Are GMRS repeaters required to identify every 15 minutes?

[SteveShannon]

On 3/12/2023 at 2:09 PM, Adamdaj said:

First of all, the FCC didn't require me to take an exam for GMRS. I didn't and understood why it is necessary for Amateur Radio to take examinations.

I thought the “and” in this sentence meant that you understood why the amateur radio exam is necessary. I think you were just the victim of a poor choice of phrase. No harm done. 

[WQAI363]

3 hours ago, Sshannon said:

I thought the “and” in this sentence meant that you understood why the amateur radio exam is necessary. I think you were just the victim of a poor choice of phrase. No harm done. 

Thank You!

[WRWM725]

Im so confused. to id or not to id is the question.

 

[SteveShannon]

30 minutes ago, WRWM725 said:

Im so confused. to id or not to id is the question.

 

Really?

[marcspaz]

39 minutes ago, WRWM725 said:

Im so confused. to id or not to id is the question.

 

 

I'll try to summarize what came out of the discussion...

 

Some people think that repeaters need to ID.  Some people think there is a loophole somewhere that can be leveraged.  Almost everyone agrees that regardless of the answer, the FCC appears to not care.  Everyone is continuing to do whatever they feel like because it seems (unless you interfere with Public Safety) there are no repercussions, regardless of what the answer really is.

[BoxCar]

3 hours ago, marcspaz said:

Everyone is continuing to do whatever they feel like because it seems (unless you interfere with Public Safety) there are no repercussions, regardless of what the answer really is.

Or operate a pirate FM radio station and not keep your public file correctly.

[WRWM725]

On 4/13/2023 at 9:08 AM, Sshannon said:

Really?

no not really. i was being funny. like most every questions asked has a multitude of answers some correct some not.

[WRWM725]

On 4/13/2023 at 9:21 AM, marcspaz said:

 

I'll try to summarize what came out of the discussion...

 

Some people think that repeaters need to ID.  Some people think there is a loophole somewhere that can be leveraged.  Almost everyone agrees that regardless of the answer, the FCC appears to not care.  Everyone is continuing to do whatever they feel like because it seems (unless you interfere with Public Safety) there are no repercussions, regardless of what the answer really is.

that was my point

[drk1970nj]

People on the repeater are required to id not the repeater itself 

[WRUU653]

58 minutes ago, drk1970nj said:

People on the repeater are required to id not the repeater itself 

it continues… it has become an infinite loop. I mean you just gotta laugh

please return to page one and repeat as needed

[SteveShannon]

1 hour ago, drk1970nj said:

People on the repeater are required to id not the repeater itself 

That's still exactly right in only one specific instance (as defined in 47 CFR 95.1751(c) and simplified below) Both conditions must be true:

1.  The only people using the repeater are those operating under the authority of the individual repeater operator (which is strictly limited to family or an emergency user by 47 CFR 95.1705(c)),

AND

2. They ID correctly.

 

[gortex2]

And this is why I wish threads would lock over time.....

[marcspaz]

1 hour ago, gortex2 said:

And this is why I wish threads would lock over time.....

 

Nah... let's let this jem get revived a few more times... especially in about 2 years.

[back4more70]

[OffRoaderX]

Are they required to? 
I wish some very smart person could explain the rules in detail along with the meaning and intent of the FCC's wording so I can be sure that I fully understand.

The more-detailed, the better, that way I know they're right.

[WRUU653]

16 minutes ago, gortex2 said:

And this is why I wish threads would lock over time.....

And miss out on valuable info humor?  

[WRKC935]

On 4/21/2023 at 7:33 PM, OffRoaderX said:

Are they required to? 
I wish some very smart person could explain the rules in detail along with the meaning and intent of the FCC's wording so I can be sure that I fully understand.

The more-detailed, the better, that way I know they're right.

And why in the hell would anyone bother to do that?  So that someone else can come in and question what's been said?  To throw around their 'years of experience' and self imposed higher understanding of the regulations and try to pick apart what has been said by others?  Yeah, gonna get right on that.  Wait, I think I DID do exactly that several pages back and then someone got in and questioned what I said.  So why go to the effort of trying to explain that or anything else on here for that matter when it's just gonna get argued and claims by others will indicate that's NOT what the regulations say when its pretty damn clear that it's EXACTLY what is being said.

 

 

[OffRoaderX]

22 minutes ago, WRKC935 said:

And why in the hell would anyone bother to do that?  So that someone else can come in and question what's been said?  To throw around their 'years of experience' and self imposed higher understanding of the regulations and try to pick apart what has been said by others?  Yeah, gonna get right on that.  Wait, I think I DID do exactly that several pages back and then someone got in and questioned what I said.  So why go to the effort of trying to explain that or anything else on here for that matter when it's just gonna get argued and claims by others will indicate that's NOT what the regulations say when its pretty damn clear that it's EXACTLY what is being said.

/whooooshhhh.....

so sad...

[marcspaz]

1 hour ago, WRKC935 said:

And why in the hell would anyone bother to do that?  So that someone else can come in and question what's been said?  To throw around their 'years of experience' and self imposed higher understanding of the regulations and try to pick apart what has been said by others?  Yeah, gonna get right on that.  Wait, I think I DID do exactly that several pages back and then someone got in and questioned what I said.  So why go to the effort of trying to explain that or anything else on here for that matter when it's just gonna get argued and claims by others will indicate that's NOT what the regulations say when its pretty damn clear that it's EXACTLY what is being said.

 

 

 

 

I'm going to help you out on this one...  

 

 

 

[WRQC527]

[WREM784]

For anyone interested, I put together a bit of a hack to handle repeater identification, for something like a Retevis RT97, which doesn't have a way to connect a real controller.  It isn't as good as a proper repeater controller, but I think it could be good enough in many cases (or at least better than nothing).  It certainly shows some intent to comply.

Essentially, I wrote an Android app which listens for sound and uses Android's text-to-speech capabilities to transmit a message.  It will transmit this message any time it hears sound and it has been more than 15 minutes since the last time it identified itself.  

I installed it on an old Android phone and connected it to a BTECH GMRS-V1 (with VOX enabled) using a BTECH APRS-K1 cable.  The HT is configured to communicate through the repeater.  So, the HT just needs to be reasonably close to the repeater to handle the identification function.  It waits until things have been quiet for a second before transmitting, but it could still get walked on by any signal that is stronger.  So, the identification won't always be heard, but I expect it would be heard a lot of the time.  It would certainly be heard if someone was just "kerchunking" the repeater to see if they could bring it up. 

I haven't published a release build, yet, but if you're interested, I could email you an APK file -- or you could just build it from the source: https://github.com/nathanchilton/remote-identifier