing will spit out 5 min of worthless channel blocking information to nobody every 30 min. During this time the repeater is rendered useless and could hinder real emergency communications.
 
In my opinion this is not what GMRS is intended for, if you have a need to monitor a WX radio buy a weather radio and leave GMRS out of it. Last thing we need on our very limited amount of spectrum is GMRS repeaters broadcasting something that is already broadcast to most of our population.

Not this Corey!
 
Now that you have my attention you will get my Opinion.
 
WX over GMRS, annoying to say the least. We have a garage repeater in my area that tells as the time, date, humidity, temp, ID and website every 30 min. As soon as a SAME WX alert comes thru it breaks in with the NWS for 2 full rotations of the message. To make matters worse it adds it to the end of the gibberish info it sends out every 30 min. Under a SAME alert this thing will spit out 5 min of worthless channel blocking information to nobody every 30 min. During this time the repeater is rendered useless and could hinder real emergency communications.
 
In my opinion this is not what GMRS is intended for, if you have a need to monitor a WX radio buy a weather radio and leave GMRS out of it. Last thing we need on our very limited amount of spectrum is GMRS repeaters broadcasting something that is already broadcast to most of our population.

We are using Asterisk as the server (running on a raspberry pi 3) and the RTCM made by micro-node. Cheaper hardware solutions vs the RTCM are available but require other configuration. I have not used any of the other hardware so I wont touch on that. I chose the RTCM for its single unit design and application specific properties. The interfacing with the RTCM is rather simple, I went with the MTR2000 repeater for reliability, full duty cycle and used market availability. 
 
Our group hosts its own local node server (Asterisk running on a raspberry pi 3) with 6 repeaters connected to it. This local node also allows us access to the MyGMRS national linking network hosted by the owner of this site. By entering commands in Asterisk or using DTMF,  links to other systems can be connected or disconnected on the fly. Things like usage counters and the visual map show links with red lines as well as what site is transmitting by changing its marker from green to red, all of this in real time.
 
Its not as hard as it sounds, Rich from MyGMRS was a huge help, you can also find a linking thread in the private section here. Along the way I found a company that was able to build a custom cable for interfacing the MTR2000 with the RTCM, it provides a reliable solution that's repeatable and works flawless. The MTR2000 repeater can be configured to work with the RTCM rather simply using the repeaters wire-line card to handle the audio and the 96 pin J5 connector to pull ctcss, core, ptt and power.
 
We are using the RTCM and MTR at 6 sites with a stand alone MTR at a 7th and could not be happier. These machines are worth every penny, its not 2 mobiles in a box its a true full duty cycle, commercial grade repeater. Due to the simplicity I have several more RTCM / MRT2000 combos ready to go I just need to fined a few more tower sites with internet.
 
Hope this answers a few questions.

Funny no matter what Forum linking comes up in it always starts a POTS debate, one that's been beat to death. Nothing I do is over POTS, in fact the Asterisk server is sitting on optical fiber and the nodes on dedicated point to point connections or cable. As an IT professional of 25 years I can assure you DSL is not POTS. Unless you are doing an auto patch to a POTS line or using dial up for your internet chances are your internet has been been off the last mile for years.

Funny no matter what Forum linking comes up in it always starts a POTS debate, one that's been beat to death. Nothing I do is over POTS, in fact the Asterisk server is sitting on optical fiber and the nodes on dedicated point to point connections or cable. As an IT professional of 25 years I can assure you DSL is not POTS. Unless you are doing an auto patch to a POTS line or using dial up for your internet chances are your internet has been been off the last mile for years.

What does “duty cycle” mean?
 
I bring up duty cycle every time I hear somebody talking about making a repeater out of cheap Chinese mobiles and worse any type of handhelds. Duty cycle is the maximum time an amplifier may transmit within a five minute interval, expressed as a percentage, to avoid overheating. Suppose a mobile amplifier is rated at 30% duty cycle. This means that it may transmit for no longer than 1.5 minutes and must remain off for not less than 3.5 minutes. Some people forget that a repeater is transmitting for 2 or more people, duty cycle will be reached quickly if you get into conversation. More people in the conversation just amplifies the issue.
 
Once a radio reaches it's thermal design limits it will no longer be able to adequately cool the output transistors. Even if a radio is not hot to the touch the transistors are, in part because of the inefficient transfer of heat to the units housing or internal heat sink. The longer you exceed the duty cycle the more heat builds on the transistors, surrounding electronics and heat sink effecting it's ability to remain on frequency without spurious emissions. Exceed duty cycle long enough and you will need a new transmitter or radio.
 
I have tested a few Baofang and TYT radios on my service monitor without great results. All of the radios started deviating outside of the allotted channel bandwidth after simulated conversation at 50% duty cycle, the longer I allowed this the worse if got. Testing was done using an Aeroflex 2975 IFR recently back from the calibration lab. 
 
