Linking GMRS Repeaters

[marcspaz]

52 minutes ago, MaxHeadroom said:

Wait a sec, didn't I read somewhere in this forum you claim to be some constitutional and contractual law expert? Shocking to see you're not aware of a process that has been on the books since before I was born by a long shot. 

 

 

I studied constitutional law and the founding and framing of the US. That doesn't mean I know everything about everything.

[AdmiralCochrane]

n

[MaxHeadroom]

5 minutes ago, marcspaz said:

 

 

I studied constitutional law and the founding a d framing of the US. That doesn't mean I know everything about everything.

I wouldn’t expect anyone to. My point is that a LOT of what I’m reading on here has nothing to do with a legal process that will accomplish anything but is being done with some true confidence behind it. 

[marcspaz]

1 minute ago, MaxHeadroom said:

I wouldn’t expect anyone to. My point is that a LOT of what I’m reading on here has nothing to do with a legal process that will accomplish anything but is being done with some true confidence behind it. 

 

Yes... I completely agree with your opinion. That's why when I started the IPT, I recruited multiple people who have actually done this specific task before. Hire the right people for the job, is my best bet.

[WRUE951]

On 8/18/2024 at 6:50 PM, wqnd300 said:

You didn't mention the most important part of the update.

"linking repeaters is not in the public interest. Because GMRS spectrum is limited and used on a shared “commons” basis, the service only works well on a localized basis when users can hear each other and cooperate in the sharing of channels. Linking repeaters not only increases the potential for interference, but also uses up a limited spectrum resource over much larger areas than intended, limiting localized availability of the repeater channels."

Sent from my SM-S918U using Tapatalk
 

the party is over...   

[WRKC935]

1 hour ago, WRUE951 said:

the party is over...   

Well, here is the argument against that.  While users can go buy dirt cheap (less than 100 bucks) radios for talking on a repeater.  Repeaters are NOT cheap and are out of reach for many.  So the repeater owners are the ones that fill the need for repeaters in the GMRS service.

It's not the lack of channels in most area's.  It's a lack of repeaters at all in those area's. 

[Davichko5650]

On 8/20/2024 at 4:29 PM, WRXB288 said:

 

 

If you want to keep linking this is what you need to do. call congress and the senate. or send this letter or send emails.
 

 

 

I don't, so I wont. But as pointed out elsewhere, a petition of this nature bares no fruit. A Petition filed with FCC for a proposed rule change might...

[WRUE951]

9 hours ago, WRKC935 said:

Well, here is the argument against that.  While users can go buy dirt cheap (less than 100 bucks) radios for talking on a repeater.  Repeaters are NOT cheap and are out of reach for many.  So the repeater owners are the ones that fill the need for repeaters in the GMRS service.

It's not the lack of channels in most area's.  It's a lack of repeaters at all in those area's. 

Tell that to the large handful of multiple repeater owners (some having nearly 30 repeaters under then license)  You're right,  repeaters are not cheap and apparently 110K+ is not out of reach for some.. OH,,, you think they are making a buck or two on the GMRS band the operate??    Also, can you imagine the handful of channels they consume in the 100 sq miles they operate.  I have nothing against the group you identify, but i have problems with the group I identify.   

[MaxHeadroom]

13 hours ago, WRKC935 said:

Well, here is the argument against that.  While users can go buy dirt cheap (less than 100 bucks) radios for talking on a repeater.  Repeaters are NOT cheap and are out of reach for many.  So the repeater owners are the ones that fill the need for repeaters in the GMRS service.

It's not the lack of channels in most area's.  It's a lack of repeaters at all in those area's. 

That is a logical fallacy that I see used constantly in GMRS. This service is literally one of the last wideband outside of T-Band UHF in places like NYC/Boston/Chicago/LA, and Low-Band VHF. T-Band equipment is typically used in GMRS as well as most 450-512 equipment is relevant, but not ALL equipment will operate in GMRS (Quantars having multiple band splits for example). That leaves a LOT of equipment like MSF5000s, MSR2000s, and similar antiques that are still being used for GMRS, not to mention that a lot of the equipment I mention is Part 90 certified and this community has spun its wheels on agreeing that Part 90 equipment should exist in GMRS and push for THAT rule change among others. Point being: GMRS capable repeater equipment is not "expensive" by any stretch, just more expensive than the race-to-the-bottom radios everyone is buying to use on them.

