Home made/own GMRS Repeater

[Fernleaf]

I doubt mine will even run that much, even if it were public. It’s pretty dead out here in this rural Midwest area, too. I appreciate the insight. I’ll try to see how this works out. I’m going to be curious to see just how far it will reach first once it’s up and running. It would be nice to stop bringing the cell phone everywhere just to let people know we’re on our way home, if you know what I mean. (I kind of miss the old phones that were made just for calling... am I dating myself? )

[SteveShannon]

4 minutes ago, Fernleaf said:

I doubt mine will even run that much, even if it were public. It’s pretty dead out here in this rural Midwest area, too. I appreciate the insight. I’ll try to see how this works out. I’m going to be curious to see just how far it will reach first once it’s up and running. It would be nice to stop bringing the cell phone everywhere just to let people know we’re on our way home, if you know what I mean. (I kind of miss the old phones that were made just for calling... am I dating myself? )

The 2 meter repeater here probably has one or two conversations that last a few minutes each day, until our club holds a net each week, when it has to transmit for 15 to 20 minutes nearly continuously.  So except during that time duty cycle is not crucial, but it it weren’t able to transmit continuously at least 20 minutes it wouldn’t be useful for emergencies.

For a family repeater I agree with you, it’ll be very short transmissions with lots of cooling in between.  For that matter, with the KG1000 radios, if you burn out the transmitter just swap them and make the one with the pristine transmitter the new replacement. Or you could always run it at medium power. You might never have a problem with less power running through it.

I’ll be really interested in what you decide to do.  For my rocket club I have plans to pick up an RT97s.  We would use it one day per month for eight months of the year and probably only ten minutes total each of those days.  I’ll simply ask my members to say my call sign every so often to ID the repeater.  The only reason to have it is to allow people looking in gullies to be able to radio back to base.

[MichaelLAX]

6 hours ago, Sshannon said:

Honestly I wouldn’t even worry about the duty cycle.  I’m sure in some places repeaters get a lot of use, but most of the ones I hear in Montana are seldom transmitting more than twenty minutes continuously.  Run it until it needs to be replaced, then you’ll have a pretty good idea.

Repeaters in Montana are bearly used! 

[Fernleaf]

6 hours ago, Sshannon said:

For my rocket club I have plans to pick up an RT97s.

I actually was looking at that repeater foot down the road. But it is watt than the KG-1000G. 

34 minutes ago, MichaelLAX said:

OffRoaderX uses a more expensive repeater, but it isn’t made anymore  and he got it for a song  i haven’t found any ones as low as his purchase price  

Not going to worry about it until get to that point. Or I get a rich unknown relative that will leave me enough money to get a really good one.

 

37 minutes ago, MichaelLAX said:

Repeaters in Montana are bearly used! 

Yeah. Ditto in Oklahoma, if you can even find any outside of Oklahoma City!

[SteveShannon]

1 hour ago, MichaelLAX said:

Repeaters in Montana are bearly used! 

I see what you did there …

[Fernleaf]

And here I thought it was just a typo! Good one!

[WRUU653]

3 hours ago, MichaelLAX said:

Repeaters in Montana are bearly used! 

Oh man remember to tip your waitress lol 

[MichaelLAX]

16 hours ago, Fernleaf said:

Yeah. Ditto in Oklahoma, if you can even find any outside of Oklahoma City!

Oklahoma's favorite rock and roll band is Derrick and the Dominos! 

[Fernleaf]

I reached out to the operator of the massive repeater network on Georgia. He confirmed that the repeater for GMRS themselves do not need to send out a call sign because they are used purely for retransmission from licensed users, therefore operators of their own “stations”. Anyone not authorized is traced and asked to not use it until they get permission as well. 

See highlighted in red below.

So mine would fall under the same classification were it to go live.

§ 95.1751 GMRS station identification.

