What is the best way to approch a business about using their old site

[timkilbride]

The local COOP telephone company(10 employees) has a UHF repeater in the lower 450's on a city owned(pop. 900) water tower. I talked to one of their techs and he said they never use it anymore, he never got a radio installed in his new truck, and he mentioned something to the effect the repeater wasn't compliant with the new narrow banding stuff. He said all there communications are done thru pagers and cell phones now. Another local ham brought up the idea of putting up a 440MHz repeater(there is currently no repeaters in the whole county) using their old hard line/antenna. What is the best way to approach them about using their old equipment?

Tim

 

[n5ims]

I would guess that in your situation you may need approvals from both the company (for use of the equipment) and the city (for use of the site). You may get lucky and be able to have the company simply transfer their old equipment to you if you can justify that through some kind of ham radio club (with non-profit status and the necessary paperwork filed for tax deductability for the donation). Use of the repeater for "public service" activities like Skywarn could go a long way to getting the necessary approvals.

 

[ecps92]

And so you don't get the $$ suprise from the City, they will likely look for some proof of Insurance [most ham clubs already know this, but individual hams get a suprise]

I would guess that in your situation you may need approvals from both the company (for use of the equipment) and the city (for use of the site). You may get lucky and be able to have the company simply transfer their old equipment to you if you can justify that through some kind of ham radio club (with non-profit status and the necessary paperwork filed for tax deductability for the donation). Use of the repeater for "public service" activities like Skywarn could go a long way to getting the necessary approvals.

 

[timkilbride]

Thanks for the replies. We don't have a club and didn't think of insurance.

Thanks!

Tim

 

[stevelton]

The insurance is the big thing that you will have to overcome. $1 million dollar liability is pretty standard for that type of need (Antenna on a municipal water tower)

For a million dollar coverage, expect to pay about $1000 a year in premiums.

Not every county has a ham with all the neccesary equipment to retune a commercial 450 repeater to 440. Plug and play repeaters like the Icom FR6000 are cheap enough that you could sell the old repeater, and buy one of them for $1500, plug it in an program it yourself to the 70cm repeater pair that you get assigned.
No tuning, no crystals, and anyone can program it.

The duplexers could then be taken to the local 2-way radio shop, and for about $100 have them retune them to your assigned pair, baam, there you are your own high quality 70cm repeater.

I think you would be very happy using UHF, as opposed to 2m. All we use here in my county, which is 24x30 miles in size, very rural, and lots of hills, is our 440 repeater. And its only up 80' using LMR 400 feedline!

Steven