Repeater to Repeater

[Wrvq441]

Greetings.

Can a repeater be used to hit another repeater.

At my cabin, there is a repeater about forty miles away that I can hit with my mobile, but barely reach with my handheld. Can I set up a Retevis RT97 on my property so I can access the better Repeater with my handheld while indoors?

[WRUU653]

You may want to check this recent thread 

 

[WRUU653]

Basically I'd say your best bet would be to set up a base station.  If you can reach the repeater with a mobile outdoors and want better access indoors. You can also try getting up on the roof with your HT and see if the hight helps you reach the repeater, if so you could set an antenna up on the roof and just hook up to your HT inside thus saving the expense of another radio or swap the mobile back and forth. But hey if you can afford it who dosn't like more radios.?

[Sshannon]

I absolutely agree with @WRUU653. Setting up a repeater just to reach another repeater using RF would probably cause severe interference.  In order for your handheld signal to be received by your repeater and transmitted to the other repeater you would have to reverse your input and output frequencies, but then, the signal received from the other repeater would be instantly retransmitted to the other repeater, causing a feedback loop. 

GMRS Regulations simply do not permit a repeater to transmit on the “467 MHz Main Channel” input frequencies necessary to transmit through another repeater. 

Just set up a mobile radio in your house with a decent antenna on the roof and configured to hit the repeater.

[MarkInTampa]

14 minutes ago, Sshannon said:

I absolutely agree with @WRUU653. Setting up a repeater just to reach another repeater using RF would probably cause severe interference.  In order for your handheld signal to be received by your repeater and transmitted to the other repeater you would have to reverse your input and output frequencies, but then, the signal received from the other repeater would be instantly retransmitted to the other repeater, causing a feedback loop. 

GMRS Regulations simply do not permit a repeater to transmit on the “467 MHz Main Channel” input frequencies necessary to transmit through another repeater. 

Just set up a mobile radio in your house with a decent antenna on the roof and configured to hit the repeater.

Stupid question - Would cross-band repeating between MURS and GMRS be legal? Legally I know you cant have a repeater on MURS, but you would not be repeating within the same band so would it still be called a repeater? I'm sure it is but just wondering....

 

[Wrvq441]

Thank you. 

This is why I asked first.

Perhaps I didn’t do a very good job at explaining my actual goal here. I instead went right to my possible solution.

I don’t mind putting a base station in the cabin. But I will have the potential of missing out on the person attempting to contact me unless I stay near enough to the station, or upset the rest of the family by having the volume cranked way up. The same for when outside of the cabin. I have very limited reach with my handheld, and don’t want to have the radio in my vehicle constantly on with the volume cranked way up not to mention the potential of a dead battery.

Is there any interface that will allow me to be somewhat free of staying glued to the base and yet having access?

[Sshannon]

Just now, markskjerve said:

Stupid question - Would cross-band repeating between MURS and GMRS be legal? Legally I know you cant have a repeater on MURS, but you would not be repeating within the same band, so would it still be called a repeater? I'm sure is but just wondering....

 

“Stupid questions” are sometimes the most fun to chat about!

Off the top of my head I don’t know for sure.  I think there’s a rule against retransmitting between services.  Of course the technical challenges would add a whole other level of problems to solve.  Your MURS handheld would have to transmit and receive on two different frequencies. You would need a translator to receive MURS and connect to a GMRS transmitter and another one to connect to a GMRS receiver transmit to MURS.

It might be easier to hook it up to a cordless phone!

[Sshannon]

4 minutes ago, Wrvq441 said:

Thank you. 

This is why I asked first.

Perhaps I didn’t do a very good job at explaining my actual goal here. I instead went right to my possible solution.

I don’t mind putting a base station in the cabin. But I will have the potential of missing out on the person attempting to contact me unless I stay near enough to the station, or upset the rest of the family by having the volume cranked way up. The same for when outside of the cabin. I have very limited reach with my handheld, and don’t want to have the radio in my vehicle constantly on with the volume cranked way up not to mention the potential of a dead battery.

Is there any interface that will allow me to be somewhat free of staying glued to the base and yet having access?

If you have internet, you might be able to connect your repeater to the other repeater using a network connection.  There are networks of repeaters. That’s about as far as my knowledge extends on that.

[MarkInTampa]

9 minutes ago, Sshannon said:

“Stupid questions” are sometimes the most fun to chat about!

Off the top of my head I don’t know for sure.  I think there’s a rule against retransmitting between services.  Of course the technical challenges would add a whole other level of problems to solve.  Your MURS handheld would have to transmit and receive on two different frequencies. You would need a translator to receive MURS and connect to a GMRS transmitter and another one to connect to a GMRS receiver transmit to MURS.

