You just got your GMRS license, now you want your own repeater?

[marcspaz]

...I have NEVER heard it ID yet. How the owner is getting away with it beats me other than the FCC doesn’t want to bother with it. ...

Per 47 C.F.R, Part 95 Subpart E, §95.1751 ( c ) states that the repeater doesn't need to ID itself if... (2) The GMRS stations whose communications are retransmitted are properly identified in accordance with this section.

 

So, even if the license holder is not using the machine, if people that are using it properly ID, the the repeater is considered in compliance with ID requirements.

[Lscott]

Per 47 C.F.R, Part 95 Subpart E, §95.1751 ( c ) states that the repeater doesn't need to ID itself if... (2) The GMRS stations whose communications are retransmitted are properly identified in accordance with this section.

 

So, even if the license holder is not using the machine, if people that are using it properly ID, the the repeater is considered in compliance with ID requirements.

That doesn’t make any sense to me. The point of ID’ing is so the owner of the repeater can be contacted in case of a problem. I don’t own the repeater I mentioned and I’m sure the FCC won’t be knocking on my door, nor anyone else using it with their own call sign, if there are issues. Without a proper ID how would they know who really is in control of it? It’s a lot less work to get the call sign of the owner from the on-air self ID, look them up in the FCC database then contact them directly. The other choice is having the FCC pull the plug then wait around to see who shows up to check the system out wondering why their repeater quit. If nobody shows up, the repeater is off the air problem solved anyway. Might even pack it up and take it with them on the way out the door. If their nice they could leave a nasty note taped to the empty rack.

[marcspaz]

That doesn’t make any sense to me. The point of ID’ing is so the owner of the repeater can be contacted in case of a problem. I don’t own the repeater I mentioned and I’m sure the FCC won’t be knocking on my door, nor anyone else using it with their own call sign, if there are issues. Without a proper ID how would they know who really is in control of it? It’s a lot less work to get the call sign of the owner from the on-air self ID, look them up in the FCC database then contact them directly. The other choice is having the FCC pull the plug then wait around to see who shows up to check the system out wondering why their repeater quit. If nobody shows up, the repeater is off the air problem solved anyway. Might even pack it up and take it with them on the way out the door. If their nice they could leave a nasty note taped to the empty rack.

 

Repeater sites are (or at least should be) registered with the FCC.  In order to put up a tower, there has to be permits issued, an environmental impact evaluation, an FAA Risk/Impact evaluation and a RF exposure evaluation, determining RF exposure health risk to people/animals in the area... and all submitted to the FCC as proof that you are in compliance with all applicable laws.  Plus the FCC regularly does site inspections. 

 

These systems don't cover a tremendous amount of real-estate and there are not many of them in many areas.  If a machine starts doing something stupid or is non-compliant, I promise you, unless the owner has completely ignored every single law and requirement, they know who owns what machine and where to find both the machine and its owner.

[Lscott]

Repeater sites are (or at least should be) registered with the FCC.  In order to put up a tower, there has to be permits issued, an environmental impact evaluation, an FAA Risk/Impact evaluation and a RF exposure evaluation, determining RF exposure health risk to people/animals in the area... and all submitted to the FCC as proof that you are in compliance with all applicable laws.  Plus the FCC regularly does site inspections. 

 

These systems don't cover a tremendous amount of real-estate and there are not many of them in many areas.  If a machine starts doing something stupid or is non-compliant, I promise you, unless the owner has completely ignored every single law and requirement, they know who owns what machine and where to find both the machine and its owner.

What you said is true I’m sure for commercial systems, public safety etc. I don’t recall seeing anything in the FCC rules requiring a GMRS repeater to be registered with the FCC. Neither are Ham repeaters, but you do work through a local frequency coordination body which is not part of the FCC. The only requirement is each station must ID, so as long as only qualifying family members use the machine it doesn’t need to self ID. Each qualifying family member when they ID satisfies the requirements. However if non qualifying family members use it then it’s impossible to determine who is the owner unless it self ID’s.

