Under the revised rules, MURS units are:
• Permitted to have detachable antennas;
• Permitted to have external antennas up to 6.1 meters (20 feet) above a structure or 18.3 meters (60 feet) above the ground, whichever is higher;
• Permitted to have a total power output (TPO) of up to two (2) watts (instead of two (2) watts effective radiated power);
• Not permitted to be used as cordless telephones, radiofacsimile (imaging), or for continuous carrier mode operations; and
• Not permitted to be used for repeater operations
Without a repeater, I would assume it is very difficult to imagine a hop-by-hop network?
Because repeaters utilize two channels at once (input and
output) and extend the operating range of a single user,
their use would limit the number of users able to share
these frequencies at the same time.
...
some commenters are concerned that MURS frequencies will be
congested and that repeater use will only aggravate this
problem. We agree.
Basically, they want to maximize the number of users that are able to reasonably use this band. At the time (1998-2002), two-way radios were much more popular than they are today (cell phones have largely made them obsolete), so I can understand the concern.
For whatever reason, MURS never did became as popular as GMRS or FRS did.
Excerpt From https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-02-139A1.p...
Under the revised rules, MURS units are: • Permitted to have detachable antennas; • Permitted to have external antennas up to 6.1 meters (20 feet) above a structure or 18.3 meters (60 feet) above the ground, whichever is higher; • Permitted to have a total power output (TPO) of up to two (2) watts (instead of two (2) watts effective radiated power); • Not permitted to be used as cordless telephones, radiofacsimile (imaging), or for continuous carrier mode operations; and • Not permitted to be used for repeater operations
Without a repeater, I would assume it is very difficult to imagine a hop-by-hop network?