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Elmer/Elmo/Radio dorks/Etc..(not meant to be derogatory, affectionate), As the title says, I am new (KR4FHF). I have a TYT TH-9800. Getting at 1.01-1.65 SWR between freqs on 70cm and 2m. Coax is rg58 (I know....And length in this case made no difference with my problem). Antenna is about 60' up but I am on a wooded lot. I have it in as clear of a spot as I can hanging from a tree. I adjusted the height according to SWR. Repeaters report decent signal report. I have been on nets with no one saying anything about my trans. While listening, the speaker will start strong with great signal. Then the audio degrades but signal the same. I find if I 'key' quickly, the speaker comes back strong again but then fades again. My HAM study suggests that my radio does not have the features to 'track the fluxuating freq' OR I have a problem with capacitance and/or inductance somewhere. Surprisingly, the antenna tuned for 70cm and 2m works with an SWR of 1.2 on my GRMS tuned at a 462.575ish. I have swapped the coax cables back and forth (RG58 and RG213) as well with no change in fading. I this a product of my location and propagation problems due to my climate? Need some learnin', enlighten me oh wise HAM family.

You guys are going to turn him into Rodney Dangerfield

Not nearly as inexpensive as some others but for about $90 it seems pretty good to me. A friend of mine claims it has the best analog sound of any of my radios. I’ve worked on three of them. The first one I used RT Systems to build a codeplug. That worked well. Then I installed OpenUV380 on it for the speech features and traded it to a blind friend for his stock model. I have left it stock and use RT Systems to edit the codeplug. That’s my second one. The third was one a friend brought to me after he borked it trying to update the firmware. I installed the OpenUV380 system on it (which requires loading the factory firmware anyway) and built him a codeplug and he seems happy. I like it.

So it would be a decent budget DMR then?

The RT-3S is exactly the same radio as the TYT MD UV380 that I have. Just a different name plate. As such it’s a candidate for OpenUV380 (~OpenGD77)

Here's an excellent video I found showing how to set up a DMR radio. I was looking at the Retevis RT3S. It's 2M/70cm(so I can probably do MURS and GMRS too) and it's supposed to be 10 watts. The price isn't too Bad either.

If you want "CHEAP" but a good quality radio look at this one. It's a "Type-2" UHF radio with a band split of 400-470 MHz. The seller privately sent me a photo of the Kenwood tags without the other ones stuck on top of them, like you see in the AD, so I verified the FCC ID of K44475500. Covers all of the Ham band and you can use it in FM mode on GMRS too. https://www.ebay.com/itm/267383407451?_skw=kenwood+dmr+radios&itmmeta=01K4DNYSK8VG0D44XQ4VBAKFQ7&hash=item3e414b035b:g:cQMAAeSwTDpoercB&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA8FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1cjUvNiekyv67x3Pun95fxmvfQaGHlVZBC5MpGFZBOOrwa25XAEL2ZcbEvb%2BwGjTRgJBsaTqPa0fqAKfM6lXLrl2czT7iF3%2FxpqmSYRH8GTl7XnCJQFzr2z%2BjaYmlgJF6s5DohBVA8hAPSKODzBFKr1l9Ijbp0Y%2FgU43W1fFHDrY1Ooug1UHejG6jqwEly5qneA%2ByyjGxiD6BFvvDgJ91WUEASOVqdkoJwuDTv8Y6w69CQfPSw4OYHF4uBxY6tqs%2FdFT596uuYUzCMG3IcCfNMeZNiygMsW5cOBb%2F6LXoFh1Q%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR-iZ-7WjZg&pfm=0 It's a Kenwood radio. For the price you can experiment with it. You'll likely have to get a KSC-35S charger base, typically used about $20 to $25, I have several in my collection. The Boafeng programming cable and speaker mic's that use the two-pin plug will work. I use a cheap Boafeng programming cable on my Kenwood radios all the time. Two main con's are no front panel programming and no display. But for DMR you're likely going to do all your programming on a computer anyway. I have the software and a sample code plug if you're interested. TK-D240V_D340U Brochure 1.pdf TK-D340K2_GMRS_Analog_DMR_Example.dat KPG-166D_v2.33.rar

My experience with Wine is it works sort of OK so long as the app isn't doing really weird stuff behind Window's back, like undocumented functions, or depending on bugs in various Window's functions always doing the same thing etc. BTW that's one of the biggest headaches with Wine, and the ReactOS Project, is duplicating all the bugs in various parts of Windows so existing apps work as expected. It's another reason why later versions of Windows breaks old app's, Microsoft just didn't bother duplicating the older version's bugs in some cases.

