Hi,
I'm wondering what the best solution would be for this scenario:
My family has a vacation property (lake house) that has very poor cell phone coverage, especially out on the lake. I'd like for us to be able to communicate with each other while out on the lake, and in the local area (lake is about 5 miles of snake-like twists and turns, dam to dam, and is surrounded by the mountains of North Georgia). Here are the options I've been weighing:
1. Amateur Radio: I'm a licensed ham, and there's a repeater in the area, but none of my family is licensed, and it'd be a tough sell to ask them all to get licensed and trained.
2. GMRS: From the GMRS repeater map I've seen, it looks like there's coverage up there, but not sure how great it is, as it's near the outside of the circles drawn. I'm aware that I could get a license that would cover my family, but we often have guests that would not be able to use them legally. I'm also not crazy about having to instruct my family/guests on using the GMRS repeater network callsigns and lingo (including registering each of them to get a callsign, which is required by the group). So I guess I'd be looking at setting up a private repeater if we went that route.
3. Business Radios: So far this seems to be the way to go. However, I'd have to pay for airtime on a local repeater, or build/buy my own (not necessarily out of the question).
Am I missing anything? I'm basically looking for a solution that would allow us to communicate with each other without the hassle of callsign registration, training/radio lingo/on-air protocols, etc. I want to be able to hand a family member or guest an HT and say "here's a radio, call me on channel X if you need anything or get stuck, need help, etc.". Am I headed down the right path looking at business radios? Would I be better off trying to set up a private GMRS repeater at the house?
Thanks for any input you might have. Let me know if I can provide any additional info that might be helpful.
Ted
I'm wondering what the best solution would be for this scenario:
My family has a vacation property (lake house) that has very poor cell phone coverage, especially out on the lake. I'd like for us to be able to communicate with each other while out on the lake, and in the local area (lake is about 5 miles of snake-like twists and turns, dam to dam, and is surrounded by the mountains of North Georgia). Here are the options I've been weighing:
1. Amateur Radio: I'm a licensed ham, and there's a repeater in the area, but none of my family is licensed, and it'd be a tough sell to ask them all to get licensed and trained.
2. GMRS: From the GMRS repeater map I've seen, it looks like there's coverage up there, but not sure how great it is, as it's near the outside of the circles drawn. I'm aware that I could get a license that would cover my family, but we often have guests that would not be able to use them legally. I'm also not crazy about having to instruct my family/guests on using the GMRS repeater network callsigns and lingo (including registering each of them to get a callsign, which is required by the group). So I guess I'd be looking at setting up a private repeater if we went that route.
3. Business Radios: So far this seems to be the way to go. However, I'd have to pay for airtime on a local repeater, or build/buy my own (not necessarily out of the question).
Am I missing anything? I'm basically looking for a solution that would allow us to communicate with each other without the hassle of callsign registration, training/radio lingo/on-air protocols, etc. I want to be able to hand a family member or guest an HT and say "here's a radio, call me on channel X if you need anything or get stuck, need help, etc.". Am I headed down the right path looking at business radios? Would I be better off trying to set up a private GMRS repeater at the house?
Thanks for any input you might have. Let me know if I can provide any additional info that might be helpful.
Ted