(This is a long text, so I hope you can read through it.)
Currently, I am a high school student. My family has a neutral attitude towards hobbies, and I don't want to add too much burden to the household. During my third-year summer vacation, I had nothing to do, so I decided to build a repeater myself. I saw online that you could buy repeater boxes (and just two walkie-talkies), so I thought about doing it myself. It took me less than a week to assemble two UV5R radios and a lithium battery that I built myself (without a protection board). I assembled the "repeater" and placed it on the top floor of a building with over 30 floors. The results were as expected, because there was no duplex communication, and the two radios were close together, which caused a lot of interference. I only managed to keep it running for two days before giving up. Although this attempt wasn't perfect, it was still a significant achievement in my eyes.
Later, when I had free time, I thought about another plan: using a simplex/duplex link with walkie-talkies to achieve one-way/two-way communication. The power would be supplied by the lithium battery that I built myself, and charging would be done using solar energy. For receiving, I would still use the UV5R (cheap), and for transmitting, I would use the same simplex link to connect to South Mountain. Triggering would be done using an optocoupler or a transistor. Then, I would put it in a waterproof bag and place it on the top floor. This way, I wouldn't have to carry the walkie-talkies up to the top floor every day. I haven't tried this idea yet (due to lack of funds).So, I was wondering if there are any drawbacks to this idea, and whether it's worth pursuing.😀