Question: Paid Subscription Repeaters?

[WRKC935]

4 minutes ago, tcp2525 said:

Seems you simply don't know the right people to get access to good sites for free or at reduced rates. Seems utterly foolish to use that business model to suck in up to 50 "paying" GMRS members that will most likely move on when they see it's simply not worth the price of admission. Of course, if this is a commercial repeater site then it will have other renters and lease holders with deep pockets footing the bill to run the damn thing and show a profit for the owner. As for the GMRS repeater at this site, it will most likely be just a hobby for the owner or a friend of the owner. Don't urinate on my leg and tell me it's raining.

There you go again, trying to talk as if you know,,, when clearly it seems you DON'T.  We OWN THE SITE.  The tower, property, building, all of it. 

So ALL costs are the responsibility of the owner / business.  Yes, it's now an LLC.  That I donate a LOT of time to which pays my way to have access. 

I wired it, installed the generators, battery plants, provided thousands of feet of cable. Every repeater at the site in use outside the two county owned repeaters.  That I support via the business I work for.  There are no 'free' tower sites any more.  At least not around here.  Everything and every place that at one time was accessible because the engineer for the station, or the owners of the site were friendly to ham radio have all sold off  or have put their sites under commercial tower management and they all want over a 1000 a month in rent.  A civil engineering study done before you can even get a contract written and require one of their 'approved' tower contractors to do the work or installing the antenna and line.  And of course since the new TIA-222 standard just went to I from H, most towers don't pass and you are responsible to have the tower reinforced to meet the standard with your additional loading.  Cell companies don't care,  A tower serves hundreds or possibly thousands of users.  They are making lots of money and they see it as a business expense. When it's hobby radio, ham, GMRS or whatever, the numbers keep them off the towers. 

 

[WRUE951]

18 minutes ago, tcp2525 said:

Funny how many are "blessed" when they get off their butt and open their eyes.

O.K.Negative  Nancy… .  

[LeoG]

3 hours ago, WRKC935 said:

Not really.

As mentioned, it's easy to show if you are putting any dues money in a specific account and only using that money for the repeater.

But, for the sake of numbers.  Lets say you have 50 users that all pay 20 bucks a month.  That's $1000 a month. 

You are just dumping all that money in your personal bank account.  You can show a 100 dollar a month electric bill at the site.

You can show a 100 dollar a month site rent.  And you can show two service calls from a radio shop at 500 dollars a trip for the last 12 months.

So the 'dues' income is 12K.  You have receipts for $3400 bucks for the last 12 months.  If you don't have a minimum of $8600 in your bank account, you are profiting from the repeater.  Because YOU spent the money for something outside of the repeater upkeep and maintenance.

And again, I am speaking based on the RULEs / REGULATIONS as written, not what's being enforced.

But, first thing is a file from the FCC, probably for MORE than what you are taking in per year in dues.

Second is the FCC informing the IRS of the 12K per year, and operations of a for profit business.  Now if you have all your ducks in a row and are claiming that as income, and depreciating the repeater, line, duplexer.  Writing off the electric bill, maintenance costs and all the rest, then it's a business anyway.  So no one is gonna do that.  So the IRS smacks you.  If you aren't doing all the business stuff, then the state will what their share too.  And may come at you for operating a business without a license, insurance, or whatever other laws they have on the books. 

So we are back to, I put up a repeater.  Everyone with a license is allowed to use the repeater WITHOUT paying a fee, dues or any of that.  I put it up for my private use and ALLOW others to access it.  Then when it's questioned, it's my repeater, for my needs and others are ALLOWED to use it. No business intent at all. 

Because the county is a tenant on our tower, we had to establish a business, move the ownership of the tower to the business, and all that stuff.  It was a PITA. But the tower owner gained a tenant by doing all of it.  Since he dislikes ham clubs as much as I do, so we don't even claim it's a club house. 

