WRPQ760

Tools like Discord, Slack, etc... are not friendly to searches and historical records.  Especially due to storage limits and costs associated with space for text and uploads.

I would use Repeaterbook.com to find a GMRS repeater and/or an Amateur Radio VHF or UHF repeater around you.  In the details page of the repeater, there is a Sponsor field.  If it is owned by a club, the club name will be listed.  If its private, it will have the private owners name.

I am fortunate that a local amateur radio operator has a repeater available. It is done properly on a 400 ft tower. The repeater covers the entire county and portions of adjacent counties.
 
My initial itch for my own repeater was because I live in a low lying area and needed help getting over a hump to reach my wife’s mobile when she is at work. Once I discovered the local amateur radio club, I joined and got access to the repeater. It eliminated all desire to set up my own repeater.
 
Like you mention, GMRS is not wildly popular. For the most part it is only we two who use it, with the occasional visit from one of the hams.
 
If the repeater owner ever decides to stop maintaining the repeater, I may very well become interested in building my own again. Fortunately, my coverage needs are modest, about 10 miles. We probably could blast through most of that distance on 40 Watt simplex, except for the hump right in the middle.

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.

The reason you’re able to hear people and not able to talk to them may be due to them using “privacy codes” (tones). Some radios can scan and “grab” that tone (I have it assigned to one of my programmable menu buttons) but with other radios you’d need to know what frequency corresponds to the channel displayed on their little radio and then manually program it.

Sometimes they vary by radio brand. For example here is a list published by Midland:

https://www.manualsdir.com/manuals/124284/17/midland-gxt720_775-page17.png


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Oh.. shit.
As it turns out, a AM as stupid as everyone says.  It is also entire possible that I have had too much NyQuil ..
Carry on.

Dude... I didn't test on 2m.  I used two distinctly different watt meters to confirm the numbers are correct.  See?  I tested on two meters, not 2m.

Well, it's here....
 

 

 
 
After using a bunch of feature-rich radios I wasn't expecting much out of it, but this was pretty disappointing.  The only feature difference above the MXT400 is the split tone and (maybe) the weather resistance.
 
The biggest disappointment so far is they advertise this unit as 50w and its not.  I bench-tested it with two different watt meters and it maxed out at 38 watts on the 462 MHz channels and 32 watts on the 467 MHz frequencies.
 
I'm going to play with it for a few days and see if there are any other disappointments.  I'll let you all know what I think after I give it a fair shot.

So..thinking of this as more of a knowledge base/sharing type thing, since it's another Part 95 approved LMR option, and last I looked, pretty reasonably priced on the used market.  I'm thinking trying to keep this first post an overall summary as new things come to mind, or info comes up in the thread.  Definitely still some things I can learn; I suspect it's possible to program to be able to change tones within a pre-defined table, but haven't dug back into the CPS to look for it.  the times i've run into this, I just programmed the same channel more than once with different tones (copy and paste works great, both single or bulk).
Programming:  it's not listed on their site, but there's listings on ebay for cable+software; i got mine from The Antenna Farm. I've found the help menu in the CPS (all versions of the Vertex CPS, really) to be pretty good at explaining most of the settings, given the market it's aimed at.
A couple quirks:
Scanning: It's set up for on-hook scan, which means the mic holder needs to be grounded (to the radio, if it's not mounted to anything).  Took me awhile to figure this out, but I understand it's common on LMR gear. I have the mic holder on one of the screws holding the radio in the bracket (since they're base radios for me); ran a wire to that screw when the holder was mounted on plastic in the truck. Also had to chase an issue with a mic that would not let the radio scan, turned out to be a broken ground wire inside the mic. Squelch:  I'll try to add a screenshot, but there's a "Squelch Offset" setting in one of the menus; in one of my starting from a fresh code plug, that defaulted to like..10 out of 15 without me realizing it, and NOTHING would break squelch, no matter how I set the squelch in the radio's menu (unless it was off)...I moved that down to like 2 or 3, and the menu squelch is generally on 1...working great now. On mics, the NIB 4207  came with the older Yaesu mic (MH-25A8J), as did the 4204, while the 2nd 4207 came with the newer MH-67A8J Vertex Standard mic.  I haven't run into any audio difference between the two, though the MH25 definitely has a nicer feel to it, with the weight (which is literally just a weight inside), and the softer throw of the ptt key.  The MH67 is more of a click on/off.  Both seem to interchange and scan just fine.