All that being said the absolute high was 3.3 watts on digital mode. I'm looking at 3 other radios between $100 and $150 that claim 10 watts. even if they only output half of that it'll be better than the 3.3 watts I'm getting from this radio.

More like Phyllis Diller.

Remember DMR uses TDMA when working through a repeater in digital mode, Time Division Multiple Access, in other words the output is pulsing on and off approximately every 30 milliseconds. Your typical average responding power meter will likely read about 40 percent of a true FM radio output. So, a reading of 2.5 watts wouldn't be unusual. The 0.5 watt reading the meter might have caught the radio part way through a transmit pulse, which wouldn't surprise me with one of those electronic SWR/watt-meters types.

You CANNOT use a standard watt meter to verify power output on DMR (or any TDMA mode). It doesn't show up accurately because it pulses every 30ms for each timeslot. Also, if it's overloaded by surrounding RF, it will bonk. DMR (in a repeater scenario) sends a ping to the repeater, and if it doesn't "hear back" from the repeater after I think 3 attempts or so, it says out of range.

I just did a power output test on the radio. The DMR Repeater I have programmed was giving .5W to 2.5W jumping around and not consistent. I think that's the main issue, not enough "azz" to hit the nearby repeaters that my analog radios(even the little UV-5r) can easily hit from my backyard. It's getting returned and I'll use the funds along with the money from the DM-1701 to buy a better radio. Also, WINE works pretty good on my Linux install. Like I've mentioned before, I run all the other CPS programs along with CHIRP NEXT in WINE without issues.

I do not believe so.

I downloaded the Radtel RT-4D CPS DMR programming software so I could look at your analoge codeplug as well as the Miklor sample codeplug… SO UGLY! And thats in Windoze on my Mac; I can’t imagine it in Linux!! Good luck! Have you driven closer the the repeater to see if your RT-4D works in DMR?

Some posters do not understand the two types of people on these types of forums: 1) Those that cannot do or are unwilling to do internet research and hence prefer to be spoon fed; and 2) Those that get personal achievement and gratification from doing research for others! ”I want my Maypo!”

This worked for me for my Baofeng UV-5G Plus. Make sure you're on the correct COM port from the dropdown menu and select the Radioddity UV-5G Plus.

OK, Fight nice, children (everyone).

Those are hard to tune. Patience Grasshopper. Keep trying.

I have used the RT97 and the RT97L. Both perform well. If you have the money and are set on getting this type of repeater I would go with the RT97L for the reason the Queen of ALL GMRS mentioned. In this case more power helps mitigate line loss. They are not 100% duty cycle machines but are good for what they are. The portability is a great selling point. YMMV

But is is it five lines tall with a blue background?

That never stopped eBay from allowing this crap on their site. When it comes to CCTV equipment Hikvision was FCC banned and eBay was flooded with that garbage. I don't see any of this significantly changing for the better on eBay or Amazon.

When I use my HT for GMRS, I make sure I have an aluminum beer can in my other hand for counterpoise. Obviously, you have to empty it till you find that perfect resonance sweet spot. Sometimes it takes multiple tries to get it right.

For optimal performance I highly suggest using Bosch Platinum spark plugs with the gap at 0.038" for the HF bands. Spark gap transmitters can be fun. Brings back the good old days of radio.

I downloaded a codeplug from Miklor for the RT-4D and compared it to my codeplug. I made some adjustments to my codeplug and I still can't reach the repeater. When I keyed the HT next to my desktop computer I heard something like it WAS sending out a signal but I just don't think these little radios are powerful enough to make the 16 miles to the repeater in digital. In Analog yes, they reach it. I guess I need to do a power test on the radio and compare analog to digital and that would also confirm that a signal was getting out in digital mode.