One of the reasons I built my GMRS system in the first place was out of necessity. Let me explain:

My ‘day’ job as a broadcast engineer requires me to travel to very out of the way commercial broadcast equipment sites that also happen to be away from all conventional communications, food, water, medical aid, just about everything. To make matters worse, it is usually the late night call when I have had little sleep. Also, the sites are almost always on hilltops providing the commercial radio stations very good coverage, and cellular phones with no coverage. Problem is, around my neck of the woods, cellular does not work at these sites due to the fact that the coverage is too good! In other words, cellular phones at these hilltops hit too many low level cell sites, and the phone gets ‘locked out’. Worthless to say the least.

So, what do I do if I need help? How do I get help? Lots of broadcast engineers around here have relied on various two-way radio services over the years. Usually, commercial band radios using repeaters with the other radio being located at a 24-hour answering service of some kind.

“Well”, I thought, “my wife can keep a portable radio with her when she is at work and since my hours are usually WAY longer than hers, she could also use the portable at home; that would do it”. Sounded good to me. So, one day my GMRS license application was in the mail and my repeater was running on the bench. I bought one mobile radio for my truck and one portable for my wife. I was all set.

Some days later, my GMRS repeater was installed on a mountain 3,000 feet up and my system was on the air. It didn't take long to figure out that some of the sites I worked on could not get good coverage from my chosen repeater location, so a new site was next. I ended up installing my GMRS repeater at the site of one of the FM broadcast stations I maintain and it was a good choice. Now, all of the most visited sites were covered by my repeater, and I felt a lot better about those ‘late night with no sleep, playing with high voltage broadcast transmitter’ trips.

Still, something was missing. I had a mobile radio in my truck, my wife had her portable, but what about when my wife is hell bent on checking on me every 30 minutes to see if I'm still alive? Running out to the truck in the rain to answer the radio when you're working on high voltage sucks. Next thing you know, I have a portable too.

Now, what about when my wife is in her car and the portable isn't making it into the repeater very well? Why don't portables work inside cars? Drat!! Well, one more mobile radio for my wife’s car should do it. You know, now that I think of it, the portable doesn't always work well from the boat either. When the tide is out, my wife’s portable doesn't quite make it into the repeater. No big deal, just one more full power mobile radio for the boat and I’m done, right? While I’m at it, one of those neat little monitor receivers would be nice too. I can keep it in my pocket when I’m around the office late and be able to tell when I’m being called on the repeater.

Now that I think of it, my dad has been bugging me for a way to talk cheaply from his house to us (he lives 120 miles away). And, my dad offered to be on the other end of a GMRS radio when my wife can’t. I guess one more radio for dad would make sense.

But my dad has trouble making it into the current repeater site. Maybe I could install another repeater at the first site I had chosen (which he can hit well) and it could also serve as a back up for my wife and I. Well, why not!

Let’s see… Inventory time.

• Repeaters: 2
• Mobiles: 4
• Portables: 2
• Monitor Receivers: 1

I am no rocket scientist (I already told you I am a broadcast engineer), but I think my original idea of two radios and a repeater went out the window. Why did my simple idea get so out of whack? [Ed Note: Then what's this missile doing on my roof?]

It all made perfect sense to me when each item was added to the system. Why didn’t I plan on this in the first place? Simple: I didn’t know how valuable this communications system would turn out to be to my family or me.

If I had told my wife from the get-go that this GMRS system was going to top the $10,000 dollar mark, would she have still supported the idea to build it? No way, at least not back then. Would my wife or me give up this system now that it is in place? Not even for a million dollars.

Already, I have had to rely on this system for my health and safety quite a few times. I’m diabetic, and a work-a-holic (but mostly, the work-a-holic part). I have this problem, in that when I am digging into a technical project, I forget everything else like eating, drinking fluids, sleeping, the rest room, you name it. I’ll do the ‘potty dance’ at my bench for hours if I’m involved in something. Having my wife on the radio suggest fluids or sleeping has probably saved my life.

In fact, I can think of two occasions when my glucose levels were dangerously high, but since I was all into my project (an RCA 20 KW FM transmitter for the number 1 station in the market) I was not paying attention. Having ‘Jimmy Cricket’ on the GMRS rig got my attention just long enough to eat something real quick and come back to the RCA later.

Brass tacks- Do I need a baby-sitter? Maybe. Do I need a GMRS system? Definitely!

It comes down to this, when you design your GMRS system, it is impossible to consider all of the uses you may have for it. I’ll bet your other family members are cold to the idea at first, like my wife was. I’ll also bet that after your system is on the air for a while, you and your family wouldn’t want to imagine life without it, like mine.

So, this is as basic as basics get: You will never know how important your GMRS system is until you are actively using it. This is plenty of reason to start your system right. Don’t skimp on cheap components, products or radio equipment. I always suggest that people lose the mind set about getting cheap stuff now and improving later. It doesn’t pay in the long run.

Funny, just because a lousy cellular phone won’t work from a hilltop, now my family communicates better. Hmph.

Next time, more of the basics and less of my stuff.

Gummers^(TM) is a trade mark of Paul Shinn