Leaderboard

Gel or AGM batteries have a fixed cycle life. 300 to 500 is common. a daily cycle could result in battery needing replacement, annualy to every 18 months or worse. For such a remote location Gel/AGM could be well suited, if you don't care to carry distilled water to the site for maintenance. Most importantly is to purchase the appropriate size Amp Hour battery for your load. If you find your self wiring batteries in parallel, You do not have the proper battery and it will fail in short order. Batteries should only be wired in series so charging and discharge is balanced. When batteries are wired in parallel they charge and discharge unevenly and become unbalanced, unless batteries are removed from the parallel for an equalization charge routinely the batteries will fail sooner than later. Yes when using solar and batteries, less is more. No point in TX'ing 40 watts if 10 to 20 will do the job.

The radio comes pre-programmed with all GMRS repeater pairs. CTCSS/DCS tones are FPP (front panel programmable) and are remembered when turning off the radio and then turning on again. One other neat feature is that you can "scan for tones" and quickly identify what tone is being used, then simply program that channel to use the detected tone.