Just got mine. Was wondering who else has one?

I was strongly thinking about getting mine and ordering up some radios. What was the licensing process like?

Pretty simple. Register at the fcc website, fill out application, pay online have call sign in 24-48 hours if you do it during the week. on a weekend with a monday holiday you have to wait an extra day like i did lol.

Geeky singles pitch?

Looking for someone to talk to?

second one

thinking about setting up a private repeater to cover racine/kenosha area

LOL. My wife would say the same things about my radio aspirations. Heh.

Thanks for the info.

No problem. I made the mistake of having a convo yesterday with one of the local repeater owners. Idk what area your in but I'm in Racine and apparently everything east of hwy 31 slopes down to the east and everything west slopes down to the west. They call it the 31 ridge or hump. I basicly live right on top of it. When I told him that he was quick to point out it makes it a great spot to put in a repeater . Just makes me want to do it more. But if there isn't anyone around its not worth setting one up for a closed group. Most all the traffic around here is business use of frs or limited gmrs. Most of the time the local repeaters you can hit with an ht are dead silent.

Considered it. There are some decent linked repeaters in the state. I'm mainly ham at this point, but have considered adding GMRS for giggles.

There are a bunch of repeaters that are in a linked system in se Wisconsin and northeast illinois and parts of indiana and the system also covers out to iowa and minn. as well.

The most active one around me is armored 1 it's out by muskego. There is one in union grove that's part of it too it's on a different freq though and I pretty much never hear traffic on it. Traffic coming off armored 1 is coming from the internet feed I think, since you'll hear a lot of traffic from northern Illinois and a few Indiana folks too. They run a bunch of local/regional nets and once a week they do a national net that's pretty interesting to listen too.

Btt

What area are you in?  I'm in the process of seeing if any of the guys I know that have commercial buildings will let me put a repeater up on one of them. Looking to have it up and running sometime in January if everything works out right. I may put it on the mwgmrs linked system, I'm not 100% sure yet that I want to.

An ht isn't going to get into the armored1 repeater from racine and I don't think you can get into any of the northern Illinois ones from kenosha on an ht. I just traded the Midland micro mobile I had for some ammo. That was only a 15w and it was spotty at best getting armored1 from my house, spotty enough it was useless and got traded lol.

We have two repeaters in Racine that I can hit with the ht but neither is on the linked system. I really just want to do it to have a system for friends and fellow arfcom members in the area to use and may just link it into the system for the days and times of all the weekly nets that mygmrs and mwgmrs do. I heard they are about to have a repeater or two from Puerto Rico added to the linked system any day now which is pretty cool, should add some interesting convos to the national net they do.

Northcentral...Stevens Point/Waupaca area.

ahh ok I thought you were closer. the closest linked repeater to you is in green bay i think. It shows on one site but not the other.

Im a ham, no gmrs license but hearing a lot of activity on the armored1 repeater, 462.700.

There's a linked system I pick up in Point/Plover (never really tried at home), but not sure who it is linked through. I'll have to listen the next time I'm tinkering in the shack (usually monitor 2m/70cm, but have GMRS programmed).

Looks like MyGMRS only lets you register if you have a GMRS license, not ham or unlicensed. Oh well...

Working on my ham tech license.

You should still be able to see the repeater list and if you click the live status it should still show the map. You have to register to get the dcs/ctcss tones for repeaters on the system and a lot of the ones on the repeater list. Just a way for them to try and keep unlicensed users off the repeaters. You can still get all the repeater freqs though. Not that there is a lot them lol.

Yeah that thing is supposedly sitting at 300ft and pushing 45-50w. It's basicly maxed out power wise for gmrs legal limits. It's the most active one in the S.E.Wisconsin area. 3 nets per week going on it one is national. A lot of the traffic is from chicago area and northwest indiana. They just added one to the system down in Indianapolis iirc a day or two ago and Puerto Rico is suposedlly linked in as well or they are close to getting it done.

I've been lazy about studying for mine and I have the app from ham study so I really have no excuse for not being ready to take the test.

Eta: @NAM
One in rhinelander 462.575
One in Baraboo  462.550
Also I think the tech net is going on right now.

Etaa: Baraboo sits much higher and shows a much wider coverage area is try that first.

Don't know if today is just a special day or what but I can get into the armored1 repeater on my ht again. That repeater is 35 miles away from me. I hope this keeps up

Would be really easy to build a 1/4 vertical, j-pole, or even a yagi to boost performance...

Been doing some playing. I'm going to make a little antenna setup to throw outside when I want to get on. I can receive inside the house but tx is a no go. Stick my hand out the door and tx will get through. Pull my hand inside the door it doesn't lol.