 

This was EXACTLY the problem I had trying to identify the local repeater I’m currently using. No self ID, nothing shows up of any use when doing an FCC GEO search on the exact frequency over a limited range of 50 miles. I finally tried contacting the owner because it was listed on this site’s repeater database, by shear luck and I still wasn’t really sure. But even then the info was wrong because the owner died and the listing wasn’t updated for a few years. Months went by and no response to my emails, unknown at the time they were going to a dead guy’s account. Then when it was updated everything got worked out really quick. If it had ID’ed with the current owners call sign a simple lookup of that in the FCC license database would have given me the contact info I needed and saved me a lot of screwing around.

[marcspaz]

What I wrote is all required by law to put up an antenna tower.  It doesn't matter who owns it or what service/band its on.  Even if someone puts up a Rohn 45 in their backyard, all of the things I wrote are required by law and FCC rules.  If private owners choose not to, they are in violation of federal law.

 

If someone has a private use repeater at their house or business and its mounted on a building not more than 10' high from from top of the roof, then I suppose it would not go through any of that... but it wouldn't be much of a repeater, either.  I guess it would be okay for their HT's while around the house/neighborhood, but that would be about it.

 

As far as finding a station (and owner) that does ID, that is actually really easy.  There are free, online RF detection centers all over the globe.  Especially here in the US.  Once you have the address, you can lookup the land owner and you're done. 

 

I have a local UHF broadband repeater that started causing issues around here.  I was able to find the repeater in just about 15/20 minutes. It happened to be owned by the local FD, so it was easy to find out who to talk to.

[berkinet]

...There are free, online RF detection centers all over the globe.  Especially here in the US....

 

Could you note a couple.

[marcspaz]

Could you note a couple.

Sure... I have some saved on my PC. When I get home, I'll share a couple.

 

I know Hackaday provides direction finding with a bunch of online SDR's. I don't remember the others.

 

Edit- I just remembered... WebSDR has a whole list of services. Just pick a station that covers the frequency you want to use and be sure direction finding is one of the services.

[Lscott]

What I wrote is all required by law to put up an antenna tower.  It doesn't matter who owns it or what service/band its on.  Even if someone puts up a Rohn 45 in their backyard, all of the things I wrote are required by law and FCC rules.  If private owners choose not to, they are in violation of federal law.

 

If someone has a private use repeater at their house or business and its mounted on a building not more than 10' high from from top of the roof, then I suppose it would not go through any of that... but it wouldn't be much of a repeater, either.  I guess it would be okay for their HT's while around the house/neighborhood, but that would be about it.

 

As far as finding a station (and owner) that does ID, that is actually really easy.  There are free, online RF detection centers all over the globe.  Especially here in the US.  Once you have the address, you can lookup the land owner and you're done. 

 

I have a local UHF broadband repeater that started causing issues around here.  I was able to find the repeater in just about 15/20 minutes. It happened to be owned by the local FD, so it was easy to find out who to talk to.

The repeater I was trying to locate turns out it’s on the top of a building that’s listed as the roof top at 206 feet above ground level. So per your points it wouldn’t have been required to be registered with the FCC.

 

There is also a Ham repeater on the top of what is now GM’s headquarters. That’s only 14 to 15 miles line of sight from my house.

 

http://www.gmarc.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/RenCen-repeater-qsl-compressed.jpg

 

There is also another Ham repeater just a mile or so from the GMRS one on top of another building at 300+ feet. Both of which are just under 5 miles to the west of my location.

 

Both Ham repeaters do self ID.

 

Since the above are not on a tower, and the antennas are mounted close to the roof top there is no legal requirement they be registered with the FCC? 

 

I was not aware of any FCC requirement to register if you’re on a tower however. That’s new one for me. Thanks for educating me on that.

 

I also monitor the security frequencies from two local malls. It was rather interesting when the police protesters showed up by the one in Sterling Heights a few weeks back. Both use repeaters. Nether one self ID’s that I can tell from several years of monitoring them. Both are listed in a well known on line scanner database.

https://www.radioreference.com

 

In that one of the two shows the call sign for the repeater. There is nothing listed for the other one. Again doing an FCC GEO search on either the input or output frequencies yielded nothing that makes sense. A search of just the frequencies used for the city, where I’m guessing the repeater is located at the mall, didn’t yield anything useful either. How would one use freely available sources to track down the owner, and the call sign, of the non ID’ing repeater?

