KB3HXA

I have to disagree here. You can spend tens of thousands of dollars on a repeater if you want. That is no reflection on what it actually costs to have a repeater. I spent less than $600.00 putting up a repeater and that is if you count the cost of stuff I already had laying around. GMRS coverage is sparse and limited to small cells. The more users who have them, the better coverage there is. It is also clear that coryb27 is speaking about public repeaters. The vast majority of repeaters are for private use and less than 10 watts. My personal repeater has been up for 3 years before I expanded it and made it public. Personally, I would not discourage a newcomer to learn how to establish a repeater. That is a learning process. If that is what gets people excited about the band then it should be encouraged. I am a HAM as well but personal repeaters make no sense in HAM radio. With GMRS they are the foundation of wide are communications.