The Future of Linked Repeaters??? Must Watch!

[WRUE951]

4 hours ago, AdmiralCochrane said:

Want to wager a ham sandwich on that?  Need to define "soon" before the wagering

Prbly before year end and no promises on REACT usage..    I know there has been some chatter on it..  

[AdmiralCochrane]

9 hours ago, WRUE951 said:

Prbly before year end and no promises on REACT usage..    I know there has been some chatter on it..  

Yeah, I'd bet the sammich that does not come to pass in the allotted time frame.

[SteveShannon]

On 7/3/2024 at 9:27 AM, WRUE951 said:

Pretty sure we will be seeing a clarification/revision to GMRS rules soon... And i bet those revisions address a lot more and could even address REACT usage.  I see it coming.   

Given that the process the FCC uses to change rules hasn’t begun yet, there’s no chance before the end of the year.

[WRUE951]

3 hours ago, SteveShannon said:

Given that the process the FCC uses to change rules hasn’t begun yet, there’s no chance before the end of the year.

we'll see what happens in the next 5-6 months..    Government has a way of dong what it wants..   We know that for a fact.  

[UncleYoda]

If they do change the rules, I think they should place some restrictions on private repeaters.

[marcspaz]

3 hours ago, UncleYoda said:

If they do change the rules, I think they should place some restrictions on private repeaters.

 

What are you thinking of?

[LeoG]

I think the larger repeaters might need rules so they don't overwhelm the area.  Like putting up 8 repeaters on all the frequencies and then charging to use the repeaters.

Little guys putting up 5 or 10 watt repeaters for local area coverage for their families don't really impact the areas much.

[WRUE951]

32 minutes ago, LeoG said:

I think the larger repeaters might need rules so they don't overwhelm the area.  Like putting up 8 repeaters on all the frequencies and then charging to use the repeaters.

Little guys putting up 5 or 10 watt repeaters for local area coverage for their families don't really impact the areas much.

yup,  there is a growing number of those guys,  mostly back east, some in the mid west.   Where the hell do they get their money..  They sure have one hell of a large family,, don't they

[WRKC935]

44 minutes ago, LeoG said:

I think the larger repeaters might need rules so they don't overwhelm the area.  Like putting up 8 repeaters on all the frequencies and then charging to use the repeaters.

Little guys putting up 5 or 10 watt repeaters for local area coverage for their families don't really impact the areas much.

Yeah, i dealt with a guy that was thinking he was going to do that.  He had 15 paper repeaters registered on here.  When I started looking into his 'system' I even found a business registered with the state where he was marketing air time on GMRS. The tower owner already had one open repeater on the air that he made open.  I put my repeater on the air as well (675) that was open. My coverage footprint covered several of his 'pay to play' paper repeaters.  Of course he wasn't happy.  He threatened to call the FCC.  I reminded him of the regulations for selling air time on GMRS and his repeaters started disappearing, not that they existed to begin with.  In truth, I was never able to verify he had ANY repeaters on the air.  But I know due to the location of several of them, there was never any equipment at those locations for at least the last 15 years because I was in those sites and there wasn't any GMRS or even UHF equipment at those sites. 

But putting up free open access repeaters in the coverage area of pay to play repeaters typically makes them go silent.  People will go with the free option every time if it's a good quality and fills their needs.

 

[WRUE951]

1 hour ago, WRKC935 said:

Yeah, i dealt with a guy that was thinking he was going to do that.  He had 15 paper repeaters registered on here.  When I started looking into his 'system' I even found a business registered with the state where he was marketing air time on GMRS. The tower owner already had one open repeater on the air that he made open.  I put my repeater on the air as well (675) that was open. My coverage footprint covered several of his 'pay to play' paper repeaters.  Of course he wasn't happy.  He threatened to call the FCC.  I reminded him of the regulations for selling air time on GMRS and his repeaters started disappearing, not that they existed to begin with.  In truth, I was never able to verify he had ANY repeaters on the air.  But I know due to the location of several of them, there was never any equipment at those locations for at least the last 15 years because I was in those sites and there wasn't any GMRS or even UHF equipment at those sites. 

But putting up free open access repeaters in the coverage area of pay to play repeaters typically makes them go silent.  People will go with the free option every time if it's a good quality and fills their needs.