This is a snowball effect of GMRS users starting at the 2017 rule change acting like this is the modern CB and now everyone is feeling the effects. Part 90 equipment is not permitted explicitly and limits equipment options, the 2017 rule change deregulated bubble pack radios which with FRS channels being narrowband interstitials in-between GMRS channels means GMRS narrowbanding would be a monumental effort that assumes all those bubble pack radios would not be around to cause interference, THEN we can talk about linking and other resources.

This should be a cautionary tale about how apathy and lack of engagement to keep a service beneficial to the public comes back to bite everyone. Now with all that said - its not hard to imagine why the FCC had to turn GMRS to a 10 year license and drop the fee to $35 - who wants to pay good money for this mess?

[nokones]

On 8/25/2024 at 2:10 PM, dirtnapwarrior said:

Damn I didn't think of the narrowband part and I agree we don't want that. 

Why not? There is nothing wrong with narrowband. One of the GMRS clubs I belong to narrowband their repeaters and there are no problems with radio communication. Public Safety has been narrowbanding well over 10 years now without any problems.

[nokones]

5 hours ago, MaxHeadroom said:

That is a logical fallacy that I see used constantly in GMRS. This service is literally one of the last wideband outside of T-Band UHF in places like NYC/Boston/Chicago/LA, and Low-Band VHF. T-Band equipment is typically used in GMRS as well as most 450-512 equipment is relevant, but not ALL equipment will operate in GMRS (Quantars having multiple band splits for example). That leaves a LOT of equipment like MSF5000s, MSR2000s, and similar antiques that are still being used for GMRS, not to mention that a lot of the equipment I mention is Part 90 certified and this community has spun its wheels on agreeing that Part 90 equipment should exist in GMRS and push for THAT rule change among others. Point being: GMRS capable repeater equipment is not "expensive" by any stretch, just more expensive than the race-to-the-bottom radios everyone is buying to use on them.

This is a snowball effect of GMRS users starting at the 2017 rule change acting like this is the modern CB and now everyone is feeling the effects. Part 90 equipment is not permitted explicitly and limits equipment options, the 2017 rule change deregulated bubble pack radios which with FRS channels being narrowband interstitials in-between GMRS channels means GMRS narrowbanding would be a monumental effort that assumes all those bubble pack radios would not be around to cause interference, THEN we can talk about linking and other resources.

This should be a cautionary tale about how apathy and lack of engagement to keep a service beneficial to the public comes back to bite everyone. Now with all that said - its not hard to imagine why the FCC had to turn GMRS to a 10 year license and drop the fee to $35 - who wants to pay good money for this mess?

95.335.(a) says Part 90 radios can be used on GMRS freqs.

(a)  Exceptions. Under certain exceptions, non-certified Personal Radio Service transmitters, or transmitters certified for use in the land mobile radio services may be operated. Any such exceptions applicable to stations in a Personal Radio Service are set forth in the subpart governing that specific service. See e.g., §§ 95.735 and 95.1735.

 

[MaxHeadroom]

6 minutes ago, nokones said:

95.335.(a) says Part 90 radios can be used on GMRS freqs.

(a)  Exceptions. Under certain exceptions, non-certified Personal Radio Service transmitters, or transmitters certified for use in the land mobile radio services may be operated. Any such exceptions applicable to stations in a Personal Radio Service are set forth in the subpart governing that specific service. See e.g., §§ 95.735 and 95.1735.

 

You’re absolutely correct - and it’s something that was talked about directly with the FCC back in 2017. The issue comes down to while it’s not explicitly permitted, the FCC cannot enforce it on its own which means type acceptance fines will only happen when you’re already caught for some other misdeed - but having it formally worded in Part 95 would be a step to protecting any further “interpretation”. 
 

(I was one of the guys in 2017 that was talking directly with a now gone member of the forum and others with the FCC on this issue and others). 

[WRKC935]

16 hours ago, MaxHeadroom said:

That is a logical fallacy that I see used constantly in GMRS. This service is literally one of the last wideband outside of T-Band UHF in places like NYC/Boston/Chicago/LA, and Low-Band VHF. T-Band equipment is typically used in GMRS as well as most 450-512 equipment is relevant, but not ALL equipment will operate in GMRS (Quantars having multiple band splits for example). That leaves a LOT of equipment like MSF5000s, MSR2000s, and similar antiques that are still being used for GMRS, not to mention that a lot of the equipment I mention is Part 90 certified and this community has spun its wheels on agreeing that Part 90 equipment should exist in GMRS and push for THAT rule change among others. Point being: GMRS capable repeater equipment is not "expensive" by any stretch, just more expensive than the race-to-the-bottom radios everyone is buying to use on them.

