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Your best bet is the Radioddity DB20-G a/k/a Anytone AT-779UV 20 watt GMRS mini-mobile, cigarette lighter plug, and now supported by Chirp! $89 - $109

@WRUE951 that sounds good. I'm glad you've had good luck with them. My experience isn't terrible, just not ideal results. Since most of mine are EmComm related, I never really ran one for more than a few days at a time, and mostly left them off until I/we need to use them. I know what you mean about learning the hard way. I struggled so much to avoid spending the money on a proper repeater that I probably spent 3 or 4 times more than if I just went for a regular repeater to start. I finally built a full-blown potable repeater system... it can do 2m, 70cm, crossband or act as a base station. It has a built-in 50 amp hr battery system and can run on solar or AC. Retail, it is about $17k to build, but thankfully some stuff was donated and I was able to get great deals on a used repeater and commercial VHF duplexer, which cut the cost down to about 10% of new/retail.

I started out with a KG1000 repeater and never had issues other than desense early on. A couple times a year the repeater got pretty heavy use during nearby off roading events. Yea, they do get hot, but they keep on ticking. I use two Maxons for a portable repeater, they never break a sweat and they are housed in a ventilated ammo can. Now my current Hytera Repeater can run 24/7 with no worries. Amazingly, I paid not to much more for the Hytera radio then the two KG1000’s. I think we all do this, we learn the hard way.

I think it's great that they came up a solution, and as much as I love the KG-UV980P hardware platform, I would never use a KG-1000 nor a KG-UV980P as a full-time unattended repeater. 1.) As good as they are, they are not designed for continuous duty cycles or 24/7 operation. 2.) They may overheat or flat out fail with prolonged use. 3.) The transmit/receive isolation is not as good as a proper repeater, leading to desense issues. 4.) Audio quality and levels can be inconsistent. 5.) VOX or Carrier Operated Switching methods can introduce delays, distortions, and clipping. 6.) There is zero remote monitoring, diagnostics, or telemetry unless you engineer something yourself. 7.) Paired mobiles are extremely inefficient with regard to power consumption. The only time I ever have or ever would use paired radios as a repeater would be for temporary field use and as an emergency backup (maybe). In an emergency, the FCC isn't going to ding anyone for not having the repeater ID on it's own, and for temporary field use the control operator is IDing the repeater every time they ID themselves... so an add-on device is really not needed.

This is true for those using two KG-1000G radios as repeaters.

the break out board option will make it easier to implement a controller of your choice, so basicly you woiiuld be able to set up auto CW in any configuration you choose

I received the same email. I want to do some more research to see if they will ID every 15 minutes 24/7 or if it can be set so that it only IDs every 15 minutes when there is actual traffic on the repeater,

Just got this emial today from BuyTwoWayRadios announcing a solution to adding a controller or Auto CW to the KG1000 radios. https://www.buytwowayradios.com/blog/2025/06/two-new-products-to-auto-id-your-wouxun-kg-1000g-uv980p-repeater-systems.html?utm_source=E20250616-13&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=E20250616-13

It looks like BuyTwoWayRaidos came up with two solutions making it easier to implement a controller and or an Auto CW board to the KG1000 Radios Just got an emial from them today giving the details. https://www.buytwowayradios.com/blog/2025/06/two-new-products-to-auto-id-your-wouxun-kg-1000g-uv980p-repeater-systems.html?utm_source=E20250616-13&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=E20250616-13

The bandwidth setting has nothing to do with your issue. Either there are tones on the radio that cannot 'hear', or the two radios are too close to each other when transmitting.

Funny thing is, I'd love to put a repeater up in my area, but no place to put one high up that doesn't want $300/month rent. New Orleans and Baton Rouge have repeaters , funny is 600 in New Orleans, 650 on Northshore, and 700 in Livingston are only repeaters I hear traffic on. But do agree, rest of Louisiana basically has zero repeaters. However finding lots of ham radio clubs building GMRS repeaters for people to use as 3 in New Orleans area are run by ham clubs .

Thanks for come back, looking at the master copy I kept from his radio, I think i may know, even though most radios have functioned with difference. Had pulled the tones, but forgot to set my radio for narrow band (as I was testing on 462.5625 simplex) and maybe the radio wasn't picking up cause of the wide (even though I have run narrow over a wide repeater a few times) but didn't think about wide over a narrow signal. BTW this is from the file I took out as base line for the radio before I modified it, and only thing I could see was wide vs narrow. May have to try again later on again. Thanks all.. been using my uv5r as a licensed operator for years and gotten very familiar with it, but think I forgot differences. Anyway trying to get friend to go GMRS and buy radios where he can get more range for him and his wife so.. WRQD955

i heard that you can buy un-locked UV-5Rs New with some sellers on Ebay.. I guess you have to look for the transmit range when searching

There are two other repeaters in Missouri using the same channel and PL tones as our repeater. One is in the Kansas City area and the other is just outside of St Louis. We are located towards the middle of the state. Here lately with the temperature inversions, one or both of those repeaters have been opening up our repeater. The closest one is 80 miles away. And no we do not see anywhere near 100-200 miles of coverage on UHF here in Missouri.

On the Silverado. I have a Tacoma and mounted a MTXA26 on a mount that attaches to tailgate area using existing bolts. I happen to have a steel bed cover from Peragon. This works very well. There as several repeaters some distance from me that I can hit. I have an NMO mount on the bracket. Being tailgate level it is easy to remove the antenna before going to the car wash.

In the early 70's the USAF fire department used Motorolas, MX330's (?). They were bulky and heavy but we had stubby antennas. One thing we found is they didn't like heat and water was death to them.

Don't forget the barn door effect. If a conversation is going on on one repeater and someone keys up on the other repeater, it is highly likely that they will be close enough to hit both repeaters, and what will happen is that they will come across the other repeater as long as someone is talking which would cause the receive to be open. It would make it sound like someone was keying over the person talking. PL tones only keep the receive from opening up unless someone with the proper tone keys up. Once that person with the proper tone keys up, it opens the receive allowing everything in, hence the "barn door effect, however, in normal circumstances, just the person using that repeater should be heard. I have a repeater right down the road that is local. There is another repeater 35 miles from me that, when you are on the hill tops around here, you can get into it and definitely hear it well. I know there have probably been many times where I probably clobbered a person talking on the other repeater when I put my callsign out on the local repeater near me. The two repeaters? Same deal as what you are asking about. Same frequency, different tones.

I don't think there would be room for the Anina NMO+90 degree adapter between the headliner and roof of either of my vehicles. You probably should do some measurements before you decide.

I was a police officer in the early 1980s and that's pretty much how we all felt, but we accepted it because there weren't any other options.

I like either the AR-5RM or the XTS5000, depending on how many monies you want to blow and how strongly your radio-dork gene is presenting.

(Asking for a friend) So, what would the Queen-of-all-that-oscillates recommend in the way of an unlocked HT, hmm?

Agreed. Results exactly as expected.

^ This. Just have your friend use something other than 8-14.

If he is a licensed GMRS users he does not need to lower his power down to 2 watts to legally communicate on FRS channels 1-7 and 15-22. He is allowed to use 5 watts on channels 1-7 and 50 watts on channels 15-22 even if he is communicating with a FRS user on those channrels.

His request doesn’t make sense. Any GMRS mobile radio will talk to FRS radios except for channels 8-14 which may only be handheld portable units by regulation. GMRS handheld radios can talk on 8-14.