Thread: Walkie talkies/comms

Originally Posted by XR500

No. Not legally. DoC paid to have the repeaters installed, and pay an annual fee to Radio Spectrum NZ or some such Govt dept for the use of those frequencies.

In high usage areas (Auck, ChCh) there may well be UHF repeaters operating. But everyone hears everyone else.

You almost certainly won't have access to a repeater when sitting high in the Kawekas, but I have picked up boaties in the HB yakking about their latest catch from the tops of the Kaimanawas, when doing a scan.

Cheers for the reply XR500
I was actually specifically talking about the Kawekas The repeater on the summit of North Kaweka.
Have used that repeater a few times with a DOC radio to report back to Makahu base while doing work with the BCT, works really well.

Originally Posted by Sika 8

Cheers for the reply XR500
I was actually specifically talking about the Kawekas The repeater on the summit of North Kaweka.
Have used that repeater a few times with a DOC radio to report back to Makahu base while doing work with the BCT, works really well.

I'm unfamiliar with that region, but I know here in Canterbury almost all repeater sites have various repeaters for different businesses etc. here in chch you can pay a monthly subscription fee to use a repeater through various radio companies. You would need to pay a licence fee as well to be allowed to use it, and also have programmable radios, it is probably not economically viable to use a repeater unless it is for business use.
There is public repeaters around on PRS channels but as already stated, they are busy and limited to the region of where the repeater has coverage.