It might be easier to hook it up to a cordless phone!

I was thinking more along the lines (in OP's case) of having a nice GMRS base station at the cabin along side a MURS radio with a $40 HT style cross band repeater controller (https://www.amazon.com/Serounder-Repeater-Two-Way-Controller-Communication/dp/B07QXYJRBN) that connects between the earphone and mic plugs off Amazon. Then use a MURS HT for mobile use around the cabin back to GMRS.

[Wrvq441]

No internet, and no cell service.

[WRUU653]

15 minutes ago, markskjerve said:

Stupid question - Would cross-band repeating between MURS and GMRS be legal? Legally I know you cant have a repeater on MURS, but you would not be repeating within the same band, so would it still be called a repeater? I'm sure it is but just wondering....

Still would be considered a repeater. 

Not permitted and it wouldn't gain access to the second repeater OP wants to reach

27 minutes ago, Sshannon said:

GMRS Regulations simply do not permit a repeater to transmit on the “467 MHz Main Channel” input frequencies necessary to transmit through another repeater. 

 

[Sshannon]

So, how could a person legally design some kind of “range extender”?

@markskjervehas the simplest solution; but I’m doubtful of the legality because of the cross-banding. It’s more than simply cross-banding; it’s going between two different services.

The problem with the original idea is that two full duplex devices connected to each other form a feedback loop.  But what if you use simplex GMRS (store and forward) on the end you’re trying to extend so you can be outside of the cabin? 

[WRUU653]

9 minutes ago, markskjerve said:

I was thinking more along the lines (in OP's case) of having a nice GMRS base station at the cabin along side a MURS radio with a $40 HT style cross band repeater controller (https://www.amazon.com/Serounder-Repeater-Two-Way-Controller-Communication/dp/B07QXYJRBN) that connects between the earphone and mic plugs off Amazon. Then use a MURS HT for mobile use around the cabin back to GMRS.

19 minutes ago, Wrvq441 said:

Thank you. 

This is why I asked first.

Perhaps I didn’t do a very good job at explaining my actual goal here. I instead went right to my possible solution.

I don’t mind putting a base station in the cabin. But I will have the potential of missing out on the person attempting to contact me unless I stay near enough to the station, or upset the rest of the family by having the volume cranked way up. The same for when outside of the cabin. I have very limited reach with my handheld, and don’t want to have the radio in my vehicle constantly on with the volume cranked way up not to mention the potential of a dead battery.

Is there any interface that will allow me to be somewhat free of staying glued to the base and yet having access?

Okay I see where you're going now. How about a blue tooth enabled HT that is hooked to an external antenna that you can monitor without disturbing other people in the cabin?

And for the record I don't think the question was stupid, I love thinking out of the box even if it's just for theoretical discussion... 

 

 

[WRUU653]

...or a bluetooth mic for the base station?

[MarkInTampa]

6 minutes ago, WRUU653 said:

...or a bluetooth mic for the base station?

Range if he wants to use it more than 50 yards around the cabin. MURS should get a heck of a lot more range than Bluetooth.

And another stupid question - A few posts above states:

 

Would Bluetooth not violate this rule?

 

[Sshannon]

30 minutes ago, Sshannon said:

So, how could a person legally design some kind of “range extender”?

@markskjervehas the simplest solution; but I’m doubtful of the legality because of the cross-banding. It’s more than simply cross-banding; it’s going between two different services.

The problem with the original idea is that two full duplex devices connected to each other form a feedback loop.  But what if you use simplex GMRS (store and forward) on the end you’re trying to extend so you can be outside of the cabin? 

So, here’s how others have done it professionally using Vertex mobile radios. It’s a store and forward module that extends the range of a mobile radio to a handheld.  Of course you would need to use a Vertex mobile radio, configured to communicate with the other repeater, but I’ve heard they’re available.  Also, Midian makes these for other radios as well

https://www.ameradio.com/product/512159/description.html

If you like to tinker, you could probably do something similar and much less expensively using one of these:

https://www.argentdata.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=98

However, thinking about this, it must do the forwarding on a different frequency (not band or service) than the mobile, otherwise you would simply end up with a time delayed feedback loop.

[Lscott]

40 minutes ago, Sshannon said:

So, here’s how others have done it professionally using Vertex mobile radios. It’s a store and forward module that extends the range of a mobile radio to a handheld.  Of course you would need to use a Vertex mobile radio, configured to communicate with the other repeater, but I’ve heard they’re available.

