Remember GMRS also requires a license for you and your users as HAM does. Immediate family excluded.
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Using business frequencies on a repeater
- Thread starter Martin737
- Start date
Trying to justify portable repeaters is a very hard thing to get done.
Especially on itinerate channels!
I have a mobile vehicular repeater that can cross-band and in-band to licensed repeaters. The vehicular repeater runs in simplex so the portables don’t need to do anything special to use it. If it leaves the scene, the portables still all work together, but without the link to the larger system. That’s just licensed MO6 (mobiles only private carrier) and is hardwired to the XG100M, which either cross-bands to the trunking network, or in-bands to an FB6 repeater.
Unless everyone in your party gets a ham ticket or you install a lot of commercial infrastructure and license accordingly, you’re not gonna be able to cross band.
GMRS sounds like the best fit for you. It allows the family to use your license. It allows repeaters and higher power mobiles, and you can use it for non-business related comms.
-B
Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense.
Thank you B. I agree GMRS is the best path for us. I paid the $35 yesterday for the license. I'm planning to try out the Retevis repeater and go from there. Our needs are pretty basic so I think it will be sufficient. We'll find out.
This is why a lot of dual band ham radios do cross band repeat but none of them do in-band (traditional repeating). Since the mobile radio is transmitting on one band to talk with a repeater and receiving your portable communications on the other band, no filtering is necessary.
That’s great about the GMRS license! I happened to buy mine during the period where the FCC decided it should cost $70. Glad they cut that crap out! It really is better than having an itinerate commercial channel I think… Itinerates are also shared channels and you don’t have the same abilities as you do on GMRS as far as repeaters and subject of the comms. They also grant GMRS licenses pretty quickly (normally less than a week barring any holidays), where you may need to wait a month or so for a commercial license to be granted or modified.
-Brian
I used the RT97 on my motorhome for a couple of years. I ran the Laird FG4500 with 15' of LMR400. IT would normally cover the campground I was at. I used it at a few NASCAR tracks and worked very well were I would of thought more folks would be using FRS but never had issues. Add in some quality handhelds and its a perfect small use setup as you describe.
Excellent. That's great to hear. For the low price of the RT97 I think it's at least worth a try for our situation.
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