All Activity

I've been messaging with Eddie for the last couple of days on this site. I had no idea a repeater was being planned. A buddy of mine called me up and let me know about it. I haven't really used it yet, but it sounds pretty good. At 1.5 miles away, you could work it with 1/4 watt. LOL

If those were the only two choices and money were no object, I would go with Times-Microwave, every time. The Times-Microwave LMR-400 is the original which created the standard. All other companies that make a 0.400 inch diameter cable called something like it (such as BR-400) are insinuating that their coax is equivalent. Some actually make cables that test as good while selling for less. They will be sold by companies that are not Amazon. Nothing wrong with Amazon, but the buyer has to bring some expertise. However, there are some concerns about LMR-400: First, the original has a single solid center conductor that makes it stiff. Times-Microwave solved that by manufacturing a cable that has a stranded center conductor called LMR-400 UF (for Ultra Flexible). Second, some people have concerns about the mixture of metals in the shielding, especially for repeater use. They claim the contact points of the different metals in the different layers of shielding create thousands of tiny semiconductor junctions. I have never seen proof of that, but other companies make coax that use pure copper for every layer of shielding. One of the best known is an Italian company named Messi & Poloni. They make a cable (M&P Hyperflex 10) that tests every bit as well as LMR-400, and sells for about the same price as LMR-400. But there are others as well. ABR400, DX400, etc. The list of high quality 0.400 cables that are reasonable alternatives to the original LMR-400 is long. I have never heard that BR400 listed as one of them. I also would stay away from KMR400 as sold on Amazon. Personally, I have several lengths of M&P and a few of ABR-400. I bought my M&P from Gigaparts, but one of the online vendors that sells mostly Chinese radios also sells it for a decent price, maybe Buytwowayradios.com? Or you can order it direct from Italy. They’ll put it together to your specs and ship it very quickly directly to you. I’m sure this probably adds even more to your uncertainty. Asking which is the best cable is like taking a philosophy course in college. Here’s a link to the Gigaparts web page for Hyperflex 10: https://www.gigaparts.com/messi-and-paoloni-hyperflex-10-coax-cable.html#close

I foget your in Maine ? Where abouts ?

So what is the better on to go with? The Browning BR-400 or Times Microwave Low Loss Coaxial Cable - LMR-400? Thanks for your help.

I've been listening to Ed(?) test the repeater over the last 2 weeks. His transmissions are pegging my meter (I'm only 1.5 miles from the repeater ). He published the repeater to the myGMRS database: https://mygmrs.com/repeater/10670

wait tell you find pet skunk in your kids bedroom

Hey, Peter! Great questions. BTW... if you hear us chatting, you are always welcome to join in! I appreciate the interest. We talked about it a little at our last get-together, but just touched on it. So, I'm happy to give more details. I am a volunteer radio operator with the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES). I serve on a few teams supporting DHS/FEMA, US Marine Corps Quantico (MCCS/MCM), Loudoun County, Prince William County and the Virginia state EOC in Richmond. ARES is a nation-wide group attached to the American Radio Radio League. Our organization has formal MOUs with local, state and federal agencies across the nation. Our team provides a full spectrum of auxiliary (and on occasion, primary) communications support for the aforementioned agencies. That would include, but not limited to, voice traffic, independent email services, wireless LAN/WAN both in an affected area and relayed outside the impact zone, video, GPS and signal tracking, and much, much more. We have had great success in drills and real-world service for more decades than I have been alive, and I am happy to be apart of the organization. These relationships have afforded our teams some special privileges in the radio world. Hospitals, government agencies, and private business all appreciate the services we provide to the community, and to help us provide the best possible services, these agencies/businesses have allowed our groups to install VHF and UHF repeaters on there buildings, commercial radio towers, and on high-elevation properties. We even have repeaters and towers installed in national parks for areas known to frequently need our support. I mention all of this because it is relevant to what is happening with the proposed GMRS repeater. The Prince William County government is allowing us to install a new amateur radio VHF and UHF repeater on a county radio tower. The intent is to have the amateur radio equipment available to all licensed amateurs, while ensuring priority use for ARES supporting the county, state and federal government. Since we are going to have both a VHF and a UHF antenna, we figured we would gang a GMRS repeater on the UHF antenna, having it support both systems. I proposed the use of the GMRS repeater to the county under the same assumptions as the amateur radio repeaters... they will be open to all licensed users, with the county and other served agencies traffic taking priority during drills and emergencies, and the county EC agreed. Keep in mind, we are in the early stages of planning. We need to design the system, acquire hardware, and coordinate frequency use. What we are planning is subject to change... but the proposed details are as fallows. The availability date is currently TBD. As mentioned, we are still gathering parts and the facility is currently in the end stages of renovations. We cannot build until construction is complete. The tower is in the south-eastern part of Prince William County. The base of the tower is about 155 feet above average terrain. The arm the antennas will be on is about 300 feet above ground. We are going to use high-gain folded dipole antennas for all repeaters. We are planning on legal limit for the power output on GMRS (and 100w for the amateur repeaters). The channel is TBD, pending coordination. This will be a publicly accessible repeater, open to all licensed operators. Again, if the repeater is needed for emergency use, we will terminate public access until the emergency need is over. We hope that amateur gear will be sufficient so local families/residents can use the GMRS repeater in a local communications outage. We have not settled on a tone yet, but it will be CTCSS. We will ask local users to use whatever the primary tone we select for day-to-day use, but we will also have 141.3 for emergency/traveler use. The coverage area is theoretical at this point, but below is a projected coverage map showing 99.9% reliability. As we drop down to 70% reliability, the coverage increases dramatically.