 

Well, the tower mine is on was 48K..... used.  Of course it came with 1.3 acres of land and a building.  Equipment isn't overly expensive.  Unless you compare it to the cost of a subscriber radio.  But It does cost money to get it off the side of your house and getting the antenna over 50 feet in the air.  And there are typically some sort of reoccurring costs involved with tower space.  That's where the cost of ownership starts to move people away from it. 

Yeah, a garage or basement repeater can be done for a reasonable expense, if you know what you are doing.  But I think that you are forgetting that there are people like you and me that have the equipment and expertise to pull equipment out of the trunk of your car, and put it all together with equipment that we have on hand.  Start to finish.  Mind you we rig the tower with equipment I own.  I have 1200 feet of rope, a Cat head winch, the proper blocks, harnesses and such.  Then I have the tools for prepping the cable for connector installation.  Cable grips to hoist it and the rest of the crap required to do a proper antenna install.  Not a mast pipe bolted to the peak of a roof.  The only thing I don't own outright is a service monitor with tracking generator / VNA to tune the duplexers.  That belongs to the shop I work for.  But I have instant access to it.   I / we are certainly in the minority with having all that.  Now I didn't buy all that new, but there were costs involved.  Does the average GMRS operator need that sort of stuff.  Not really unless they own a bigger tower (240 feet in my case).  But owning a tower, it's pretty much a requirement to have that gear. 

And I don't know what tower fee's are where you are.  But they ain't cheap here.  Ebay pricing and hamfest finds pricing for a MTR2000 or Quantar at around a grand.  A 600 dollar used duplexer. A DB-420 antenna is gonna be a few hundred.  Then some length of 7/8 cable that was pulled off a tower that's still good.... figure one or two bucks a foot.    You're right.  Not expensive.  The day rate for a tower crew to install it on a 200 foot tower.  That's gonna be 6 grand.  So your USED repeater system, installed, is going to be around $8000.  And that's not taking into account a cabinet, snap-ins for the cable, or some means to connect the cable to the tower.  And if it ain't YOUR tower, you have to do what the owner wants done.  No wire ties or other 'good enough' home remedies for lashing the cable to the tower.  So that price can easily balloon to 10 grand.  And to this point you haven't paid a cent in rent.  When we bought the site, we just paid up front for rent.  But going rate is 1000 plus per month from the big three tower companies.  So even at 48K.  That's ONLY 4 years of rent.  Sure there is a 200 dollar electric bill, taxes and the like.  But it ain't the cost of renting space from others,  and since it's owned, we don't have a requirement to use an 'approved' tower crew. 

So again, repeater systems ain't cheap.  Those of us that can do this stuff, and have the proper tools to get it done, sometimes forget TCO (total cost of ownership) of things. 

I use to scratch my head about a brake job on a car costing a grand.  Because I have done a number of them myself.  But I didn't consider the 20K in tools I have acquired over the years.  I was doing it with jack stands and a creeper (replacing rusted brake lines) but I didn't consider the building, lift, employee's wages and all the rest in that cost.  Of course I still do brakes on my older vehicles.  But there again, I have the right tools and knowledge to do it. 

 

[CentralFloridaGMRS]

Perhaps the FCC will allow a low-watt node to be used but not allowing a repeater on the system would be a compromise that the FCC would accept. Mine won't transmit beyond a 1/4 of a mile on RF. 

[MaxHeadroom]

7 hours ago, WRKC935 said:

Well, the tower mine is on was 48K..... used.  Of course it came with 1.3 acres of land and a building.  Equipment isn't overly expensive.  Unless you compare it to the cost of a subscriber radio.  But It does cost money to get it off the side of your house and getting the antenna over 50 feet in the air.  And there are typically some sort of reoccurring costs involved with tower space.  That's where the cost of ownership starts to move people away from it. 