So for the two malls how can they operate with out either the repeater nor the hand held radios used ID? Is there a specific FCC rule that allows this or are they in violation?

[gortex2]

We are getting off topic here.

 

GMRS does not have to ID. Period. Per rules. None of mine ID. Commercial Part 90 Repeaters must ID per rules. Alot of Part 90 repeaters ID with no PL/DPL tone so if you have a scanner with PL/DPL enabled you will never hear the ID.

[Lscott]

We are getting off topic here.

 

GMRS does not have to ID. Period. Per rules. None of mine ID. Commercial Part 90 Repeaters must ID per rules. Alot of Part 90 repeaters ID with no PL/DPL tone so if you have a scanner with PL/DPL enabled you will never hear the ID.

GMRS doesn’t have to ID? What section is that in the rules?

 

When I’m scanning I have all the tone decoding turned off so I don’t miss anything. I’ve never had it on.  Still don’t hear any ID. I do occasionally hear the MDC burst from Motorola radios, but not all of them.

This really isn’t just an academic issue. There have been enough posts I’ve read where users have the same problem, trying to figure out who to contact for permission to use a repeater. The typical answer is listen for the ID, dah, what if there isn’t one? Without something to work with the problem isn’t easy. For anybody thinking about putting one up some thought needs to be put into the decision based on who is going to use it and how is anybody monitoring it on the air going to figure out who to contact.

 

Not everyone has access to expensive for pay database services. Not every GMRS, for that matter Ham, repeater is listed in commonly available on line databases. That’s been another complaint here as well. The database on this site has repeaters listed that no longer exist, repeaters that exist but the owners choose not to list it, I know of a few of those too where a buddy lives, and just plain wrong info on some that do exist, like the one I tried tracking down.

 

When somebody asks about putting up a repeater it isn’t just about do you need one. There is the engineering aspect and the regulatory requirements too. The repeater doesn’t live in a vacuum, it has to coexist with other stations and users so going a step beyond what the letter of the rules require could be well worth the effort. All are important IMHO when asking about advise.

[quarterwave]

GMRS repeaters do not have to ID. The users of the repeater must ID when they use it. 

 

When I first became licensed, about 25 years ago, you had to designate on the application IF you were going to have a repeater, how many mobiles, how many portables.... also you had to designate which pair you were using for the repeater, your LAT/LON and calculate your ERP. You don't have to do any of that now. If the FCC needed repeaters to be "registered" they would still require that. 

 

Tower wise, mine is beside a barn on a hill, it's about 35 feet with a 18 foot ASP fiberglass stick on top. There was never a requirement for a site registration because we are under 200' tower height, and not in a flight path. There are TV antenna towers at 60 feet around here...so no issue there. 

[Lscott]

GMRS repeaters do not have to ID. The users of the repeater must ID when they use it. 

 

Unfortunately that's not exactly what the rules really say.

 

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/95.1751

 

Reading the above we have the following:

 

There are two usage cases that are being confused. One where everyone using the repeater is operating under the authority of the repeater owner (FCC licensee), and the other is when "others" with their own FCC issued call sign use it, either granted permission by the owner or the repeater is listed as "open" for public use.

 

If the users are all operating under the authority of the repeater owner then yes it doesn't need to self ID. 95.1751 (c1) and (c2) This is the only exception to the repeater ID requirements. This makes sense since everyone operating under the authority of the repeater owner all are using the same call sign. So when they ID the repeater is also properly ID.

 

However if you read this critically the repeater MUST self ID, as stated in the rules for any GMRS station, if it is being used by anyone else other than stations operating under the authority of the repeater owner. This is the part I think everyone misses. Just because the FCC hasn't busted anyone for this doesn't imply a rule violation is not occurring. Same thing with Part 90 radios being used on GMRS, some in fact have been used for building GMRS repeaters!

 

In the usage case I had originally mentioned the repeater owner is allowing other licensees to use it and it doesn't self ID with its owners call sign, ever, when in use or otherwise.