Each GMRS station must be identified by transmission of its FCC-assigned call sign at the end of transmissions and at periodic intervals during transmissions except as provided in paragraph (c) of this section. A unit number may be included after the call sign in the identification. 

(a) The GMRS station call sign must be transmitted: 

(1) Following a single transmission or a series of transmissions; and, 

(2) After 15 minutes and at least once every 15 minutes thereafter during a series of transmissions lasting more than 15 minutes. 

(b) The call sign must be transmitted using voice in the English language or international Morse code telegraphy using an audible tone. 

(c) Any GMRS repeater station is not required to transmit station identification if: 

(1) It retransmits only communications from GMRS stations operating under authority of the individual license under which it operates; and, 

(2) The GMRS stations whose communications are retransmitted are properly identified in accordance with this section.

[Fernleaf]

1 hour ago, MichaelLAX said:

Oklahoma's favorite rock and roll band is Derrick and the Dominos! 

That  bad, huh?

 it’s okay. I like being in no man’s land. Off a really bad gravel road that takes out the suspension of your vehicle.

[MichaelLAX]

10 minutes ago, Fernleaf said:

it’s okay. I like being in no man’s land. Off a really bad gravel road that takes out the suspension of your vehicle.

Sure beats bumper to bumper on the 405! 

[Fernleaf]

Amen, bro!!

[KAF6045]

8 hours ago, Fernleaf said:

I reached out to the operator of the massive repeater network on Georgia. He confirmed that the repeater for GMRS themselves do not need to send out a call sign because they are used purely for retransmission from licensed users, therefore operators of their own “stations”. Anyone not authorized is traced and asked to not use it until they get permission as well. 

See highlighted in red below.

So mine would fall under the same classification were it to go live.

§ 95.1751 GMRS station identification.

Each GMRS station must be identified by transmission of its FCC-assigned call sign at the end of transmissions and at periodic intervals during transmissions except as provided in paragraph (c) of this section. A unit number may be included after the call sign in the identification. 

(a) The GMRS station call sign must be transmitted: 

(1) Following a single transmission or a series of transmissions; and, 

(2) After 15 minutes and at least once every 15 minutes thereafter during a series of transmissions lasting more than 15 minutes. 

(b) The call sign must be transmitted using voice in the English language or international Morse code telegraphy using an audible tone. 

(c) Any GMRS repeater station is not required to transmit station identification if: 

(1) It retransmits only communications from GMRS stations operating under authority of the individual license under which it operates; and, 

(2) The GMRS stations whose communications are retransmitted are properly identified in accordance with this section.

The keyword is at the end of (c)(1)... That word is AND... It is not a case of either (1) or (2) -- Both clauses must be true. Since the authority of the individual license is limited to immediate family, they are identifying with the licensee's call sign... IOWs: ALL users of the repeater are operating under the single call sign, and those users are properly IDing. Third party users do not meet the requirements of (1).

[WRVB840]

I recently acquired a VXR-7000 repeater.  I have it set up and working.  However if any members have a .C27   setup file for GMRS that they would like to share, it would be greatly appreciated.  It would save a lot of trial and error on all but the freqs.

Bert Sloan

5N4SBG . . . yes, that is correct (I'm good in the book)

N5BRT

WRVB840

bertsloanllc@gmail.com

[WRVB840]

Thanks

[Fernleaf]

On 12/9/2022 at 10:12 PM, KAF6045 said:

The keyword is at the end of (c)(1)... That word is AND... It is not a case of either (1) or (2) -- Both clauses must be true. Since the authority of the individual license is limited to immediate family, they are identifying with the licensee's call sign... IOWs: ALL users of the repeater are operating under the single call sign, and those users are properly IDing. Third party users do not meet the requirements of (1).

Interesting. I know the individual who pointed out this passage from the FCC is a stickler for following the rules, but his answer is the antithesis to yours. Therefore I was under the impression that the license holders of the stations using the repeater was what it was referring to.