 

kind of reminds me of the 100's of new repeaters that people register but their status is always 'offline'..  Whats that purpose???  Are they trying to 'claim' a frequency they don't use...  some pretty crazy thinking...  

[RayP]

5 minutes ago, WRUE951 said:

kind of reminds me of the 100's of new repeaters that people register but their status is always 'offline'..  Whats that purpose???  Are they trying to 'claim' a frequency they don't use...  some pretty crazy thinking...  

I used to see this in ham, a lot.  At one time, the American Radio Relay League put out a paperback "Repeater Directory" each Spring.  Others and myself couldn't wait to see the new edition, each year, curious to see what (if any) new repeaters might have gone up in our area.  Often as not, the "Repeater Directory" was full of "paper" and "vapor" repeaters that had either been off the air for years, or had never existed to begin with.  For reasons I have never understood, some people got a perverse ego trip from seeing their call sign next to a non-existent repeater or repeaters in the Directory.  For reasons few if any understood, the ARRL would only accept the word of the alleged repeater owners or trustees with regard to the status of a repeater (on-line, off-line, never existed, off-line for decades, etc).  This enabled the paper and vapor repeater "owners" to keep their names up in lights, so to speak, practically forever.  I tended to associate such behavior with the same kind of mental disorder that fuels the stolen valor hacks, who claim to have served in the military, received certain medals or honors, have been Navy Seals or Green Berets, but in real life never did any of those things.

Sadly, we see the same illness here on GMRS, too.

[UncleYoda]

9 hours ago, marcspaz said:

 

What are you thinking of?

Power and height, e.g. 10-20 W, 40-60 ft.  Problem then is putting them on mountains.

[marcspaz]

4 hours ago, LeoG said:

I think the larger repeaters might need rules so they don't overwhelm the area.  Like putting up 8 repeaters on all the frequencies and then charging to use the repeaters.

Little guys putting up 5 or 10 watt repeaters for local area coverage for their families don't really impact the areas much.

 

Charging people to use a GMRS repeater is a rule violation.  And as someone who lives in a densely populated area where 2 or 3 people own and operate wide coverage area repeaters on every pair, I definitely don't see frequency use even remotely close to considered overwhelmed.

 

We have several wide coverage area repeaters here in the DC metro area.  There are many smaller nested repeaters inside those coverage areas and they work well together since they have implemented different tone squelch settings.  Even in heavily populated areas, like DCA with ~10M people, there are less than 8,000 active GMRS licensees in the area.  It does not cause problems because of how little use there is.  Some days, I may not hear any traffic at all.

 

Also, I don't see a problem with a person having large coverage area repeaters on every pair due to the benefit to the community members, such as in a regional emergency or communications blackout.  That far outweighs any perceived inconvenience from having a wide coverage area or a single person owning a repeater on every pair.  Even day-to-day, families are using these machines to stay in touch in areas with no cell coverage.  Friends are using them to stay in touch as a convenient alternative to cell phones, too. 

 

 

1 hour ago, UncleYoda said:

Power and height, e.g. 10-20 W, 40-60 ft.  Problem then is putting them on mountains.

There are already antenna height and power limits.  I'm not sure how we could tell people who live in a higher elevation that they can't have a repeater, though.  I'm sure that would turn in to a Constitutional Rights court case.  I don't think we should, either.

 

EDIT:  Quick note on power.  I have a 50w repeater, but its only a 50% duty cycle at 50w.  It's 100% duty cycle at 20w.  After running through a duplexer and 150 feet of cable, only about 5w gets to the antenna.  Even if I run the full 50w (since it never sees 100% duty cycle), I still only get about 12w to the antenna.  It's not great.

Sadly, the receive is impacted the same way.

 

On the antenna height side, my antenna base is at 40 feet and I only get about 3 miles of coverage out of it due to the terrain, which also sucks.  If me and my son hop in two vehicle and drive anywhere away from my house, we can talk 8+ miles. 

 

So, my repeater at my house with the specs you are talking about, performs worse than mobile simplex pretty much anywhere else but on my street.

[WRUE951]

23 minutes ago, marcspaz said:

 

Charging people to use a GMRS repeater is a rule violation.  

 

yet 100's of repeater owners advertise as 'Paid Member Only'..   I imagine their loophole is "it's a donation'....   which i would understand if they also listed as a REACT  repeater, but this is not the case in majority of 'Paid Member Only' repeaters  Also, for the hell of it, i'll eaves drop on REACT repeaters when i get a chance, just to monitor the type of traffic going on..   99% of the time, i note the traffic is not REACT related and mostly club members yaking about the brownies they cooked yesterday..   Just sayin.................

