mwaggy

Good point; I'd neglected to consider setup costs. The particular place I had in mind already has a shared antenna setup with TX combiners and RX multicouplers, but that's obviously not true everywhere. (And I suppose there's still some inevitable setup costs in tuning the filters or whatnot.) The little mobile duplexer my R1225 came with isn't really cut out for being on a busy tower.
 
And there's definitely some existing UHF repeaters up on the mountain. I suppose whatever filtering the site does isn't necessarily going to be optimized for my frequency, so I can't really get away without worrying about filters.

It all depends on site management and the territory it serves. Here in New York City the install costs at some locations could run you $5000 plus the monthly because you have to factor in the cost of liability insurance as well as the fee for the climbers to mount your antenna and route your feedline. Also, most well organized sites have minimum equipment requirements I.E. You're not going to get away with 2 mobile radios and a cheap duplexer/antenna. You've got to coexist with the other customers at the site so quality equipment is a must. Again it is all location specific...

The old rules used to read immediate family members in your household. That has since been changed. I think that is where the confusion keeps coming about for people. The rules used to say in the same household but now do not. As long as they are relation specified in the rules, they are good.

95.179 sections 1-7 do not state that immediate family must reside with you. the language is specific
 
§ 95.179 Individuals who may be station operators.
(a) An individual GMRS system licensee may permit immediate family members to be station operators in his or her GMRS system. Immediate family members are the: (1) Licensee; (2) Licensee's spouse; (3) Licensee's children, grandchildren, stepchildren; (4) Licensee's parents, grandparents, stepparents; (5) Licensee's brothers, sisters; (6) Licensee's aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews; and (7) Licensee's in-laws.    there is no place listed under this ruling that states they must or shall be domiciled in the same household. what is said is that you may allow those listed to be operators of "his or her system"...system would include handhelds repeaters etc.   the FCC set the case for what they are declaring immediate family members, having listed aunts, uncles and nieces etc as well as "in-laws"...so how likely is it that the in-laws will be living in your house?

The "members of your family" do not have to share your residence.

We just relocated from our little 30 foot mast with an effective 40 foot height to a commercial tower site at 220 feet. Yearly costs for mine are $1200 a year (which is probably cheap) with the site at one of 3 of the highest spots in the 4 county area. I was lucky that there was an open slot with an antenna already in place. It's on the east side of the tower which is not optimal for me, but oddly covers like a glove for my area of operation. Portables that are 10-15+ miles from the repeater are quieted outside and probably an S2-3 in a basement of aluminum sided house at same distance. Mobiles are like S5.
 
Moving our site to the new location was day and night for coverage. I would say you would want to evaluate what your true coverage needs are, our original system was covering 90% of my AO mobile and 50% portable, something I could live with, my choice was place a 70 foot tower and probably get 100% coverage mobile and 70% portable, again something that I could live with. I was fortunate that I work at the shop were the 220 slot is at.
 
In our area we have repeaters placed throughout the area and were technically afforded 100% coverage even on handhelds as long at the control radio could hit them all. So investing in your system I would see what your options are and if alternate sites will meet your needs before investing a lot of money into tower space, unless you are Corey and should be playing the lottery with his luck 

Not GMRS but still UHF radio related and I know several other members own or service licensed part 90 systems. So I thought I would share a few photos from this weekends tower site repair on my business system. Last year I added this site to my Mototrbo IP site connect system, because of costs I cut a few corners and paid the price with an under preforming site. Today's project included installing the new repeater system, replacing the antenna, upgrading from 1/2 to 7/8 feed line and swapping out the 2' standoff for a 4'. Big thanks to my climber, he braved the 29 degree temps and completed the entire project in 4 hours. Yes that's him sitting out on the end of the 4' side arm installing the new antenna. I guess the side arm is now climber tested and approved! Not even with his 50 lbs of safety gear would you catch me sitting out there at 150'. I did some testing on the 50 mile ride home and the site is no longer under preforming. It has exceeded my predictions with15 miles of portable coverage, up from 2 miles.
 

