Buying a Repeater

[hommie_g]

Any suggestions? Specs?

Input ranges and output ranges? Really cheap prices, $250 or less

Thanks

[bangbangbooty]

Do you want an illegal repeater or a legal one?

If it's legal you want then the input and output frequencies plus power level are all at the mercy of your local governing radio body.

They won't grant a licence if it doesn't meet certain criteria, such as the proximity of the closest repeater operating on that frequency etc.

If it's an illegal setup then you will need to choose a frequency that people can access easily with common equipment.

Also remote functions are great on repeaters, such as the ability to switch it off and on if somebody is jamming it etc.

I wont rave on with too much information until i find out what you want to do with the repeater.

What band do you want it to operate in? HF, 2M, 70CM, UHF CB or in the commercial range?

What do you want to use it for? Public access or private between a few friends?

Also what will be it's location? A dedicated repeater site or a home setup?

Licenced or unlicenced?

I need a bit more info then what you provided to help choose the setup.

I can run my repeater anywhere in the UHF band in a matter of minutes. I have 2 computer programmable UHF radios with built in diplexer and patch lead plus Rx and TX antennas. It's just a matter of punching in the frequency on the laptop and writing the info to the radios EPROM.

They can also function as a standard 100 channel UHF CB or Commercial radio at 25 Watts, it's that easy.

[hommie_g]

well... i guess it would have to be illegal then..

If possible i would like something that could take input off the FRS frequency range, which i think is about 480mhz and slap out some output in the commercial FM range.

[bangbangbooty]

Setting up something with FRS input and commercial FM output isn't an easy task.

Radios such as the Icom IC-2700 have a cross band repeater function accessable with a very easy modification.

This will only let you repeat from the 118-136MHz range to the 350-470MHz range or vice versa. It allows cross band repeat between 2m and 70cm amatuer bands.

Getting existing amatuer equipment to repeat in the 88-108MHz commercial FM range is difficult, they have made it this way on purpose.

If you can source a dedicated commercial FM transmitter, then you can use a diplexer plus another radio and link the two to create a repeater with 88-108MHz output and an input of you're choice.