Sitting downtown in a railway station

I was checking repeaters today to see which ones I could hit and got into a repeater net gathering. The controller was a nice guy and very welcoming. There was a few of us on and we played a game of "Appliance Operator or HAM?" where we were given a scenario and ask if it was something an Appliance Operator would do or a HAM. Anyway, that was my first contact on HAM and it was fun. Just wanted to share with ya'll.

Sweet Jesus ...

GMRS isn't ham radio. They are different services on different bands. I might be in Kent County MD on Saturday and Sunday, but too far west for any DE contacts

[Thursday, 7 Aug 2025] Group, In recent days I have heard chatter on Blue Mountain '600 and Warrenton '725 re. a new repeater to soon be commissioned. Purportedly, such repeater will have a significant RF footprint. Can anyone add more info on this news, particularly: • What County it will reside in? • Projected commissioning date? • Availability: Public / Private? • Planned channel? • Planned PL or DCS code? • Predicted coverage (rough)? • Etcetera ... ? ___________ Thanks & regards, Peter | WSIC582 | NWDC

I think it largely depends upon the repeater. Most are maintained by an individual or group. Ascertain from the owners what the their terms of usage are. If it is a repeater listed here, contact information can be found by clicking on the repeater. The more, I suppose, unpopular answer is that you really don't need permission. Certainly civil behavior might imply that you should obtain it, but there's an equally salient argument that "mUh fReE aiRwAvEs" or something.

How do you get permission to use a repeater

Yup,, i did and had a save before the radio arrived. I did load a factory file i got from one of the videos on the readio.. I think it was the guy that showed how to set up encryption.

If you are familiar with the DMR CPS, that should be enough to evaluate if the radio will be a match for you.. It's all in the programing and so far thats a good experience. I did read up on OpenGD77 and Baofengs DMR CPS surpasses options to Open GD77. IMO, $75 bucks is defiantly worth the investment for a DMR radio.. Even though i won one in Baofengs contest, i did also purchase one and have no regrets. Does the DM 32 compare well to my Hytera DMR radios?? Pretty close, enough to impress me..Front end programing on the radio itself is much easier than Hytera, but i prefer to use CPM anyway. I haven't tested out the encryption yet, planning to do this when i get back from camping. I did program and test some ditial channels in MURS and found programing pretty straight forward.. Setting up call groups, private contacts is also straight forward... Heck,, you should try to enter Baofengs monthly contest and try to win one..

Exactly!!

Cover the driver/power supply with tinfoil to see if it reduces. If it does put it in a metal box. Unless it's already surrounded by metal cause in that case you're done.

Direction set to "+" correct? I had a few issues with the offset not saving and I realized that I had the direction set to "-." Not sure if it will help, but that was my (limited) experience. Best of luck to you!

My initial set up involved the top of my Big Green Egg, a cookie sheet, and the mag mount antenna. I was able to hit the repeater but my traffic was unintelligible I was told. That's when I went to the Jeep hood. It terms of elevation, the repeater is roughly 800' higher than I am at about 40 miles away. Looking at a topographic map, I was surprised this morning to see that I do have a relatively unobstructed line of sight to it. I mean, Obviously I can't see it 40 miles away, but from my elevation at about 800' and it's elevation at about 1600', there's not much between us and with the 3db gain on the Motorola stubby, I guess it gets "up" there well enough. I'm still in shock, honestly. I had zero idea that GMRS could go that far....especially not a 5W HT and slapdash mag mount on my Jeep in the driveway.

Yes, I saw the need to delete channel, I tried that also.

Some of the “UV-5R” style of radios require you to actually “delete” the channel before going into VFO Mode, reprogramimg the information and then saving this information into the same channel number.

LEDs are known to cause interference. The cheaper ones are worse. I have some Amazon 4 foot LEDs along with some cheap screw in LEDs from Walmart in my garage. all of them cause a lot of interference on my dual band and GMRS radios when the lights are on and I have radios on inside the garage.

Can’t you download the CPS even though you don’t have the radio so you can see what you think?

Not sure what the system is. Everything I've been listening to has been in the 150-155Mhz range so far. It's been very clear and has amazing range 15-30 miles I've heard it. They just built a new police station and have been moving in. I hear them doing lots of radio checks and sending out the EMS and Fire tones. I've noticed that some of the communications have gotten weaker and have hiss and scratchiness to them when it use to be nearly perfect other than HT inside buildings. Recently the traffic is down from what I'm used to and the wife isn't to happy about that as she enjoys listening to the chatter. Like to keep the little lady happy and keep receiving the communications. I believe the old system was 3 transmitters on a single tower but that's just a guess. The new system on top of the new building has multiple antennas that I haven't gotten a good look at yet. All in a row, maybe 8 of them with a short (24"?) blue dipole on top. Haven't noticed if they have a folded dipole on them or not.