Hitting an unlisted Repeater

[WRMW]

How common is it to hit repeaters that aren’t listed. Myself WRMW381 and another guy(forgot his call sign), Hunt was his name. We spoke over a repeater that isn’t listed. It follows the same specs of another gmrs repeater about 40 miles away. I really doubt it’s that one though since I’m just on an HT and he was about another 12-15 miles further West away from the repeater than I was. Both of us had 59 signals. He mentioned he believed there was an unlisted repeater nearby with the same inputs. I’m starting to believe the same. Thoughts? 

[SkylinesSuck]

I had the same happen here. Thought I was on a repeater in Baltimore about 50 miles away. Turns out it was an unlisted one on a mountain not far from here.

[mbrun]

How common is it to hit repeaters that aren’t listed. Myself WRMW381 and another guy(forgot his call sign), Hunt was his name. We spoke over a repeater that isn’t listed. It follows the same specs of another gmrs repeater about 40 miles away. I really doubt it’s that one though since I’m just on an HT and he was about another 12-15 miles further West away from the repeater than I was. Both of us had 59 signals. He mentioned he believed there was an unlisted repeater nearby with the same inputs. I’m starting to believe the same. Thoughts? 

Truly would not be surprised if you hit an unlisted one. There is no law that says a repeater must be coordinated and listed. Based on the repeaters that are listed in myGMRS and RepeaterBook some codes seem to be very popular. Perhaps if the repeater self IDs you can capture it to find out who owns it.


Michael
WRHS965
KE8PLM

[gortex2]

There are many unlisted repeaters. 

[H8SPVMT]

On 6/19/2021 at 4:44 PM, WRMW said:

How common is it to hit repeaters that aren’t listed. Myself WRMW381 and another guy(forgot his call sign), Hunt was his name. We spoke over a repeater that isn’t listed. It follows the same specs of another gmrs repeater about 40 miles away. I really doubt it’s that one though since I’m just on an HT and he was about another 12-15 miles further West away from the repeater than I was. Both of us had 59 signals. He mentioned he believed there was an unlisted repeater nearby with the same inputs. I’m starting to believe the same. Thoughts? 

May I ask, "What is a 59 signal?"

[tweiss3]

2 hours ago, H8SPVMT said:

May I ask, "What is a 59 signal?"

RST signal report, minus the tone part: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-S-T_system

5 is fully understandable 9 is full quieting strength signal (no frying pan noise). This is normally discussed on Single Side Band (SSB) conversations over HF frequencies, as there is no squelch, so you do end up hearing some pretty quiet in the background nosie.

[BoxCar]

Although 5 9s is written as shown.

[danno02]

Anyone know of those unlisted repeaters in the east bay area of northern California? (Tri-Valley area)

I sure wish a GMRS repeater would show up on top of Mt. Diablo along side those HAMs.

[axorlov]

I'm in Livermore, there are some unlisted repeaters that I can here, and there are listed ones too. One is on top of Sunol ridge, convenient location since it can be reached from Silicon Valley and from Tri-Valley, but they did not let me in some years ago (https://mygmrs.com/view?id=2466). I don't really care, 99.99% of my GMRS use is simplex. Ask, maybe they will let you in. Although, you may be in the shadow in Danville.

[WRMV722]

I was driving towards a listed repeater in my area to test my GM-30 while in the car, and I was scanning when a heard a repeater stating the time.  I missed the call sign on it, but think I caught which frequency it was on.  Was driving and not expecting it, so might not have the correct repeater channel.

Is it normal for repeaters to broadcast the time?

[WyoJoe]

I have heard this quite often on ham repeaters, so to hear it on GMRS would not surprise me. I believe it is a function of the repeater controller, so if the same type of controller is used on GMRS as on ham, it would make sense for some GMRS repeaters to announce the time.

[gortex2]

most commercial repeaters do not do this. Its probably a ham repeater controller. Hams tend to think repeaters should announce everything under the sun.

[Coffeemaker]

I can't answer your primary question, but on my mountain property, north of Chattanooga, I can hit a repeater in Knoxville, TN that's 73 miles away with "5 9s".  And that's on a 5W handheld.  I can also hear with minimal static a repeater outside Atlanta (~100 miles away) with the same settings.  I believe someone in ATL heard me and tried to talk back, but since both repeaters are coming in and everybody wanted to talk to the distant hick, I was never sure.