Yeah, a garage or basement repeater can be done for a reasonable expense, if you know what you are doing.  But I think that you are forgetting that there are people like you and me that have the equipment and expertise to pull equipment out of the trunk of your car, and put it all together with equipment that we have on hand.  Start to finish.  Mind you we rig the tower with equipment I own.  I have 1200 feet of rope, a Cat head winch, the proper blocks, harnesses and such.  Then I have the tools for prepping the cable for connector installation.  Cable grips to hoist it and the rest of the crap required to do a proper antenna install.  Not a mast pipe bolted to the peak of a roof.  The only thing I don't own outright is a service monitor with tracking generator / VNA to tune the duplexers.  That belongs to the shop I work for.  But I have instant access to it.   I / we are certainly in the minority with having all that.  Now I didn't buy all that new, but there were costs involved.  Does the average GMRS operator need that sort of stuff.  Not really unless they own a bigger tower (240 feet in my case).  But owning a tower, it's pretty much a requirement to have that gear. 

And I don't know what tower fee's are where you are.  But they ain't cheap here.  Ebay pricing and hamfest finds pricing for a MTR2000 or Quantar at around a grand.  A 600 dollar used duplexer. A DB-420 antenna is gonna be a few hundred.  Then some length of 7/8 cable that was pulled off a tower that's still good.... figure one or two bucks a foot.    You're right.  Not expensive.  The day rate for a tower crew to install it on a 200 foot tower.  That's gonna be 6 grand.  So your USED repeater system, installed, is going to be around $8000.  And that's not taking into account a cabinet, snap-ins for the cable, or some means to connect the cable to the tower.  And if it ain't YOUR tower, you have to do what the owner wants done.  No wire ties or other 'good enough' home remedies for lashing the cable to the tower.  So that price can easily balloon to 10 grand.  And to this point you haven't paid a cent in rent.  When we bought the site, we just paid up front for rent.  But going rate is 1000 plus per month from the big three tower companies.  So even at 48K.  That's ONLY 4 years of rent.  Sure there is a 200 dollar electric bill, taxes and the like.  But it ain't the cost of renting space from others,  and since it's owned, we don't have a requirement to use an 'approved' tower crew. 

So again, repeater systems ain't cheap.  Those of us that can do this stuff, and have the proper tools to get it done, sometimes forget TCO (total cost of ownership) of things. 

I use to scratch my head about a brake job on a car costing a grand.  Because I have done a number of them myself.  But I didn't consider the 20K in tools I have acquired over the years.  I was doing it with jack stands and a creeper (replacing rusted brake lines) but I didn't consider the building, lift, employee's wages and all the rest in that cost.  Of course I still do brakes on my older vehicles.  But there again, I have the right tools and knowledge to do it. 

 

I'll put it into my perspective from both working at an entity that controlled tower space statewide (on gov owned land), and as a "customer" of that entity as well on the other side:

• Up until VERY recently with some "clubs" using non-profit status to actually profit off their repeaters, only "commercial" entities were charged for a lease - not even power/HVAC consideration was charged. Your tower site was F R E E as long as you were putting it up for hobbyist/community use
• Most of those towers had abandon-in-place feed line and antennas on VHF and/or UHF. National Weather Service was famous for that so ham clubs were quick to snatch up those spots since they had to do zero work except drop a repeater and jumper at the site
• Some repeater owners got lucky enough to even find an abandon-in-place repeater to re-tune for their use
• Those that had to have any of the above installed on the site were able to get tower work done for free by state employee climbers of said entity - just had to wait until they had a reason to climb the tower for something else because they would not "do requests".
• Most repeater owners either know someone that has the equipment to tune/program infrastructure, if not have it themselves. I have an in-cal Freedom R8100 and will happily use it for anyone that truly wants a community open repeater... and I won't charge either. I only start to talk about money when they do as well...

I am not saying your experience is invalid - in fact it is how a lot of the sites get treated here. I have a Crown Castle 400' site literally in my back yard that they want an eye-watering lease for an LMR antenna on it, and the state entity I mentioned above is not allowing anyone other than hams on the tower thanks to some abuse of the policies from other "non profit" entities. Then add that I would have to pay one of my friends/acquaintances to climb the site for me and I have zero intention of putting up GMRS... I will save the money for such an effort and pay a coordinator for a VHF pair to be added to my Part 90 licenses. 

