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Of that I am very aware. These are mostly leaf trees so there's that.... Always had issues from the house to the shop which holds the repeater. 50w vs 25w. I could always come in mostly clear to the house, but from the house it was hit or miss. Then I got a 50w radio for the house and the problem is mostly gone, certainly not R9 reception but easy to talk and understand. Needed the extra wattage to punch through the leaves it seems. On top of that what helped later on was swapping out to the Comet 712EFC. Eventually the repeater will have that same antenna and upgrade from the Retevis 7.2dBi. So sometimes a little more wattage works. And since the 1st wideband duplexer was swapped out for the 2nd wideband duplexer I've been able to hit the repeater mostly successful with a 5w HT. R7 at best, no communication at worst. Duplexer is coming in today

It would be very hard to find a mass produced antenna with so much gain that it would cast its signal too high or too low for another antenna at a 140 foot offset 20 miles away. That's 0.00135%, or 0.076 degrees. That level of focus of signal is in the realm of laser beams, or antennas for communicating with equipment on the moon. Another way of looking at it is that a boat's radar, which is designed to have good resolution characteristics, could merge two objects into one if they're less than 300 feet apart at 20 miles.

Trees are one of your worst enemy when it comes to UHF, especially cedar and pine trees. And it's not always possible to get an antenna above the local trees either. We look forward to updates.

I have gotten 20 miles HT-to-HT once when both of us were on elevated terrain features. Given the 140' elevation difference, you might be able to do it. The best-case scenario is if both stations are on higher elevations than everything in between, but one station higher than the other does improve your chances of getting a clear line of sight. You'll have to consider gain when you select your base station antennas. The more gain an antenna has, the "flatter" its signal, and it's possible to make the signal so flat it passes over the station at a lower elevation. There are some folks on here who know more about that than I do and might be able to help you figure out if that's going to be an issue. Generally speaking, more gain = more distance, so you'll have to balance the two factors.

Yeah, they're fine otherwise (they read 8v when not on the charger). Since I have enough of them (all four radios came with two batteries, plus the two batteries from warranty replacements), I can just swap with a spare from the bin without worrying about charging them while using the radio. I'll mark this one but keep charging them separately.

Since the radios have a real off switch that physically disconnects the battery from the radio when off it really doesn't matter a whole lot as long as you turn the radio off when you charge it. I've been using the charging stand since I've got the H3s and I only charge them when they are turned off. Sometimes I charge the batteries separately when I need a new battery now and pull from my extra pile, then that weak battery gets charged out of the radio. Just don't charge the battery while the radio is on and you shouldn't have any issues.

It would probably be too difficult to send them all in and ask for updated batteries. You should label or otherwise permanently mark the good new battery. Am I correct in believing that the bad batteries work in every way except negotiating ultra-high voltages once they hit fully charged?

Yeah, this. I once hit a repeater that was ~30 miles away by standing on top of a parking garage -- with an $18 handheld.

@SteveShannon I didn't take pictures, but I tested the new battery. Drained it to 7.3v and charged it overnight - it's reading 8.5v across the terminals while it's on the charger. Success! Looks like maybe they fixed the battery management circuit and the high voltage coming out of the batteries when they're plugged in and fully charged. Now if only I didn't have a stack of the bad batteries that look identical to the one good one.

Yes, a few years later I have come across this... I have just acquired 4 TK-880H-1, a TK-380 off eBay, and a KPG-46 cable(including free KPG49D software download from BlueMax49ers). In trying to read the 880 radios, three of them so far have said a pw is needed to read. When prompted for the password and you start typing SYSTEM, does that word show up in the password 'field'? When I hold down shift and start typing, the cursor disappears and nothing appears in the box regardless of what I type. As suggested elsewhere, I have not yet tried to boot up the radios while holding down the 'SCN' button. On another note and as suggested elsewhere by Jones I was able to write a single line to two of the radios. Transmit was verified by a Tidradio HT and a red LED on the second 880. Reception on the 880s shows green LED but no volume(yet). I'll play with volume later. It makes sense that one would be able to write(a plug) to the radio without the password given that I saw in the Kenwood Help section that the pw is only needed for reading the radio's programming(core plug) and is not needed to write to the radio. Any suggestions on trying to type password characters?

Did my walk around the block with to have a record of the 2nd original duplexer. Since I do these things late at night I have a digital recorder I use to "listen" to me. I do the test of the repeater and then switch to talk around to let me know where I am in case the repeater test doesn't go through. There are a few spots on my walk that are iffy. Like I've mentioned in other threads I have 1.6KM of dense forest in the way of my signal, 70' trees with my antenna at 40'. After the new single channel tuned duplexer is installed I'll try to do the same test in the same spots.

The Hampton West 575 has quite a few users. 462.575, CTCSS tone 203.5. NETs are held the first and third Wednesdays of the month at 7:30 PM on this repeater. The July 9th 2025 NET will be the first GMRS Hurricane Exercise for the GMRS users/reporting operators in the Tidewater area. Everyone is encouraged to attend; this will be a controlled NET with a Net Controller. Find out how you can help the City of Hampton and your city during a disaster in your own neighborhood using GMRS! Your information will be forwarded by Net Control to the Hampton Public Service Team in Hampton to provide weather related incidents to the City of Hampton Emergency Management. THIS WIL BE AN IMPORTANT NET TO HELP THE CITY OF HAMPTON DETERMINE HOW MANY VOLUNTEERS IN THE CITY ARE ABLE TO PROVIDE DAMAGE ASSESSMENTS AND REPORTS IN YOUR AREA.