Great series of Vertex radios, the VX-4200 series. When working for the oil industry, these were the "go-to" radio for a fleet of small (less than 72 foot vessels) that needed commercial radio comms on board. This was also based on the caveat that corporate had decided to end the installation of radios in smaller vessels, and vehicles to save money. The (corporate decision-makers) thought was that handheld radios could hit everything that was required in all roles, in that case, handheld Motorola PR1500 VHF radios. However, the West Coast required repeaters and radios with more output power than a handheld radio, so Vertex VX-4200's were used as a "cheap" option that could escape the corporate types scrutinizing the budget.
We did not use the scan function activating on hanging up the mic, and often tore the small wire off the mic mounts when the radios shipped with that version. Other came with a separate piece of wire to connect to the mic holder. The only issue we ever had was the metal cases would rust when left in "open house" style vessels, where the radio was exposed to the elements. 
Great write-up on this radio. It would be a great mobile to use for GMRS. For 14 years, I ran the older and slightly smaller VX-3200 VHF and another for UHF, stacked in my car for commercial and GMRS use.
My only warning about using the VX-3200/4200's is that some of them are not capable of narrow band operation (12.5 kHz) operation, as there was a problem with some of the filters during manufacture in Japan. High humidity meant that they would only work in wide band (not a problem for GMRS). For a while, Motorola would fix them, later ship replacement filters, and then stopped supporting them. These radios with faulty narrow band filters were the last of the VX-3200, and first run of VX-4200 radios (made before the narrow band mandate of January 2013), being supported by Motorola when they purchased Vertex. (There were also some issues with some Motorola and Icom radios that used the same filters). 

Good explanation Corey. Its also important to note that even repeaters have some form of duty cycle and that the duty cycle can change depending on output power. A great example is the motorola 1225 series repeater. At full power, 45 watts, the repeater is limited to a 50% duty cycle. In low power, 25 watts, they are 100% cycle.

Luckily, good repeaters have protection in the form of a Time Out Timer (TOT) and usually a ReSet Timer (RST) When set up correctly, the TOT should cut off the TX BEFORE the duty cycle is reached, and the RST should prevent transmissions until the appropriate rest period has passed. This helps extend the life of the repeater even when your not there to monitor it.

Almost ALL radios now-a-days have a TOT as well. Typically I set mine for 2 minutes which is more than I need to transmit for, but is less than the duty cycle permits thus protecting the transistors.  I've had people tell me its dumb to do as no idiot would want to talk non-stop unless they are in a net or special operation. That's when I give them this story:
 
A while back when I was on the first aid squad, I was getting ready to go to sleep. Turned out the lights, laid my head on the pillow, then came the sound of a soft moan from a woman. Now, this would have been great, if there had been a woman in bed with me. The moaning continued and a bit confused I began looking for the source. Didn't take long to find my squad radio was receiving, and after turning it up a little, yep you guessed it. Turns out, the LT's portable radio had fallen between the bed and the night stand and as they and their lover were going at it, it was all transmitted quite clearly to the repeater, then retransmitted for the ENTIRE COUNTY to listen to. To make matters worse, the radios all had ID numbers so we knew whos radio was transmitting, and even worse, the LT had shut their phone off, so calling them to tell them their private session was public was not doable. Finally, the radios did not have TOT's at the time and so for a good while (I just shut my radio off but a friend at the county said they heard every minute of the 15+ minute incident. When the portable finally cut out, either from overheating or a dead battery or from falling loose of the PTT button, there wee quite a few catcalls to let them know everything was public including a few repeats of nick-names used during the session.

So folks, learn two things from this story. A: TOT's work, especially when a mistake is made or you don't realize the transmit button is pushed, it will work and save your radio from damage and possibly you from some embarrassment. B: Someone is always listening, so keep in mind what you say or do on the radio, especially if you work for a public safety organization because if you say the wrong things you could find yourself in quite a bit of trouble.

Coming from the perspective of a radio listener, I think 1 min is a good value as well as a serves as a reminder to keep one’s transmissions short and keep the dialog moving. However, as the talker, I admit I have personally settled on 2 min. One just proved to be to short and restrictive in way to many cases.

While the TOT is a great way aid in keeping the duty cycle down, I like the security it provides knowing that if the PTT gets stuck unknowingly and accidentally that the radio will stop transmitting automatically after the TOT time has expired.


Michael
WRHS965
KE8PLM

Wow, great conversation for a newbie to listen to, thank you for the education.
I'm new on GMRS, in RI, and just getting started I figured the best docs to start
with are the fourm's. Thank you very much. Have a great weekend.

Great follow up! I was hoping this topic would generate some conversation. I personally don't own any repeaters that are less then full duty cycle and I dont use time out timers on the repeaters. We link several machines together using VOIP and at times the conversations can get long winded with many users engaging I have seen them go for 45 min or longer. In the beginning we set the TOT for 2 min and had different machines resetting at different times causing lots of missed conversations etc. After a year of that we went to a system wide TOT of 5 min and that's been working out great as all the machines will reset at once. As far as the repeaters, we only use Motorola MTR2000's of the 100 watt configuration. At full power these machines are designed for 100% duty cycle, so at our allowed 50 watts they are hardly breaking a sweat.

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.