My point is this becomes much more of a "who you know" endeavor as much as "what you know". It is also why I mentioned the "barrier to entry" aspect that in previous generations of GMRS you needed to coordinate your repeater with the FCC, or needed a GROL to maintain such equipment, or other things on top of capital expense of the equipment itself or even the operating expense of paying someone else for their site. It shouldn't be a "race to the bottom" in the sense that wide area repeaters should not be trivial to install and affect other users in the area without an appropriate effort, because someone with their "roof top repeater" might want to have a smaller footprint and not fight the "big dogs" in the area for their chance to use the service the same as them without the massive wallet to back it.

[MaxHeadroom]

1 hour ago, CentralFloridaGMRS said:

Perhaps the FCC will allow a low-watt node to be used but not allowing a repeater on the system would be a compromise that the FCC would accept. Mine won't transmit beyond a 1/4 of a mile on RF. 

I'd challenge that someone would need to actually make a node that passes Part 95 or Part 90 technical standards. All MMDVM-based designs are barely Part 97 acceptable which adds a burden of not only proving use case to the FCC but that there's appropriate equipment to meet that need. Granted I understand that becomes a chicken-and-egg argument in some ways but point is most "hotspots" are not compliant by any means right now.

[WRKC935]

1 hour ago, MaxHeadroom said:

I'll put it into my perspective from both working at an entity that controlled tower space statewide (on gov owned land), and as a "customer" of that entity as well on the other side:

• Up until VERY recently with some "clubs" using non-profit status to actually profit off their repeaters, only "commercial" entities were charged for a lease - not even power/HVAC consideration was charged. Your tower site was F R E E as long as you were putting it up for hobbyist/community use
• Most of those towers had abandon-in-place feed line and antennas on VHF and/or UHF. National Weather Service was famous for that so ham clubs were quick to snatch up those spots since they had to do zero work except drop a repeater and jumper at the site
• Some repeater owners got lucky enough to even find an abandon-in-place repeater to re-tune for their use
• Those that had to have any of the above installed on the site were able to get tower work done for free by state employee climbers of said entity - just had to wait until they had a reason to climb the tower for something else because they would not "do requests".
• Most repeater owners either know someone that has the equipment to tune/program infrastructure, if not have it themselves. I have an in-cal Freedom R8100 and will happily use it for anyone that truly wants a community open repeater... and I won't charge either. I only start to talk about money when they do as well...

I am not saying your experience is invalid - in fact it is how a lot of the sites get treated here. I have a Crown Castle 400' site literally in my back yard that they want an eye-watering lease for an LMR antenna on it, and the state entity I mentioned above is not allowing anyone other than hams on the tower thanks to some abuse of the policies from other "non profit" entities. Then add that I would have to pay one of my friends/acquaintances to climb the site for me and I have zero intention of putting up GMRS... I will save the money for such an effort and pay a coordinator for a VHF pair to be added to my Part 90 licenses. 

My point is this becomes much more of a "who you know" endeavor as much as "what you know". It is also why I mentioned the "barrier to entry" aspect that in previous generations of GMRS you needed to coordinate your repeater with the FCC, or needed a GROL to maintain such equipment, or other things on top of capital expense of the equipment itself or even the operating expense of paying someone else for their site. It shouldn't be a "race to the bottom" in the sense that wide area repeaters should not be trivial to install and affect other users in the area without an appropriate effort, because someone with their "roof top repeater" might want to have a smaller footprint and not fight the "big dogs" in the area for their chance to use the service the same as them without the massive wallet to back it.

Yeah, we never had any of that locally.  ATC wanted 650 bucks a month and a 3500 dollar civil engineering study done for a ham antenna on a LONG LINES tower that had not seen a tenant ever since it was purchased from AT&T back in the 90's.  I know others have had luck with that, but had to have a 503 status in place for it to become a reality.  I was never much for clubs because people get idea's in their head that their position in the club somehow equates to their overall importance.  And I have seen that fester into guys that would tell seaters / servers at a restaurant their name AND call sign as if having a 2 by 3 actually meant something outside of the ham community.  

And paying 'someone' for tower services.  Again, my dealings have been with ATC.  But they ONLY allow their approved crews on their towers.  I have had tower companies tell me I needed to get someone else because they were not on the 'list'.  

And I don't typically charge folks either,,, or not nearly what we charge commercial clients.  I just prior to the latest FCC debacle spent probably 30 hours setting up two interfaces for R-Pi's for linking and remoted into their nodes getting them up and running.   The one guy gave me like 90 bucks for the effort, and it was a situation that he wouldn't let me refuse to take his money.  I actually try to avoid taking money for anything labor related to radio because it's sort of a conflict of interest.  Not that the shop I work for would even bother with anything GMRS related. 