I just want people to see that choosing a condo is not the end of any radio hobby. I have a few more things I plan to put in the attic. I recommend reading any of the owners agreements before installing an antenna farm in your condos attic and if you decided to be quiet and don't tell other residents. The best part is you can remain stealth.

If you can find an owner that will work with you. If your only options and towers owned by American Tower or Crown Castle, forget it. I had quotes in the $3.75 per foot of height with a 100 foot min. Try to find a locally owned tower or building top. I have some commercial gear on a commercial tower and pay $75 for 150' plus another $30 for internet per month. My GMRS tower was gifted to me on a long term lease for almost nothing. I have full use of the 150' and secure space with power for my gear.

There's obviously not one fixed price throughout the country, but I wonder ballpark what I'd be looking at to set up a repeater at a commercial tower site.
 
I happen to have an R1225 repeater (50W UHF) sitting around from a lot of equipment I bought, but I live in a valley and in a condo, so setting it up at home would be borderline useless. There's a big hill / small mountain not too far from here with a number of towers on it, and while hiking in the area I noticed one of the equipment sheds has a sign mentioning that they have space available on a combiner/multicoupler system. I have absolutely no concept of what renting space at a place like that costs -- am I looking at a $50/month type deal, or more like $500/month?

There's obviously not one fixed price throughout the country, but I wonder ballpark what I'd be looking at to set up a repeater at a commercial tower site.
 
I happen to have an R1225 repeater (50W UHF) sitting around from a lot of equipment I bought, but I live in a valley and in a condo, so setting it up at home would be borderline useless. There's a big hill / small mountain not too far from here with a number of towers on it, and while hiking in the area I noticed one of the equipment sheds has a sign mentioning that they have space available on a combiner/multicoupler system. I have absolutely no concept of what renting space at a place like that costs -- am I looking at a $50/month type deal, or more like $500/month?

These privacy codes should be thought of as a type of filter allowing you to control who you hear, but not who hears you. They don't afford any security. If someone's radio has no tone set, they will hear everything on the channel regardless of privacy code.
 
They work by adding a subaudible tone (67-250 Hz or so) onto your voice, which is below the range of what 2-way radios will reproduce through the speaker. If your radio is set up with that tone, it will keep the speaker off unless it hears that tone. But if someone's radio isn't set up to use a code/tone, they'll hear everything. DCS is a similar concept, but instead of a steady subaudible tone, it uses a subaudible digital signal.
 
The original intent with these tones long predates GMRS, and was for cases where users in two distant cities might have the same frequency, and weakly hear each other. (Or cases of random noise on the frequency.) The distant signal was weak enough to not interfere with local communications, but annoying to listen to when it came through during times of silence. CTCSS allowed those people to set up a "private" tone that they'd use and not have to hear the distant user / noise on the frequency.
 
They've also found use on repeaters, where people can set up an unpublished tone required to bring up a repeater. In that case random people might transmit on the repeater input frequency, but without the right tone, the repeater receiver won't open up. It's hardly bulletproof security, but it keeps casual unauthorized users off.

These privacy codes should be thought of as a type of filter allowing you to control who you hear, but not who hears you. They don't afford any security. If someone's radio has no tone set, they will hear everything on the channel regardless of privacy code.
 
They work by adding a subaudible tone (67-250 Hz or so) onto your voice, which is below the range of what 2-way radios will reproduce through the speaker. If your radio is set up with that tone, it will keep the speaker off unless it hears that tone. But if someone's radio isn't set up to use a code/tone, they'll hear everything. DCS is a similar concept, but instead of a steady subaudible tone, it uses a subaudible digital signal.
 
The original intent with these tones long predates GMRS, and was for cases where users in two distant cities might have the same frequency, and weakly hear each other. (Or cases of random noise on the frequency.) The distant signal was weak enough to not interfere with local communications, but annoying to listen to when it came through during times of silence. CTCSS allowed those people to set up a "private" tone that they'd use and not have to hear the distant user / noise on the frequency.
 
They've also found use on repeaters, where people can set up an unpublished tone required to bring up a repeater. In that case random people might transmit on the repeater input frequency, but without the right tone, the repeater receiver won't open up. It's hardly bulletproof security, but it keeps casual unauthorized users off.