It is. Good luck taking a Quantar camping and hunting.
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Setting up my first GMRS Repeater
- Thread starter thisguyneedsabeer
- Start date
I have not yet but I would. It would be an excuse to use all the 12v to 28v converters laying around here. And the solar panels and duplexers and antennas and feedline and, and.....It is. Good luck taking a Quantar camping and hunting.
Thanks for sharing knowledge, i was planning to buy a Retevis, but your idea "Repeaters are all about location and antenna. If you are going to try this, one thing you can do is buy a really good antenna first, install it at your house and try it out with simplex. You can always add the repeater later." Is much better.
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
It's much cheaper, and will usually give you good performance if all you are doing is talking between a base and mobile or portable radios.
I will recommend the Comet CA-712EFC antenna for a good vertical omni directional base antenna. One could easily use a 20 watt mobile radio for their base station but a 50 watt radio will help push the signal a little farther and through/around obstacles. Height is king when it comes to antenna placement and range.
I have a CA-712EFC mounted on top of my house. The base of the antenna is 20 feet above ground level. A friend that lives 18 miles away has the same antenna at the same height. He lives down in a hole and we are still able to talk to each other on simplex. He will be installing his antenna up on his 60 foot tower soon.
I belong to the local amateur radio club that is lucky to have access to a 900 foot tower. We have the 2m antenna at 900 foot with the 70cm antenna not too far below that. We are going to install a GMRS repeater soon and those antennas will be around 400 or 600 foot. We did a model for range at 400 foot and we should get a 30 mile radius from the tower in all directions. Of course terrain along with the type of radio being used will affect the range for people. But a base station with a good antenna up high should not have any problems reaching the repeater at 25-30 miles depending on terrain in-between the base station and repeater.
We tested the antennas at 400 foot level on simplex using a Midland MXT500 and MXT575. I am 21.5 miles from the tower and we had no problem communicating. I had to stay on mid or high power to make it to the tower but the radio at the tower was able to use low power simply due to the antenna height.
We will be using a Bridgecom repeater tuned to GMRS along with separate cans for filtering. The Quantar repeaters are good and we are currently looking at using them to replace our aging 2m and 70cm repeaters with them.
There are a lot of costs people overlook when budgeting for a repeater on commercial towers. You have the cost of the repeaters, duplexers and cans, etc. Then you have to cost of good antennas and coax. The best coax to use for long runs is hardline. Another overlooked cost is paying someone to climb the tower for the initial installation and routine maintenance.
I'm not trying to talk anyone out of using the Retevis or Midland portable repeaters. Just know their limitations. They are rated at 10 watts but using a duplexer always cuts the power output down.
Sorry for being long winded and I hope the information is helpful.
I have a CA-712EFC mounted on top of my house. The base of the antenna is 20 feet above ground level. A friend that lives 18 miles away has the same antenna at the same height. He lives down in a hole and we are still able to talk to each other on simplex. He will be installing his antenna up on his 60 foot tower soon.
I belong to the local amateur radio club that is lucky to have access to a 900 foot tower. We have the 2m antenna at 900 foot with the 70cm antenna not too far below that. We are going to install a GMRS repeater soon and those antennas will be around 400 or 600 foot. We did a model for range at 400 foot and we should get a 30 mile radius from the tower in all directions. Of course terrain along with the type of radio being used will affect the range for people. But a base station with a good antenna up high should not have any problems reaching the repeater at 25-30 miles depending on terrain in-between the base station and repeater.
We tested the antennas at 400 foot level on simplex using a Midland MXT500 and MXT575. I am 21.5 miles from the tower and we had no problem communicating. I had to stay on mid or high power to make it to the tower but the radio at the tower was able to use low power simply due to the antenna height.
We will be using a Bridgecom repeater tuned to GMRS along with separate cans for filtering. The Quantar repeaters are good and we are currently looking at using them to replace our aging 2m and 70cm repeaters with them.
There are a lot of costs people overlook when budgeting for a repeater on commercial towers. You have the cost of the repeaters, duplexers and cans, etc. Then you have to cost of good antennas and coax. The best coax to use for long runs is hardline. Another overlooked cost is paying someone to climb the tower for the initial installation and routine maintenance.
I'm not trying to talk anyone out of using the Retevis or Midland portable repeaters. Just know their limitations. They are rated at 10 watts but using a duplexer always cuts the power output down.
Sorry for being long winded and I hope the information is helpful.
MTS2000des
5B2_BEE00 Czar
You left out the biggest expense: rent/lease and utilities. Most tower/comm sites/roof tops are managed by one of a small number of site cartels (American Tower, Crown-Castle, SBA, etc). They don't care about one's ham radio/GMRS community serving, life saving activism. They believe in one thing: money, pools of money.
One will typically need a million dollar or more surety/bond to get a lease, may have to pay for impact studies, interference studies, etc.
BMW- Bring Money With You
And don't forget. the last one on the tower is responsible for ANY issues that arise...until some other sucker is the last one on the tower.
Yes I did and thanks you for mentioning that. The local club I belong to is a non profit 501 3C so we don't get charged any rent/lease for using the tower.
Wait until the tower gets sold to American Tower. Lots of ham clubs have been told to hit the bricks by American Tower. As MTS2000des said, they do not care about anything but money. If you ain't paying, you ain't staying.
MTS2000des
5B2_BEE00 Czar
Yep, what ATC took over a popular ham repeater "squatting" site north of ATL a few years ago, all the ham clubs, even the two that had legit leases on paper with previous owner(s) for decades, were evicted and told to go ETPOOMS. When one club asked what it would take to remain, ATC gave them a list a mile long of requirements including an environmental impact study, RF interference study, and wanted 3 grand a month. They ended up on one of my sites with a simple MOU approved by our county attorneys and the only thing I asked is that their install was clean, passed an R56 audit (which it did), and they've been good tenants with no issue.
The days of ham radio hero free high profile tower site are few and far between in most places.
The days of ham radio hero free high profile tower site are few and far between in most places.
Yes that is always a worry with our club that the tower will get sold and we will have to either find. new tower or pay to stay on the current tower. We are definitely lucky to have use of the current tower with no rental fees. Maintenance of the antennas, equipment, and associated coax is still on us to pay for.
paulears
Member
Going back a bit - it's worth remembering that a repeater with 50W output, needs much better filtering than a 10W one.
Yes and exactly 7dB better in this case.
