Batboard

I was talking to a fellow ham today who informed me that if I modify an MSF5000 using 2 Motorola mobile radios to attain Narrow Band Compliance I would be subjecting the site to intermod. While this seems like a real possibility how likely is it that will happen when I am feeding the PA with a radio brought down to less than 5 watts? Does anyone have any suggestions on how this might be best brought together?

As I understand it, amateur bands are exempt from the narrow banding mandate. If you are trying to get the MSF5000 to be narrow band compliant for commercial use, you won't, because the MSF5000 has not been type accepted for narrow-band operation.

I guess it really depends on what you are trying to do. Others have mentioned the point of FCC acceptance. If you gut the MSF of all parts but the power supply and PA, then use 2 mobile radios you should not have issues. Technically the PA is not type accepted to do this so you need to judge that. If you have 2 mobile radios that have narrowband, mount them on a shelf with a power supply and use them and throw the MSF in the dumpster. I have used as many have 2 mobiles for repeaters. It is not the best setup in the world, but Motorola sold many GR300/500 series repeaters, and now even sells them in the CDM flavor. In high RF environments they tend to need lots of filtering, but if they are in the middle of nowhere they work pretty good. I have 2 GMRS repeaters setup this way.

There IS a narrowband kit for the MSF5000. Even if the FCC does not reconise it, IT works...

MSF RF trays have very aggressive receive preselector filtering, and if you go to two mobile radios driving the PA you'll lose that.