£59.50 direct from Hong Kong comes a nice idea for those who want to place a radio somewhere high and relay voices around the area they are. For me my idea would be leave it on a hill and see how she works.. Known as the SR-112 the idea is a simple one. For example we will say you connect it to the ear and mike on your Baofeng and then switch on, key up on the same channel and speak. After you have taken your PTT off a few seconds later the simplex repeater speaks back at you.
Ordered and will be tested during the PMR DX Season as something interesting for people to see how they sound over the KM. Excellent Idea Indeed
In Portugal we had until, more or less a one year ago, up to 30 repeaters running on 446MHz. They were mainly hardware repeaters using the radio extender box – http://www.rms.pt/p/264/range-extender#.Uv4pNRB_vjI .Sadly, because the law says so (although not clear to me and many others) and because some “radio users” made a complain, all repeaters were remove and some of the PMR users, owner of those repeaters, faced some fines and had their equipment seized.
Some of those repeaters were obviously not complaint since they were not even PMR radios but radios that operate on 446MHz. But they were not interfering with any other bands, including the amateur UHF. Anyway the law is the law…
The removal of those repeaters and some other events that followed took us to a 446MHz a little bit poor and sad. Many users quieted and the growth seen on PMR users seen since 2008 decreased heavily. The trend now is to have links to software like the FRN or Team Speak 3 (again, the trend here in Portugal)
PMR repeaters should be allowed. It gives radio communications fans, PMR446 fans in particular, a good opportunity to have a cheap system that anyone can use and, as it happened in the past, used by emergency services as well. I made some decent (distant) contacts using them.