SteveShannon

Absolutely none of this is your fault. You asked sincere questions that belonged in the technical discussion forum. People answered. The way it’s supposed to work is that people vote up the best answer and vote down wrong answers. Then, when a person reads the question later they get the highest quality answer at the top instead of having to read through three or twelve pages hoping that one of the answers is correct. The system actually works well and helps people find peer reviewed answers quickly when people use it as intended and has worked well for years, but sometimes we end up with a couple of knuckleheads who don’t like it and end up consistently at the bottom of the pile. Or sometimes people mark down posts based on who posted rather than the quality of the answer. Personally, I like being able to sort by votes, but I wish the default was sort by date simply to avoid the whining by 709 or better yet allow each person to determine in their profile which way they wanted to see the sorting.

A base station has exactly the same power as a mobile station. The only difference is that it’s possible to have a high antenna with high gain that might be pointed towards another high antenna. Except for special circumstances that’s unlikely to get you very far though because UHF radios transmit in a mostly straight line and once that line is past the horizon it is still going straight as the earth’s surface curves away from it. UHF isn’t as likely to reflect from the atmosphere as lower frequencies are; it just goes shooting off into space. There are people who live on the side of a mountain range who can transmit in a straight line to another mountain range that’s 200 miles away but that’s not a common occurrence. An amateur radio in the HF bands is much more likely to transmit multiple states away. I have reached Australia and Antarctica from Montana on 10-50 watts on the HF bands using a weak signal mode called FT8.

It’s the operator’s call sign, which is usually the owner. All stations, whether handheld or repeaters, must be operated by someone with a license. The station itself isn’t licensed though. So while it’s technically correct to say that repeaters aren’t licensed, it’s not helpful. The operator is licensed and that’s whose call sign is transmitted.

I like the ham radio crash course videos and I like Notarubicon videos.

Just based on those two sentences I hope more db20g questions are asked in the technical discussions forum. There’s absolutely nothing special about your advice. Why would we kowtow to you?

Looks like a Yaesu ftm-200 https://www.gigaparts.com/yaesu-ftm-200dr-50w-vhf-uhf-dual-band-c4fm-fm-mobile-transceiver.html?utm_term=sku-zys-ftm-200dr&P_Max_Yaesu_2&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD_py5FGyMGQMRPOY6wX4o3y80v18&gclid=Cj0KCQiAo5u6BhDJARIsAAVoDWtzN7mrQOJmFTNxq4vO9yXxm18ZP-Vc00M7AJXZvej194mDtq9vXYkaAslFEALw_wcB

Mmmm, beer...

Your license is the repeater license. For GMRS there are only licenses for individuals. To add a new repeater go to the map page, click on My Repeater, then Owned Repeaters, then click on the button that says Add Repeater. But I strongly suggest you not add it until your repeater is up and running.

Yeah, some testing locations will charge a small fee. We don’t here. FCC rules limit the fee to actual costs. VEs don’t get paid for our time.

FYI - upgrading your class of amateur license does not require a fee. Just new licenses, renewals, rule waivers, and vanity calls incur the $35 fee. https://www.arrl.org/news/new-fcc-application-fee-will-not-apply-to-amateur-radio-license-upgrades

I use and like an app called Morse Mania on my iPhone and iPad.

Yes, that is correct. In your comment you said channel 21. Channel 21 isn’t the same as RPT-21. They both receive on the same frequency but RPT-21 transmits with the needed offset. That’s what I (poorly) tried to explain when I said the following:

It really wasn’t a technique that you could choose. If you post in the technical discussion forum the sort by votes is the default. Unfortunately choosing sort by date isn’t persistent once a person chooses it. I do agree with 709 that it’s a pain in the ass, but like Gil (@WRUU653) I can live with it.

The 805? It uses the same cable as the Baofeng radios. You probably already have one, but if not it doesn’t hurt to get the Wouxun cable. Busy Channel Lockout can only be set from the software. Heres a video on programming it:

As long as you don’t need the non conventional offset the 805 should be excellent. You can program it with up to 128 custom channels. One nice thing is that the squelch is much better out of the box than the Baofeng, but there is a way to tweak the squelch for the Baofeng. I have a GT5R also, but it’s strictly a ham radio, not GMRS.

