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That sounds like a bit of a problem... since fire departments tend to be surrounded by a lot of heat and water.

yup,, setting to busy only is the key and most of the cheaper controlllers don't offer this flexibility.. . I alwys laugh with i hear a repeater id every 15 mins.. rminds me of a dog p*ssing on car tires

Btech will send you one for free. You just have to email them that you need it and send them a picture of your repeaters serial number. Took it about 3 days to get to me. The new setups come with the cord.

I agree.

I'm not sure if I have that cord. I'll have to look.

I wish I could provide some help, but that question is out of my wheelhouse. I sure hope some folks that have much more technical knowledge than I can help you figure out your rx and/or tx issue at the affected location. I hope to learn something in the process, as well.

Nothing worse than a repeater id’ing every 10 minutes with zero traffic ever.

Just talked with Btech and the 1.010R is a minor bug fix. If you've put the 1.008R update in there you're good to go as far as updates go. If you are still on 1.003R then do the update, it's fairly straight forward if you have the RJ45 connector. It's just a straight cord with a USB-A and an RJ45, no chip.

Thanks! I'll update it tomorrow and see if it changes anything.

There is an update to the repeater 1.008R that should allow you to operate the input with no tone. There is also a squelch function with the new version. Mine was defaulted to 5 and interferred with low signals. I dropped it to 1. I see that they have a new update of 1.010R now.

You're right. I was testy because I was frustrated. I apologize. I do appreciate it when people are willing to help, but sometimes when things aren't going my way, I become a dick. I'll try to do better.

We had the SINCGARS radios when I was in. They came out shortly after Desert Storm. We were not allowed to use them in Germany at that time since the constant frequency hopping messed with German civilian communications and broadcast stations.

To test @MarkInTampa's hypothesis that maybe the two radio don't understand one another's tones, I changed the setting on the radio from "tone" to "TSQL". If I open the repeater with another radio, the TYT hears it just fine, but it still won't open the repeater.

Well no need for the attitude that you displayed nor was there a reason for name calling. Even the best of us will overlook the simple things when trouble shooting. I won't bother to try to help you ever again since you want to get an attitude, Good luck figuring things out.

I may not sound like a knowledgeable person, but I do my best to keep up. I recently purchased a BTECH UV-PRO, which is a Part 90 equivalent to the GMRS PRO. My first thoughts so far, the radio feels good in my hands. As far as programming it, well it's different than most Amateur Radio HTs and Mobiles. Of course, with Amateur Radio Equipment doesn't really have a Part 97 type acceptance or certification, but that's a different topic. Back to programming, the UV-PRO is similar to the GMRS PRO, which I find as easy as changing the trash liner in one's trash can. The APRS function can be a little bit tricky, but that may just for me. I was able turn on and off APRS, but I still need learn more about to use the full capabilities of the radio. I have to give BTECT an A for an excellent radio that is budget friendly and can be easy to program in a pinch when necessary

Wide band means the channel is 25kHz wide, but the intelligence (speech) occupies 20 kHz of the 25 available.

hey everyone i am visiting family currently and they live about half an hour or so outside of clarksville and no matter what i tune my radio too i get constant static, i have no idea why, it was working back home but here its like something is blocking all signal or something what could cause this? EDIT its something in their house causing, no idea what could do that though

There doesn't seem to be any way to do that, either from the software or from the front of the machine. It only allows a CTCSS tone or a DTCS tone. There's no way to leave it blank. FWIW, it doesn't work with either CTCSS or DTCS.

Hmmm... That's a thought. I'll try that.

Just to be sure I wasn't hallucinating, I tried it again just now with the 7900. Same antenna, same settings, only changing repeaters. It worked just fine with the Retevis but would not open the BTech. Based upon my (admittedly limited) knowledge of how radios work, this shouldn't be possible.

Try disabling tone on the repeater input. At least it will rule out incompatibility of the tone settings between the radio and repeater.

Read the entire post. I tested the TYT radios on a Retevis RT97L with the exact same settings and they worked. I used half a dozen antennas including the ones that worked just fine with the QYT and the AnyTone. Yes, I checked SWRs on all of the antennas and they were all below 2.0:1. Everywhere from my driveway to several miles away. I carried an HT to make sure I had contact with the repeater at the tested distance. No kidding, Sherlock? Of course it should. That's why I'm baffled.

All the Sky Warn Nets (weather reporting) are normally done on local 2m repeaters. That's not to say a local group could not run a Sky Warn Net on GMRS as long as the repeater owner is okay with it and you have people that can report directly to the NWS. We do not use our GMRS repeater for Sky Warn Nets but most of us do monitor it just incase during severe storms. We were asked about running a Sky Warn Net on GMRS but that would take away from our 2m Sky Warn Net as we are only allowed so many people that can actually report directly to the NWS. We don't have enough people that can report to the NWS to run two nets at the same time.

First off. Are the TYT radios that you are trying unlocked for GMRS? I ask because the TH-7800, TH-7900, and TH-9800 are amateur band only from the factory. Which means they won't transmit on GMRS. Next What antenna(s) are you using and have you checked the SWR on them? How far away are you from the repeater the trying to talk with the TYT radios? I have two TH-7800 radios that have been unlocked and they will connect to any and all repeaters I can reach as long as I have the tones correctly programmed. I've talked on BTech, Bridgecom, Motorola Quantar and other brands of GMRS repeaters without any issue. Double check your setting on the radio as it should work no matter what brand of repeater you are using.

Compander = Compression/Expander It's a method to re-constitute your voice after the insignificant audio has been squeezed out of it. Just like concentrated Orange Juice doesn't taste the same as fresh squeezed - Compandered audio isn't the same as the Original audio. For 12.5 narrowband, it was considered a win in the overall audio picture, but you gave up some tonal quality while it did reduce background noise and hiss. In 25 kHz wideband, I never really saw the benefit to using it. It's also a system wide setting, so if only one radio on your channel is using it, all the other units will not hear him clearly & vice/versa. Better to have everyone using the Compander feature, and not all radios offer the feature - and not all radios treat the compandered audio exactly the same during compression/expansion. It can lead to odd sounding audio. I've also seen some radios display a lack of sensitivity at the edge of coverage when using compandered audio. I played around with that a bit in the late 90's with the onset of narrowbanding. the TLDR was: use if it it works, but you're better off to implement it from the start. Migrating a user group over to it was a PITA - especially if they had a mix of radio models.