Dues don't just go to the repeater.  Clubhouse rent, electricity, phone and utilities, insurance etc etc etc.

[tcp2525]

5 hours ago, WRKC935 said:

There you go again, trying to talk as if you know,,, when clearly it seems you DON'T.  We OWN THE SITE.  The tower, property, building, all of it. 

So ALL costs are the responsibility of the owner / business.  Yes, it's now an LLC.  That I donate a LOT of time to which pays my way to have access. 

I wired it, installed the generators, battery plants, provided thousands of feet of cable. Every repeater at the site in use outside the two county owned repeaters.  That I support via the business I work for.  There are no 'free' tower sites any more.  At least not around here.  Everything and every place that at one time was accessible because the engineer for the station, or the owners of the site were friendly to ham radio have all sold off  or have put their sites under commercial tower management and they all want over a 1000 a month in rent.  A civil engineering study done before you can even get a contract written and require one of their 'approved' tower contractors to do the work or installing the antenna and line.  And of course since the new TIA-222 standard just went to I from H, most towers don't pass and you are responsible to have the tower reinforced to meet the standard with your additional loading.  Cell companies don't care,  A tower serves hundreds or possibly thousands of users.  They are making lots of money and they see it as a business expense. When it's hobby radio, ham, GMRS or whatever, the numbers keep them off the towers. 

 

Wow! I think you inadvertently discovered your own problem. Seems you just want argue for the sake of arguing. You confirmed the exact scenario I described to a tee above. Let's try this again:

Of course, if this is a commercial repeater site then it will have other renters and lease holders with deep pockets footing the bill to run the damn thing and show a profit for the owner. As for the GMRS repeater at this site, it will most likely be just a hobby for the owner or a friend of the owner.

Since we now got you back on the rails, Please don't tell me you aren't getting free resources for the GMRS repeater, if you have one at that site. Because we both know that is most likely false. You play a great game of semantics, but it doesn't change the fact that you are getting free access to use the site. Since no money changes hands and you "DONATE" lots of time for access it only proves my point even further. Free is free no matter how hard you try to explain it away. Nice try.

[WRKC935]

6 hours ago, LeoG said:

Dues don't just go to the repeater.  Clubhouse rent, electricity, phone and utilities, insurance etc etc etc.

Never said there was a club.  Situation was just a repeater that someone was charging access fee's for.

Point is that if you are putting the money in your pocket and spending it on yourself, then you are profiting. 

If there is a 'club' that is established as you are indicating, and what I said applies, then it's embezzlement, because you are taking CLUB money and spending it on yourself.  Either way YOU are profiting. 

Don't forget that a club needs to keep books for their money too.  And all that stuff you mentioned has receipts that go into a ledger.  And if the yearly income minus the years receipts don't equal the bank account then the money went somewhere. And if you are the only one handling the money, then it's on YOU to explain it.  If you can't, then it's still a problem, legally.

We're not discussing forensic accounting here.  This is as simple as balancing a checkbook.  I realize they don't teach that in school anymore.  But it's not that difficult of a concept to grasp. 

[The219]

Its funny how "some people" using the internet that is free to use while paying an internet service provider hundreds of dollars a year, to access said internet will complain about paying less than $100 a year to access a privately owned repeater. 

[tcp2525]

1 hour ago, The219 said:

Its funny how "some people" using the internet that is free to use while paying an internet service provider hundreds of dollars a year, to access said internet will complain about paying less than $100 a year to access a privately owned repeater. 

I get free internet at work and many places in between. It's totally and utterly foolish and breaks every terrestrial and celestial boundary of human stupidity to pay for internet. Do all GMRS operators lack creativity and self awareness?

[WRKC935]

54 minutes ago, tcp2525 said:

I get free internet at work and many places in between. It's totally and utterly foolish and breaks every terrestrial and celestial boundary of human stupidity to pay for internet. Do all GMRS operators lack creativity and self awareness?