 

[marcspaz]

14 minutes ago, WRUE951 said:

yet 100's of repeater owners advertise as 'Paid Member Only'..   I imagine their loophole is "it's a donation'....   which i would understand if they also listed as a REACT  repeater, but this is not the case in majority of 'Paid Member Only' repeaters  Also, for the hell of it, i'll eaves drop on REACT repeaters when i get a chance, just to monitor the type of traffic going on..   99% of the time, i note the traffic is not REACT related and mostly club members yaking about the brownies they cooked yesterday..   Just sayin.................

 

Are people paying for repeater use, or are they members of a club that pay dues to be a club member, and only paying members can use club resources?  I would think if the only resource is the repeater... that would seem to be a violation.  Not that the FCC cares anyway. 

 

I am a member of a Jeep club.  There are free memberships and paid memberships.  Paid members can vote in club elections and have access to resources (such as training and trail guides) that non-paid members can't access. 

[Hoppyjr]

If they do change the rules, I think they should place some restrictions on private repeaters.

….because that’s what we need, more government regulations.

[LeoG]

1 hour ago, marcspaz said:

 

Are people paying for repeater use, or are they members of a club that pay dues to be a club member, and only paying members can use club resources?  I would think if the only resource is the repeater... that would seem to be a violation.  Not that the FCC cares anyway. 

 

I am a member of a Jeep club.  There are free memberships and paid memberships.  Paid members can vote in club elections and have access to resources (such as training and trail guides) that non-paid members can't access. 

Paying to be in a club so you can use the repeater is the same as paying to use the repeater with a technicality.

[WRUE951]

1 hour ago, marcspaz said:

 

Are people paying for repeater use, or are they members of a club that pay dues to be a club member, and only paying members can use club resources?  I would think if the only resource is the repeater... that would seem to be a violation.  Not that the FCC cares anyway. 

 

I am a member of a Jeep club.  There are free memberships and paid memberships.  Paid members can vote in club elections and have access to resources (such as training and trail guides) that non-paid members can't access. 

Listen in to some of them and give me your opinion.   IMO someone is making money and probably used to keep adding more repeaters.    and we haven't got into the tax write off part of it yet..   

[marcspaz]

37 minutes ago, WRUE951 said:

Listen in to some of them and give me your opinion.   IMO someone is making money and probably used to keep adding more repeaters.    and we haven't got into the tax write off part of it yet..   

 

There is nothing like that around here. At least not that I'm aware of.

[marcspaz]

39 minutes ago, LeoG said:

Paying to be in a club so you can use the repeater is the same as paying to use the repeater with a technicality.

I agree.

[WRKC935]

3 hours ago, marcspaz said:

EDIT:  Quick note on power.  I have a 50w repeater, but its only a 50% duty cycle at 50w.  It's 100% duty cycle at 20w.  After running through a duplexer and 150 feet of cable, only about 5w gets to the antenna.  Even if I run the full 50w (since it never sees 100% duty cycle), I still only get about 12w to the antenna.  It's not great.

Sadly, the receive is impacted the same way.

Well, don't feel bad about that.

Because I was running 600 and 675 in a DIY Hybrid combiner, I was getting about 18 watts out of the building with the repeater at 75 watts.  Then 350 feet of 7/8 cable.  So your 12 watts at the antenna isn't really bad at all.

Now receive is a receive multicoupler with a window filter.  But of course, what gets lost in the cable is just gone.  I have considered a TTA on UHF but haven't gone down that path yet.  I have a couple old 800 units that I was thinking about removing and replacing the window filter on, but that's a down the road project.  And I talk 60 miles in some directions so I am not hurting regardless for performance.

 

[WRUE951]

19 hours ago, LeoG said:

Paying to be in a club so you can use the repeater is the same as paying to use the repeater with a technicality.

the ones that crack me up and piss me off or the operators hiding under the REACT blanket and in Paid use status.....  (not all but a lot)  clearly opportunists at work.   

[marcspaz]

That is really weird to hear. The REACT team in the DCA doesn't own a single repeater. I don't think they charge to be a member either. That would be some shady stuff... for sure.