 

I've never asserted that GMRS repeaters must ID if they are not in use. It would be nice if they did. That helped me very late last night, 2AM to 3AM, when tropospheric ducting was going on. A distance GMRS repeater, I caught only part of its CW ID before it faded out, operating on the same repeater channel as the one I use locally, the one that never ID's. No the DX repeater wasn't activity being used so without it automatically self ID'ing I wouldn't have known it was there.

[quarterwave]

That's fine. One needs to understand the differences of FB2, FB4 and FB6 to really see the light here. 

 

The point it is...a repeater does not run itself, so a licensee and possibly the one that owns it will be the one using it. The transmitter is not required to be located on the license. The real way to track it...if they did was through the call sign of the user...and I don't know any owners that wouldn't, at some point use their own repeaters. In the Ham service it's always been the thing to have a IDer on the machine...in commercial I saw very few. I can say I have seen a 15 mile circle where a licensee in GMRS had 3 repeaters on the same frequencies, each with a different input PL and none of them ID. If they did they would put out the same ID. 

 

It's not just a cut and dry deal...

[Tsavorite75]

Lots of great repeater information on here. As for myself I will stick to the ones that are open for now and then way later down the road I will ask to use someones repeater possibly. As for building one out from what I see on here that can get expensive which I would have no clue how to at this time . Wealth of information on here. I look forward to eventually having a repeater later down the road. For now this is all new for me and is great.

[danielh3]

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.

What are the options for someone who lives in an area where there are no repeaters?  

[danielh3]

What options are available to someone who lives in an area where there are not any GMRS repeaters?  Our hand held radios work within less than a mile range with obstructions.

[berkinet]

What are the options for someone who lives in an area where there are no repeaters?  

Talk to others directly, radio-to-radio.  If there is nobody to talk to, then a repeater won't help.

[roberttosa]

I’m new to radio with a ham technician ticket and the GMRS license too. No desire to set up a repeater but that’s because Corey and the other repeater owners on MIDWEST GMRS have setup such a wonderful system. Thanks Corey, Buddy, Scott ...etal...for making these repeaters available to us. You guys are very generous and we all appreciate your contribution to GMRS radio.

[WRFD931]

Sage advice, thanks for providing us with the reality of what it is to have our own repeater.  

[mbrun]

Oh how I wish there was a repeater near me that I could use with my HT. I hear multiple repeaters perfectly and I have connected multiple times, but my input to the repeater is so low that quality outbound communications cannot occur so I have stopped trying. As best I know, they are all 20+ miles away. It is for this reason alone that even the thought of doing it myself even crosses my mind. I recognize the expense of doing it right and expense is currently a deterrent to doing it at all.

 

Anyone have repeater in Clermont County Ohio I could use? PM me.

 

Until then, my focus is on just trying to achieve good local simplex range. And that too is a challenge.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[berkinet]

... my input to the repeater is so low that quality outbound communications cannot occur so I have stopped trying. ...

When you say "low" do you mean low audio volume, or signal strength?  If the issue is volume, make sure your channel is set for wide-band (12.5kHz deviation). If the issue is signal strength, try an outside antenna. You won't need anything fancy. You can just make a simple 1/4 wave antenna and attach it to the top of a painters pole to get it up off the ground. For coax, just use whatever you can find or buy inexpensively.  For a short run, even RG58U would be fine. Then, all you need is an adapter from your radio to the coax and the right connector on the other end of the coax to connect to your antenna.

 

If that works, then you can start thinking about a better antenna, one with more gain, either omni or uni directional depending on your needs.  If you want to get the antenna up higher, you can also think about better coax.  But, don't try to wring every 0.1dm loss out of the system, it won't make any practical difference.

 

Here is one site with plans for a home-brew antenna, there are many, many more: https://www.localmeridian.com/2016/06/build-your-own-antenna-14-wave-vhf-ground-plane-antenna/

[mbrun]

Thanks for the input berkinet.

 

When I say low, I believe signal level to repeater is low. My HT are operating Wideband. Local simplex communications between my radios is fantastic and receive audio quality from one of my HT to the other is on par with or better than some repeater traffic I hear.

