Is there a repeater than a person could buy and set up on one's property? I've got some hill tops on my property that are high enough that it would give us a line of sight over a large area.
There are, indeed. You can either go with a portable repeater (example GMRS repeater here:
https://www.retevis.com/rt97s-portable-repeater-and-mic-speaker-bundle-us) or you can save a lot of money and buy a handheld tranceiver that can act as a cross-band repeater (like this one:
https://www.amazon.com/TH-UV8000D-W...rds=cross+band+repeater&qid=1735845518&sr=8-9)
The old Baofeng UV-5R radios I have will let you set up an offset that spans bands. My much more expensive Kenwood HT won't let me do that. So be sure whatever you buy to use with a cross-band repeater will let you program a big honkin' offset.
More detail on the offset: Your repeater will receive on a specific frequency on the VHF band and transmit whatever is received using a specific frequency on the UHF band. So when you push the talk button on your handheld radio, it will automatically shift the frequency to the VHF frequency used by your repeater and when you let go of the talk button, your handheld radio will automatically kick back to the UHF frequency so you will be able to hear anyone using the repeater.
Most repeaters are either VHF or UHF and the transmit and receive frequencies are on the same band. The offset - the difference between those frequencies - isn't very big. With a cross-band repeater, the offset will be several hundred megahertz.
One more thing - if you just want to be able to use VHF and/or UHF to talk on your land, you could just use GMRS. The license fee is $35, you get a call sign by the FCC, and everyone in your immediate family can use that one call sign. There's really no difference in functionality between amateur radio and GMRS in the context of FM VHF/UHF.