And I am trying to start arguments.  Right. 

[tcp2525]

7 minutes ago, WRKC935 said:

And I am trying to start arguments.  Right. 

Just stating the facts. I do understand some people might have a hard when the facts disagree with their agenda. Nothing personal or argumentative on my end. We're all family here and we respect each other even though we might disagree.

[Socalgmrs]

I’m so glad to see this site has people even more rude and condescending than me.   What a pointless thread that helps no one.    

15 minutes ago, tcp2525 said:

We're all family here and we respect each other even though we might disagree.

No we are not family and we do t all respect eachother.  And yes we disagree A LOT. 

[WRUE951]

1 hour ago, tcp2525 said:

I get free internet at work and many places in between. It's totally and utterly foolish and breaks every terrestrial and celestial boundary of human stupidity to pay for internet. Do all GMRS operators lack creativity and self awareness?

So,,,,, you play all day at work..   You're Fired!

[WRUE951]

27 minutes ago, tcp2525 said:

Just stating the facts. I do understand some people might have a hard when the facts disagree with their agenda. Nothing personal or argumentative on my end. We're all family here and we respect each other even though we might disagree.

Ahhhhh..........

[TerriKennedy]

To drag this (kicking and screaming) back on-topic..

Right now I have a free "access by request" system (with poor coverage - the best anyone has reported is a little under 7 miles in the NYC area).

I'm waiting on an updated antenna (this whole Commscope to Andrew changeover has been a complete disaster, with even large corporate customers being quoted 4-5 month delays on catalog products and even longer for customized ones) and a tower climber to install it and the heliax, plus various incidentals (16 ground rods, cable to connect them, lightning arrestors, so on).

Once all that is done, my repeater will still be free to access on request, but if someone wants to make a donation, I'll gladly accept it. My repeater info page will have a link to a secondary page with the actual invoices and amounts for the various pieces of the project, with a total dollar amount. There will also be a list of donations which can be marked either "anonymous" or someone's name and/or call sign if desired, along with amounts and a total dollar amount donated so far. Think of it like the giant "dollars raised thermometer" outside your local volunteer fire department.

I doubt I'll recoup 10% of what this improvement project is costing, but it's nice to know that some people care enough to support a mutual hobby project. Nobody gets preferential treatment for donating vs. not donating.

To add - donations will not be tax deductible, will be reported by me as "miscellaneous income" on my tax returns, and so on.

[tcp2525]

29 minutes ago, TerriKennedy said:

To drag this (kicking and screaming) back on-topic..

Right now I have a free "access by request" system (with poor coverage - the best anyone has reported is a little under 7 miles in the NYC area).

I'm waiting on an updated antenna (this whole Commscope to Andrew changeover has been a complete disaster, with even large corporate customers being quoted 4-5 month delays on catalog products and even longer for customized ones) and a tower climber to install it and the heliax, plus various incidentals (16 ground rods, cable to connect them, lightning arrestors, so on).

Once all that is done, my repeater will still be free to access on request, but if someone wants to make a donation, I'll gladly accept it. My repeater info page will have a link to a secondary page with the actual invoices and amounts for the various pieces of the project, with a total dollar amount. There will also be a list of donations which can be marked either "anonymous" or someone's name and/or call sign if desired, along with amounts and a total dollar amount donated so far. Think of it like the giant "dollars raised thermometer" outside your local volunteer fire department.

I doubt I'll recoup 10% of what this improvement project is costing, but it's nice to know that some people care enough to support a mutual hobby project. Nobody gets preferential treatment for donating vs. not donating.

To add - donations will not be tax deductible, will be reported ny me as "miscellaneous income" on my tax returns, and so on.

Thank you! This is the way it should be done. I believe your efforts will be rewarded in the future. It's a balancing act between people that will donate and ones that won't. Don't sweat it and enjoy the journey of deploying it the way you want it. Let us know with progress reports.