But I think you and I are mostly on the same page.  I do believe that linking has a place in the service though.  But it needs to be done MUCH differently than what's currently happening.  I know I have said this elsewhere,,, but not sure about here,,, so I will repeat it.    I think that linking has a place, but so does single frequency simulcast.  I think that within the general coverage footprint of a repeater that no other repeater pair should be linked to that repeater.  If there is a coverage null, then simulcast needs to be employed to mitigate that coverage null.  And it should be required of repeater owners to NOT link to repeaters within their coverage footprint.  If a system goes from town to town, then OK, but not in the same geographic area.  It's wasteful.  I also believe that a linked repeater owner needs to ensure that there is another local coverage repeater with a similar footprint in his service area.  I am not saying that every linked repeater owner needs two repeaters, one linked the other not.  But I am saying that a conversation where both users are accessing the same repeater, and no one else is involved, needs to NOT tie up repeaters outside of the coverage area of the participants of that conversation.  The ASL image EVERYONE is using to link could be easily modified to recognize different PL's and link ot not link based on the PL being used.  Or another repeater be installed if none exists. 

Lastly, the 'interference' issue.  As you know part 90 still requires hub function (listen CSQ before transmitting) on type accepted radios.  Part 95 radios don't have that function.  So they can't do it.  I know that FB6 and FB8 frequencies don't have that requirement.  But those freqs are tied up and there is a 'waiting list' for them to become available.  ANd of course GMRS is NOT FB8 or market frequencies.  We all have equal right to them as license holders.    But a receiver on the repeater output coupled to that same Pi with a bit more software modification could address the interference locally that would be caused by other simplex users in the coverage footprint of another repeater not being heard by someone 100 miles away on a linked system. 

[WRYZ926]

4 hours ago, MaxHeadroom said:

I'll put it into my perspective from both working at an entity that controlled tower space statewide (on gov owned land), and as a "customer" of that entity as well on the other side:

• Up until VERY recently with some "clubs" using non-profit status to actually profit off their repeaters, only "commercial" entities were charged for a lease - not even power/HVAC consideration was charged. Your tower site was F R E E as long as you were putting it up for hobbyist/community use
• Most of those towers had abandon-in-place feed line and antennas on VHF and/or UHF. National Weather Service was famous for that so ham clubs were quick to snatch up those spots since they had to do zero work except drop a repeater and jumper at the site
• Some repeater owners got lucky enough to even find an abandon-in-place repeater to re-tune for their use
• Those that had to have any of the above installed on the site were able to get tower work done for free by state employee climbers of said entity - just had to wait until they had a reason to climb the tower for something else because they would not "do requests".
• Most repeater owners either know someone that has the equipment to tune/program infrastructure, if not have it themselves. I have an in-cal Freedom R8100 and will happily use it for anyone that truly wants a community open repeater... and I won't charge either. I only start to talk about money when they do as well...

     My club fits most of that. We are a non profit organization. The local radio station was kind enough to let us put our equipment up on their 900 foot tall tower. We had to pay for the antennas, hard line coax, and repeaters ourself and we had a few members that do tower work as their profession that volunteered their time. 

We got lucky when we put up our GMRS repeater. There were abandoned antennas and hardline already in place. All we had to do was purchase the repeater and hook it up.

We have one member that retired from doing commercial communication work and he still has access to the shop with all of the equipment. He tunes all of our duplexers for the club.

I doubt that we would have as nice of a setup without all of that.

   A lot of people overlook the cost of overhead when seeing what shop rates are. I retired in 2005 as a tool and die maker. Our shop rate was right around $100/hour but we only got paid around $22 per hour. And we would hear the argument from the shipping clerks about how a loaf of bread costs them the same amount as us. We would remind them the cost of our tools, cost  of 2 years of school plus two more years of an apprenticeship program. Where the shipping guys didn't need any schooling and they had minimum cost in tools.

[MaxHeadroom]

16 hours ago, WRYZ926 said:

A lot of people overlook the cost of overhead when seeing what shop rates are. I retired in 2005 as a tool and die maker. Our shop rate was right around $100/hour but we only got paid around $22 per hour. And we would hear the argument from the shipping clerks about how a loaf of bread costs them the same amount as us. We would remind them the cost of our tools, cost  of 2 years of school plus two more years of an apprenticeship program. Where the shipping guys didn't need any schooling and they had minimum cost in tools.

