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Since it’s been a year and I’m still dabbling in GMRS I decided to splurge on 50’ of LMR400 to connect to the J-pole on a stick that I showed previously. It arrived today and I thought it was time to do a test. This is just a relative comparison test. Checking the output of the radio I was getting about 9W as a baseline. I connected the radio to the Surecomm with just a rubber ducky antenna on the antenna side recognizing that this is not a good combination but it was consistent for the testing. Using the RG8X I measured 1.37W at the end of the cable. Next, I did the exact same test with the LMR400 and got 6.07W. I was surprised at the results so I did it again and saw the same. I realize that the LMR400 is a better cable but I did not expect to see such a large difference.

The availability of those repeaters covering multiple frequency pairs is what brought this question up. I was curious why the packaged repeaters were able to cover multiple pairs when the one on BuyTwoWay had to be tuned for a specific frequency pair. It seems like it’s somewhat of a compromise but you get the convenience of a pre-packaged unit. Something to think about.

Thank you for that info. That was already taken into account in my plan.

Which bandwidth requirement are you looking at? GMRS allows 5kHz deviation in channels 1-7 and 15-22, along with repeater inputs. It's not out of line with what 70cm ham radios will emit. Usually where ham radios are problematic is that they often won't transmit as low as 0.5w ERP unless you're transmitting them into a dummy load. So channels 8-14 are often impossible to be in technical compliance on, when using a ham radio.

I think you should revisit your original 1st sentence, "building a briefcase repeater using a couple of HT's" - And further address your future repeater site location, including elevations, antenna gain & total loss, as compared to your current HT user elevations & issues. If this suit case repeater will not be placed at an elevated location, in relation to your current HT user areas, such as a tower, hill or mountain top, with the loss in cabling & a duplexer - you will be simply wasting funds. Duplexer tuning, is irrelevant, unless all other parameters have been adressed.

Happy Father's Day to those out there who are. Did you get (or get yourself) any gifts related to your radio life?

Just asking. Not sure how the GPS would work or be stored, or not. In a phone it's extensive. Goes back days, weeks, months.. I'll bet it's just on the spot for the radio.

I don't think there is any reason or even memory chips to retain GPS history in them is there? I would think it generates the GPS coordinates as needed when sending them as needed. But maybe some could store a limited history. anyone know?

Due to there being a 5MHz spread between the uplink and downlink, you can make a custom duplexer that would be low loss and provide great separation, but you would have to have a pretty good understanding of electronics and how LC networks work. I am unaware of any commercially available, but if there is one out there and configured to tolerate any reasonable power, it would likely be well over $3,000. I wouldn't be shocked if it was more like $5,000. Actually, the repeaters available from companies like Midland are as expensive as they are, and have such low power, due to having a broad frequency duplexer that covers all channels. They tried to make them as efficient as possible without pricing themselves out of the market.

Wonder if it's hardwired in there that law enforcement could force the info out of it with a special code.

some Radios do have GPS and transmit their coordinates to other grouped radios but only when the feature is programed or activated in the radio.. Some of my radios have GPS features but i dont have them programed in my radios, therefore none of this data would be transmitted from my radio.

I don't know a lot about the 2-way radios that have GPS built in. I know that they can transmit their coordinates to another radio (that has authorization? ) in some manner. No idea if they retain a history with timestamps.

Curious. Don't some radios now have GPS? Would these retain data? Do some radios possibly have GPS unbeknownst to the purchasers that logs data?

Yeah, depends on what they are using to try to locate a cell or radio. I understand it is possible (for those authorized) to tell what cell tower is receiving the original cell phone signal which gets you in the area. I suppose with proper authorization they could figure out the photo and narrow the location down further by GPS. Two way Radios on the other hand would require triangulation by antennas near the transmitter and would still only give a general area location. plus, a phone (or phone network) probably retains locations and timestamps that can be used afterwards to establish where someone was at a particular time after the fact. so... there is that.

That’s my plan. I was just curious about why that was necessary and if other non-turned for frequencies might work. It appears like they might but at a costs in performance. Once I get it set up I’ll do some test to see what the difference is.

Oh... oops. Yeah that makes more sense. I only looked at the original poster's text and they typoed it like: "6/1/1/25" (extra dash in there between the ones! )

FCC data base shows it was issued on 6.11.2025. Take another look at the date he posted - It's not 6.1.

I knew there was at least a few day delay for the FCC site data getting to the myGMRS site ... but he said his callsign was issued on the first of the month... 15 days? that seems like there is a data feed problem on MyGMRS. I would suggest contacting the site help here to see if they can check that their callsign update is working properly.

You will always lose some power output through a duplexer. The power loss can be anywhere from 30% to 50% depending on the duplexer and the repeater used. The Retevis and Midland 10 watt portable repeaters lose half. They only putout 5 watts after the duplexer. Why compromise your setup when you don't have to. Tune the duplexer for the exact repeater pair you plan on using for the best performance.

I'm having the same issue. However, I just got my GMRS on 6-12-2025...I guess I'll be patient and keep checking back.

The duplexer and cables in itself will cause you to lose approx. 30% of inserted power. If the duplexer is not tuned properly, you will lose more of your inserted power and you may be very well left with just only a handful of milliwatts of output power and that will affect your Farz.

@SteveShannon Thanks a bunch for the link. I did try to search just like that poster and read several of the results but did not see the one you sent. I have some reading to do.

The extracts used by this site are not daily. You’ll appear in the live FCC database nearly immediately, but it can actually take three or four days for this site to get the data in an extract and sometimes even longer. That affects other sites as well, such as this one which lets a person know whether a GMRS licensee also has a ham license: https://gmrs.app/?wsir477# The other common thing is that people sometimes supply the wrong call sign. You didn’t, but it definitely happens.

Happy Father’s Day to you! This might help:

I would say a 2 way radio is harder to find than a cellphone is. You can ping a cell phone at will with the proper equipment and have it give it's position away. You can't do that with a normal 2 way radio.