I think I’ll stick to keeping my repeater private. Far less confusing. 

[KAF6045]

12 hours ago, Fernleaf said:

Interesting. I know the individual who pointed out this passage from the FCC is a stickler for following the rules, but his answer is the antithesis to yours. Therefore I was under the impression that the license holders of the stations using the repeater was what it was referring to.

I think I’ll stick to keeping my repeater private. Far less confusing. 

The purpose of a repeater ID is so that, should it be necessary, the FCC can send notices to the repeater's owner. If one is getting random IDs from multiple users, who is the responsible owner? Instead, as a private/family machine, all IDs are the same and can be assumed to be that of the owner.

[SteveShannon]

12 hours ago, Fernleaf said:

Interesting. I know the individual who pointed out this passage from the FCC is a stickler for following the rules, but his answer is the antithesis to yours. Therefore I was under the impression that the license holders of the stations using the repeater was what it was referring to.

I think I’ll stick to keeping my repeater private. Far less confusing. 

The requirement for repeater identification is one that many people have argued about quite passionately, even here on MyGMRS, but the requirement is clearly written.  It’s just as KAF6045 says, a GMRS repeater must be identified and the only exception is when the only people using the repeater are family members authorized to identify themselves using the call sign of the  repeater’s owner (and who do so).

It’s every person’s personal decision whether they comply or not. 

 

[Lscott]

19 minutes ago, Sshannon said:

The requirement for repeater identification is one that many people have argued about quite passionately, even here on MyGMRS, but the requirement is clearly written.  It’s just as KAF6045 says, a GMRS repeater must be identified and the only exception is when the only people using the repeater are family members authorized to identify themselves using the call sign of the  repeater’s owner (and who do so).

It’s every person’s personal decision whether they comply or not. 

 

The main problem is finding a repeater controller that will work with the equipment at hand. People will build a cheap repeater using a couple of HT's or a couple of mobile radios. A lucky few can afford a real purposely designed repeater with the required interface for a controller available.  Most often there are no provisions for access to a COR, carrier operated relay, etc. so the builder ends up hacking the radios to gain access to necessary signals. When the builder's family are the only users then simply cross coupling the mic and audio outputs, with VOX enabled, is sufficient for basic functioning, because at least no ID is required.

I picked up a simple interface box to do the cross coupling between two HT's, with VOX contol, to experiment with a cross-band repeater for Ham use. A simple duplexer like the below is sufficient to get the isolation at a 5 watt level.

https://mfjenterprises.com/products/mfj-916bn#description

https://www.buytwowayradios.com/surecom-sr-628.html

[WRVD377]

After a few notarubicon videos, these forums and many "experts" online.   It seems it is very complicated to find anything that is not older than dirt in electronics time that covers the non-family repeater rules.  Basically $1,500+ to cover repeater ID. Clearly Retevis RT97 does not comply RT97s does (5W).  Used have fun finding programing software and output ranges, narrow or not wideband or not, any more variable Watt settings.  And most seem to claim all duplexers must be tuned.  Even ignoring groups if that works.  Bridgecom looked good, but even found at mygrms.com some really bad problems.  From what I can tell that leaves a lot of newer hardware in analog/digital functions that add more complications, can I or can't I use them. Yes starting at $1,800 on up.  Vertex Standard 7000, that would be great, oh good luck finding it.  Short term I hope the GR1225 I have coming will allow me to make it public, while I wait for Retevis 40W to see if it finally covers a little more power than 5W variable after duplexer and station ID....  This has been very painful to find a device that complies to the few rules in GMRS, yet hits only a couple main sticking points. Thus, why I wrote Midland, Bridgecom and Retevis.  Clearly Private missing a little more power. Public monster $'s or effectively caveman hardware with hacker programing crud.  Sad for a newby that knows nothing, except no simple to find reasonable solution.

[Cactusboy19]

I just posted the build for my homemade repeater.

This does not include antenna or mainline.