Just use that antenna. If you do choose to upgrade the MXTA26 from Midland is excellent as a mobile antenna but you will also need to get an NMO mount for it. It has a gain of about 6 dBi but don’t get too hung up on that. Midland has a 20% off sale right now. Code is REC20.

So channel 21 is a simplex channel that transmits on 462.700 MHz. Channel 29 (aka RP21 or something like that) is the repeater channel that automatically transmits on the correct 467.700 MHz frequency. Try just changing to the repeater channel and setting the repeater input tone there.

You’re right. @MarkInTampa nailed it yesterday. I failed to see that. I have the KG-805. It’s an excellent radio. Unfortunately I don’t believe there’s any way to program it for a non-standard split. I also have a Baofeng UV5R. Although the QC wasn’t nearly as good it works adequately. It will definitely transmit just as far. It sounds okay, and it can be programmed with the split. But I bought it before they started locking them down. I don’t know about the newer versions, but I suspect once they’re unlocked they’re fine.

@Elbowmac - one thing that you can do with certified GMRS radios with dual tuners is program the primary tuner to transmit on the correct repeater input frequency and program the secondary tuner to receive only on the non-standard tuner. Oops, I see that @MarkInTampa posted that same solution yesterday. Sorry.

75 feet of UF 7 is definitely costing you some power, but are you certain you’re transmitting on a repeater channel? You’ll hear the repeater on both a simplex channel and a repeater channel, but only the repeater channel transmits on the correct frequency in the 467 MHz main channels.

Trees block UHF pretty effectively.

Something to be aware of is that base stations are not allowed to transmit on the 467 MHz main channels that repeaters receive. c) 467 MHz main channels. Only mobile, hand-held portable, control and fixed stations may transmit on these 8 channels. Mobile, hand-held portable and control stations may transmit on these channels only when communicating through a repeater station or making brief test transmissions in accordance with § 95.319(c). The channel center frequencies are: 467.5500, 467.5750, 467.6000, 467.6250, 467.6500, 467.6750, 467.7000, and 467.7250 MHz.

I agree with Gil (@WRUU653). Please don’t start a new thread because one person cannot adapt to the up/down voting. This is the technical forum. People have the ability to very easily choose “sort by date”. Unfortunately someone went through the responses here and downvoted almost every post, including your very reasonable questions. That was petty and shows an utter lack of respect to those who honestly try to answer technical questions. Back to your original question, although the typical GMRS repeater will use exactly 5.000 MHz as the offset, the regulations do not require it. The regulations do require that transmitting to a repeater be done using one of the eight established 467 MHz main channels and that the repeater transmit on one of the 462 MHz main channels. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/section-95.1763 But choosing an offset that is different than 5.000 MHz will result in many (perhaps all) certified GMRS radios being unable to use your repeater. All certified GMRS radios that I know of uses 5.000 MHz as the offset. So that means that people will be forced to unlock ham radios or repurpose commercial radios in order to use your repeater transmit. Whether that’s a problem, only you can determine. One way to get around that is to use a radio that can be programmed using Chirp and which supports non-standard offsets or separate receiver and transmit frequencies. The cheap Baofeng UV5R radios did this easily. Many ham radios use “Automatic Repeater Shift” which assumes exactly 5.000 MHz offset for UHF frequencies. Commercial radios, found on the used market, like the ones @Lscott refers to would be absolutely excellent for this purpose. Best wishes!

You probably can’t, at least not if the gain is expressed in dBd rather than dBi. You might not even want one with that high of gain if you could get it. Lack of ERP is seldom the limiting factor for range. The Comet ca-712efc advertises 9 dBi, which has 6.85 dB of gain when compared to a typical dipole. https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/cma-ca-712efc

For a permanently mounted antenna up in the air a properly installed lightning arrester is a good thing to have, but for a mobile antenna on a steel cookie sheet stuck out the window it’s really not necessary. Nor do you need to change to a through hole NMO connector. The magnetic base establishes a good enough ground plane with the cookie sheet without needing direct connection. And as @Socalgmrs pointed out a ground plane isn’t the same as an earth ground. Also, that metal cookie sheet is not a reflector; it should be kept horizontal and the antenna should be vertical.