The Hampton West 575 has quite a few users. 462.575, CTCSS tone 203.5. NETs are held the first and third Wednesdays of the month at 7:30 PM on this repeater. The July 9th 2025 NET will be the first GMRS Hurricane Exercise for the GMRS users/reporting operators in the Tidewater area. Everyone is encouraged to attend; this will be a controlled NET with a Net Controller. Find out how you can help the City of Hampton and your city during a disaster in your own neighborhood using GMRS! Your information will be forwarded by Net Control to the Hampton Public Service Team in Hampton to provide weather related incidents to the City of Hampton Emergency Management.

See, I told you would get a lot of assistance from the people on here!

That 778 is the one I have. Nice radio for the price. It can transmit on 2m, 70cm, and GMRS if you pick the right band range. Yes, I know, I'm slapping my own hand for saying it.

Scadacore will let you model the RF path between your two sites by showing the terrain and earth curvature you need to factor in for antenna height. As far as equipment, the three most important things are: 1) Antenna; 2) Height above ground (AGL) at both sites; 3) radio. If you don't have a clear path, no antenna or radio will work at GMRS frequencies as the signal travels about 15% further than the horizon. Power just means there is more signal in the area, not more distance. The 20 mile distance you estimate would be adequately served with a 25W radio in most instances. Personally, I would choose an Anytone radio over the two you mention as their price/performance is on a par with much more expensive units from other Chinese manufactures. RF Line of Sight - SCADACore

If it satisfies your communication requirements then it was a good choice.

I could do a Radio Mobile calculation to let you know if you have line of site or not. I would need pretty specific gps location to do so.

Your username is mdyoungblood if that helps.

Be sure to check your Junk/Spam folder after using the Forgot Password feature.

The Midland is a solid unit for GMRS, but it’s quite expensive. It also ONLY does GMRS – no VHF/UHF scanning. That B-TECH is far less expensive, but I’ve read reports that it’s a bit quirky, sometimes noisy, and the volume is only accessible via menus. But it has fully integrated mic controls and can scan VHF/UHF. For my mobile station, I eventually settled on the AnyTone 778II (w VOX). It’s only 25W, but sounds amazing, scans VHF/UHF, and seems to have plenty of power to throw signal where I need it. AnyTone is also highly regarded in the budget mobile/base radio segment. See if they have a 50W radio that meets your needs, but I’m betting 25W would serve you well with the right antenna and mount location.

I’ve been running this little Midland for a few weeks now in various regions (MidTN, Chatty, Northern AL, Bham, MidMS) and have been quite impressed with its performance. Sure, other antennas can throw farther, but this little guy is doing very well with its diminutive profile. Would recommend.

fort cambell?

RF line of sight could be a problem, depending on how high you can realistically mount your antennas. An antenna mast with mounting hardware could easily set you back a couple hundred, to get your masts up 30 feet. On the other hand, mounting each antenna fifteen feet up on the roof, with one property 140 feet above the other property, could get you right around 20 miles. This is good news because it also means RF line of sight roof-top to roof-top is something you can verify with a couple of inexpensive handheld radios. So before buying nice radios, and before buying masts and antennas, buy a couple cheap GMRS handhelds for $30 each. Each of you stand on your roof. And try to talk to each other. If you get nothing, no static, no roger beeps, nothing, you're just out of luck. Those wooded areas between you are attenuating too much of your signal. On the other hand, if you're able to break squelch and hear each other a little, you can proceed. Now assume that you were able to break squelch for each other. What next? Each of you get a 25w to 50w radio, however many feet of LMR400 cable you each need, lightning arrestors, some fittings, and appropriate mounting hardware for the roof. Get a couple of antenna such as the Comet GP6NC GMRS antenna. Oh, and get 13.8v power supplies. Adding it all up you'll be spending around $525 to $725 each. As for repeaters; a repeater is useful if it can be higher than the other radios, and/or positioned somewhere between the other radios. It's useless to put a repeater on your roof, if the goal is just to extend range from your roof to the other person's roof. A repeater won't be giving you more range. What a repeater does is it allows one radio talking to the repeater to hear another radio talking to the repeater. If A and B cannot hear each other, but A can hear C, and B can hear C, then putting a repeater at position C will allow A and B to hear each other by talking through C. Another thing to do is to investigate what ham repeaters are in your area. If there are no GMRS repeaters, you may discover there *are* ham repeaters. Then you get licensed for whatever type of repeater exists in your area. If you find GMRS repeaters, great, get your GMRS license. If you find ham repeaters, you and the other party need to study for a couple weeks and get your ham licenses. If you are fortunate enough that there are good repeaters in your area (ham or gmrs), then you don't need to spend 500-700 each. You can each get a $30 radio that is made for the service type you're getting licensed in, and talk through the repeater. In my area there are about seven or eight pretty good GMRS repeaters. But there are also at least 25 very good 2m or 70cm amateur/ham repeaters. If that ratio holds true elsewhere, even if you don't have a GMRS repeater in your area, you may find there are one or more decent ham repeaters.

Pretty new here as well. If you are looking for a lot of good information, and not a little entertainment go here. https://www.youtube.com/@TheNotaRubicon