You can use an external unit that doesn't require a specific radio type.

https://www.argentdata.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=98

[Sshannon]

The more I think about this, the more I wonder why two back to back radios on different frequencies wouldn’t work. One would be on simplex to talk to the nearby handhelds and one would be configured to transmit and receive from the repeater.  Neither would be capable of simultaneously transmitting while receiving and most importantly, none of the input frequencies would be able to receive any of the frequencies that could be transmitted simultaneously. That last is key.

So, the central mobile/base station would be configured to transmit to the repeater and receive from the repeater, but because it’s not a repeater it cannot transmit while receiving and it cannot receive while it transmits.

The audio from its headphone jack is connected to the mic input on another radio which is set to a simplex channel. I’ll call it the simplex radio.  It’s set to a completely different channel than the receiver of the central mobile/base station. That audio triggers PTT or VOX on the simplex radio and is retransmitted to the OP’s handheld while he’s outside.

Because the simplex radio is incapable of receiving while transmitting, he could not interrupt the transmission, but once it ends, he can push his PTT.  The simplex radio receives his transmission and via a connection between its headphone jack goes into the mic input of the central mobile/base, triggering PTT and sending it to the repeater.

Getting the two radios to coexist without de-sensing might be a problem.  Might have to mount the antennas with some vertical separation.  Getting PTT to work on each might be a challenge.  Maybe one of those amazon simplex repeater boxes would help there.

But this seems too easy.  What simple and stupid thing am I missing?

[MarkInTampa]

24 minutes ago, Sshannon said:

 

But this seems too easy.  What simple and stupid thing am I missing?

Even easier (but definitely NOT LEGAL) would be to slap up something like a Comet GP6-NC (Dual band MURS/GMRS antenna) and MARS/CAP modify any number of dual band ham radio transceivers that do VHF/UHF cross-band repeat out of the box and run MURS HT's crossbanding to GMRS through the base station. One antenna, one radio and done. 

That's why I was questioning the legality of using a off the shelf, legal and certified MURS and GMRS radios doing the same basic thing using the headphone/mic repeater controller between them. You cold also install a UHF/VHF combiner and use one antenna. Isn't this basically what a Bluetooth headset would do, but on the MURS frequencies instead of Bluetooth? Would both radios would be legal for the band with a simple earphone/mic cable connecting the two?

[MichaelLAX]

9 minutes ago, markskjerve said:

... and MARS/CAP modify any number of dual band ham radio transceivers that do VHF/UHF cross-band repeat out of the box...

For example? Some inexpensive ones?

[MarkInTampa]

16 minutes ago, MichaelLAX said:

For example? Some inexpensive ones?

TYT TH-9800, $210.00. 50watt VHF, 40watt UHF radio. Does quad band (10m, 6m, 2m and 70cm but only two at a time) as well. Almost half the price of a KG-1000G+

 

[Sshannon]

9 minutes ago, markskjerve said:

TYT TH-9800, $210.00. 50watt VHF, 40watt UHF radio. Does quad band (10m, 6m, 2m and 70cm) as well. Almost half the price of a KG-1000G+

 

For $80 more the Icom IC-2730 does dual band (70 cm and 2m) cross band repeat. 
This would all be so much easier and legal to do in amateur radio. 

[MichaelLAX]

18 minutes ago, Sshannon said:

For $80 more the Icom IC-2730 does dual band (70 cm and 2m) cross band repeat. 
This would all be so much easier and legal to do in amateur radio. 

Are you saying that In Amateur Radio you can set up a cross-band repeater to output on the input of another Repeater, so that I can walk around with my HT and use a Icom IC-2730 to hit a Ham repeater much further away?

[MarkInTampa]

2 minutes ago, MichaelLAX said:

Are you saying that In Amateur Radio you can set up a cross-band repeater to output on the input of another Repeater, so that I can walk around with my HT and use a Icom IC-2730 to hit a Ham repeater much further away?

That's exactly what it does and was designed for. Using different bands of course (VHF/UHF).

[gortex2]

Done all the time. Most good commercial ham radio offer cross band mode. Mine is always on the 2M repeater and a UHF simlplex channel on Low Power. Use it alot that way in the parks while camping. 

[Wrvq441]

Back in the early 80’s, I worked EMS in a small town. Our ambulance had a radio that was called “Pack-Rat”. We had the regular two way that was installed in the rig, and a handheld docked next to it. When you undocked the handheld it would use the rig radio as a repeater. So even when sub terrain, as long as the rig was on that property it would repeat all trans and rec to the handheld. It was awesome. Until the FCC banned it. Unfortunately I don’t recall the reasoning behind it, but we ended up with a crappy radio in the rig with no pack rat after.