GMRS is a tiny sliver of spectrum surrounded by the commercial land mobile part 90 service. It is important that any repeaters that are built or re-purposed are held to the highest standards and operated as to not cause any interference inside or outside of our allocated spectrum. I wont get into the part 90/95 debate but i do stand firm that non certified import equipment has no place on GMRS. 

We are using Asterisk as the server (running on a raspberry pi 3) and the RTCM made by micro-node. Cheaper hardware solutions vs the RTCM are available but require other configuration. I have not used any of the other hardware so I wont touch on that. I chose the RTCM for its single unit design and application specific properties. The interfacing with the RTCM is rather simple, I went with the MTR2000 repeater for reliability, full duty cycle and used market availability. 
 
Our group hosts its own local node server (Asterisk running on a raspberry pi 3) with 6 repeaters connected to it. This local node also allows us access to the MyGMRS national linking network hosted by the owner of this site. By entering commands in Asterisk or using DTMF,  links to other systems can be connected or disconnected on the fly. Things like usage counters and the visual map show links with red lines as well as what site is transmitting by changing its marker from green to red, all of this in real time.
 
Its not as hard as it sounds, Rich from MyGMRS was a huge help, you can also find a linking thread in the private section here. Along the way I found a company that was able to build a custom cable for interfacing the MTR2000 with the RTCM, it provides a reliable solution that's repeatable and works flawless. The MTR2000 repeater can be configured to work with the RTCM rather simply using the repeaters wire-line card to handle the audio and the 96 pin J5 connector to pull ctcss, core, ptt and power.
 
We are using the RTCM and MTR at 6 sites with a stand alone MTR at a 7th and could not be happier. These machines are worth every penny, its not 2 mobiles in a box its a true full duty cycle, commercial grade repeater. Due to the simplicity I have several more RTCM / MRT2000 combos ready to go I just need to fined a few more tower sites with internet.
 
Hope this answers a few questions.

We are already doing it http://link.mygmrs.com
 
Corey

We are using Asterisk as the server (running on a raspberry pi 3) and the RTCM made by micro-node. Cheaper hardware solutions vs the RTCM are available but require other configuration. I have not used any of the other hardware so I wont touch on that. I chose the RTCM for its single unit design and application specific properties. The interfacing with the RTCM is rather simple, I went with the MTR2000 repeater for reliability, full duty cycle and used market availability. 
 
Our group hosts its own local node server (Asterisk running on a raspberry pi 3) with 6 repeaters connected to it. This local node also allows us access to the MyGMRS national linking network hosted by the owner of this site. By entering commands in Asterisk or using DTMF,  links to other systems can be connected or disconnected on the fly. Things like usage counters and the visual map show links with red lines as well as what site is transmitting by changing its marker from green to red, all of this in real time.
 
Its not as hard as it sounds, Rich from MyGMRS was a huge help, you can also find a linking thread in the private section here. Along the way I found a company that was able to build a custom cable for interfacing the MTR2000 with the RTCM, it provides a reliable solution that's repeatable and works flawless. The MTR2000 repeater can be configured to work with the RTCM rather simply using the repeaters wire-line card to handle the audio and the 96 pin J5 connector to pull ctcss, core, ptt and power.
 
We are using the RTCM and MTR at 6 sites with a stand alone MTR at a 7th and could not be happier. These machines are worth every penny, its not 2 mobiles in a box its a true full duty cycle, commercial grade repeater. Due to the simplicity I have several more RTCM / MRT2000 combos ready to go I just need to fined a few more tower sites with internet.
 
Hope this answers a few questions.

That's not a mobile repeater in that pic, its a HAM operating HF. As far as a mobile repeater it really is a waste of time. I have done this already and it was a total disappointment.. Unless your car is at a substantial height advantage you will not have any better coverage then simplex. Again you can and will try to explain or reason away my logic without listening to what I and others have been trying to tell you. I have tried the mobile repeater, the setup was a 50W Motorola SLR 5700 with a 4 cavity BP/BR duplexer connected to a 5.5dB gain antenna on the top of my truck. After testing for about month I realized it had no practical use and only offered slightly more range than simplex, best part I ended up needing a jump after a day at the fair. Mind you this was a $2400 repeater, $800 duplexer with an antenna that was tuned using an Anritsu S331D. I promise I nor anybody on this site will try to steer you wrong, I hold a Commercial, Amateur and GMRS license, own and operate several large repeaters and have all the gear for building, testing and maintaining these kinds of systems.

Motorola, Icom, Kenwood all make new radios that can be set to wideband. Motorola uses Entitlement keys, Icom can be set in the options, Kenwood I think requires a key.