 

I know I am hitting the repeater sometimes using just the HT and rubber duck. I know this because I hear the repeater’s squelch tail when I un-key my radio. I can hit the repeater with slightly more reliability when I hook the HT up to my Comet 712EFC antenna. Even then, it seems others only hear part of my transmission. I have had a couple of 10-15 minute conversations but I could tell the other party was struggling to hear/understand all my audio. At present however, I have not personally heard exactly what I sound like via the repeater. I have tried listening through one of my radio while transmitting on another, but I think the close proximity might be desensing RX just enough that it does not break squelch until after I un-key the TX. Both radios open to let me hear the repeater squelch tail when I un-key.

 

I think I have a good antenna (the Comet) and I do have good coax to use between HT to Comet (official LMR-400). The Comet is rated at 9dBi of gain. I have also own a Midland MXTA26. It is better than the HT Rubber Duck, and not as good as the Comet.

 

What I do not know for certain is what power the radios are actually putting out (they should be 4w or more). Nor do i know if the Comet SWR is less that 1.5 as advertised. Need to buy or borrow and SWR and Power meter to check both of those. I just may have to try my hand at the DIY one you referenced.

 

My best conversation thus far was has been with the Comet at 41’, but still not perfect.

 

When you say "low" do you mean low audio volume, or signal strength? If the issue is volume, make sure your channel is set for wide-band (12.5kHz deviation). If the issue is signal strength, try an outside antenna. You won't need anything fancy. You can just make a simple 1/4 wave antenna and attach it to the top of a painters pole to get it up off the ground. For coax, just use whatever you can find or buy inexpensively. For a short run, even RG58U would be fine. Then, all you need is an adapter from your radio to the coax and the right connector on the other end of the coax to connect to your antenna.

 

If that works, then you can start thinking about a better antenna, one with more gain, either omni or uni directional depending on your needs. If you want to get the antenna up higher, you can also think about better coax. But, don't try to wring every 0.1dm loss out of the system, it won't make any practical difference.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Photoman5000]

That's not a mobile repeater in that pic, its a HAM operating HF. As far as a mobile repeater it really is a waste of time. I have done this already and it was a total disappointment.. Unless your car is at a substantial height advantage you will not have any better coverage then simplex. Again you can and will try to explain or reason away my logic without listening to what I and others have been trying to tell you. I have tried the mobile repeater, the setup was a 50W Motorola SLR 5700 with a 4 cavity BP/BR duplexer connected to a 5.5dB gain antenna on the top of my truck. After testing for about month I realized it had no practical use and only offered slightly more range than simplex, best part I ended up needing a jump after a day at the fair. Mind you this was a $2400 repeater, $800 duplexer with an antenna that was tuned using an Anritsu S331D. I promise I nor anybody on this site will try to steer you wrong, I hold a Commercial, Amateur and GMRS license, own and operate several large repeaters and have all the gear for building, testing and maintaining these kinds of systems.

I know I'm the new guy here but your dead wrong if you think a mobile repeater is useless. Like everything they have thier uses and thier place. The key is knowing that place and that use. It's a tool like a knife or a screw driver. And like any tool using it for its purpose will provide better results then using the wrong tool. I get it mobile repeaters are not a cool and sexy as a stationary set up up on some high tower someplace, so what, it doesn't mean they don't work or are pointless. What they do is allow you to have a capability someplace you wouldn't normally have it because there are plenty of places in this world you can't just build a tower and put up a repeater. From my personal experience with them they work for thier intended purpose and when built correctly work very well for that purpose.

 

I hunt out in the lacrosse area. We used to hunt with this old marine who served in ww2 and korea. He was a comms junkie lived, breathed, ate radio. He had an awesome portable system that worked great in that area. And yes we would put it rather high up on the bluffs or up on the rock out croppings above the valley we would be hunting in. They made a night and day difference in our ability to communicate. Not just down in the valley but with people up top as well.

 

We also used a similar system regularly at a friends house in the Reedsburg area and it again improved the ability to communicate effectivly and clearly over the areas where we were working on his property. Put the antenna up on am old grain silo on his property so it was up almost 100ft above us put the box with everything at the base of the silo and bam done. Clear wonderful communications.

 

Are they perfect for every situation? No, no they are not however they have thier place as well.