Absolutely! Those rates aren't getting cheaper anywhere in the "skilled trades" and RF is one of those like tool making where the talent pool is shrinking but demand is rising which leads to knowledge being the real expensive part in the mix! 

[CentralFloridaGMRS]

North Carolina GMRS shutting down the linked system. They ran as a non profit. 

[MaxHeadroom]

1 hour ago, CentralFloridaGMRS said:

North Carolina GMRS shutting down the linked system. They ran as a non profit. 

Thank you for posting that - I do not live in NC anymore but have family that has GMRS radios and licensing and we used to use that system a decent bit. Hopefully a few more standalone repeaters can be put up in key areas to make up for lack of linking. That was the issue when I left NC is a lot of small sites interconnected but not many "lighthouse stations" as I'd like to call them - ones that can cover a county or 3 on their own.

[TrikeRadio]

I know everyone is sort of sick of this topic now but I was wondering... if a repeater was set up to take input and retransmit to the input of another repeater further away... rather than re transmit on the regular output frequency... thus "linking" between it and another repeater further away... would that be ok as defined by the FCC. The connection would be over the air not via wires or networks or internet.

Just curious if this kind of "daisy chain" via radio only would be something that could be legitimate.

[SteveShannon]

Just now, TrikeRadio said:

I know everyone is sort of sick of this topic now but I was wondering... if a repeater was set up to take input and retransmit to the input of another repeater further away... rather than re transmit on the regular output frequency... thus "linking" between it and another repeater further away... would that be ok as defined by the FCC. The connection would be over the air not via wires or networks or internet.

Just curious if this kind of "daisy chain" via radio only would be something that could be legitimate.

The two issues with this scheme is

1. It requires a repeater to transmit on a frequency not allowed by regulations and
2. It results in a loop.  Repeater A transmits on the input frequency for repeater B.  Repeater B must transmit on the input frequency of repeater A which then transmits on the input frequency for repeater B.

[TrikeRadio]

13 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

The two issues with this scheme is

1. It requires a repeater to transmit on a frequency not allowed by regulations and
2. It results in a loop.  Repeater A transmits on the input frequency for repeater B.  Repeater B must transmit on the input frequency of repeater A which then transmits on the input frequency for repeater B.

Oh... repeaters are not allowed to transmit on "input" frequencies?
it would not necessarily be a loop it it transmitted to the input on a different channel would it?
(Example: if repeater A takes input on 467.675 and outputs to 467.700 ... which Repeater B picks up and re-transmits to 462.700)
(if it is ok for a repeater to transmit to an input frequency)

[marcspaz]

25 minutes ago, TrikeRadio said:

I know everyone is sort of sick of this topic now but I was wondering... if a repeater was set up to take input and retransmit to the input of another repeater further away... rather than re transmit on the regular output frequency... thus "linking" between it and another repeater further away... would that be ok as defined by the FCC. The connection would be over the air not via wires or networks or internet.

Just curious if this kind of "daisy chain" via radio only would be something that could be legitimate.

 

As Steve mentioned, there are some regulations preventing repeaters from transmitting on the 8 input channels.  All repeaters can only transmit on the frequencies associated with channels 15 through 22.

 

With that said, there are no restrictions on with input frequencies can be used... there is no law or rule requiring a specif frequency pairing. The only way I am aware to RF link GMRS repeaters while staying in the GMRS service is to use any GMRS frequency other than the 8 traditional repeater inputs as an input for each relay point.

 

Now, here is where you may run into issues. Anything not explicitly denied is allowed.  Since there are no laws or rule prohibiting the methods I mentioned, you can do it legally and within scope of the rules... BUT, depending on the User population in those repeater areas, you will P!$$0ff a ton of people.  I would expect complaints to be filed.  I say this because, instead of tying up one channel for one repeater, you are going to be using 2, 3, or possibly even 4 or more channels for a GMRS service based RF linked system.

 

Now, if the FCC really wanted to be hard on someone, they could call it an RF network and try to prohibit the action under the "any other network" clause, even though its not a routed network.  That's where having deep pockets for a lawyer would come in handy.

 

Edit:  I forgot to mention, due to the type of duplexers and filtering needed, this would be extremely expensive to build.