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Originally Posted by bezking
Figures... Better start studying...
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Hmmm... nobody's used my hammie autopatch since 1998! I finally took it down because it cost too much to maintain a separate phone line that nobody ever used. We all got cellphones instead - even the cheapest ones of us are carrying cellphones today.
Good luck. You may be hard pressed to find a repeater with autopatch on it. If you do, everyone in the world will know your business. They're hard to find unless you're going to do it. Then, be prepared for endless clowns who will try every number combination for weeks until they can grab dialtone (BTDT). The other thing is most metropolitan areas are so loaded down with repeaters (most of them sit fallow all the time) that people literally have to die before you can advance in the queue to get "your" frequency pair (BTDT, too). Hint: an available frequency pair may not necessarily be on the same band you already have equipment for.
Owning a repeater is a money pit. Since 1983, I have tens of thousands of dollars invested in repeaters (Micor and MSF vintage), test equipment (service monitor, TDR, etc.), spare modules, antennas and cable that have depreciated pretty significantly. I can sell them for pennies on the dollar or just keep them in the garage until something breaks. Free advice (worth what it costs) - get a cheap cellphone. Take a couple of hundred dollars a month (what you'd spend maintaining a repeater - really) and put it in a Roth IRA. The only difference between the repeater and the IRA is that someday you can buy something meaningful with the money you saved in the IRA.
Autopatch on GMRS
Linear Mode