 

I'm in Racine I have a friend that lives 2 miles away from me. We both run hand helds. You know what I can't hit him on when he is at home in his house or when he is working in his basement? A simplex channel. Yup cant have anything close to a clear convo simplex at 2 miles in Racine. You know what I can hit him on and have a clear convo? The little mobile repeater we set up.

 

Racine doesn't have a lot of tall buildings to get in the way of signals and seeing that neither of us has an option to put an external antenna on the houses we live in simply putting up an external antenna to solve the issue isnt an option.

 

Do I need it to cover Racine and parts of mke or keno? Nope, will it? Sure if it's high enough and I kick up the wattage to 45w-50w. But I have no intention of doing that. Why? Because i can hit two repeaters from my house if i want to talk to other people.

 

The sole purpose of the little repeater we made was to improve the ability for US to talk within our little 2mile bubble without having to use the local repeaters and for an emergency situation or for camping/hunting/fishing trips. It does exactly that. We no longer have to be outside of our houses to be able to clearly communicate and with the weather turning cold I appreciate not having to be outside to have a convo with him lol.

 

I also have a system I can take with me camping and hunting in which I can vastly increase coverage range of communications if need be because I can if I want put this antenna 100-200ft up using multiple methods. And let's face it an antenna 100-200ft up above you pushing 45w-50w signal is going to have some reach. Even if it's 50-70ft up its going to make a difference especially if that gets it above most obstructions.

 

The other thing I have is emergency access to a repeater should something bad happen and the local repeaters are down. Stationary repeaters are all well and good till they lose power, get damaged in a storm or any number of things that can make them go down either temporary or permanently. Since my primary reason for having radio comms is for emergencies I'm not going to assume that the local repeaters will be up and running in said emergency. I have a second option by having the mobile set up and that second option gives me a warm fuzzy feeling even more so because I know the system works.

 

Would i prefer my own repeater on some tower some place sure. Is it practical for me? Is a mobile repeater the best option for me? Yes, yes it is based on what i use it for.

 

Its a tool and like all tools its meant for a spesific task. Mobile repeaters have a place and as long as you understand the limitations of the system and what you need to do so you can get the most out of them they are effective tools that have thier place. My opinion on this is based on actual use of several mobile repeater systems in real world conditions. Are you going to be able to run as much traffic as I hear over say armored1? No but these are not intended for that. I have had 20 people on my mobile system in the past and it's held up just fine. But the traffic wasn't 20min long convos like u hear on armored1 either. It was hey we need this material or that material or need this person here or just quick updates on people's locations etc. but the thing is the system worked and wasn't overloaded.

 

For a guy like me who is used to using radios for work listening to armored1 is a trip because it's traffic I'm not used to hearing. I'm used to radio comms being short to the point work/task related not casual convos that would be better had on a phone. And most of my radio comms is still that work/task oriented type of comms. Which I think also plays into how people view the whole repeaters/mobile repeaters thing too your use is going to dictate how you look at the subject. While most of you look at it from the hobbyist prospective I look at it from a more work/service/tool for doing a job use prospective.

 

Again perfect for everything? No. Perfect for some things, yes. Does everyone need one? No but most people will come to that realisation as they start looking into building one and thinking about where in thier life they would actually use it.

[berkinet]

...Unless your car is at a substantial height advantage you will not have any better coverage then simplex....

...your dead wrong if you think a mobile repeater is useless. ...

 

...most people will come to that realisation as they start looking into building [a portable repeater] and thinking about where in thier life they would actually use it.

 

I do not think anyone would argue with your points about the potential benefit of a portable repeater. However, I do think you took @Corey's post out of context. He was responding to an earlier post in this thread which proclaimed Low-altitude, low-power, and transportable systems can be extremely valuable. Given the specifics of the original post, I would have to agree, a low power low altitude (car top) repeater is not likely to offer any improvement over simplex operation on the same terrain.

 

However, the examples you provided did not match that criteria. They were either effectively not-portable or temporary and well situated, like between you or your friend, or used antennas mounted at a significant height above ground level.

 

As to your last statement, it would be nice if that were true. But sadly, I think there are an awful lot of cases where that didn't happen.

[BoxCar]

The in-vehicle repeaters are useful for extending the range of a hand-held and little more. It's what public safety does with them.