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Speaking of the unlicensed, I'd like to expand that term to the "Don't Know, Don't Care Group" (DKDCG)! I spoke to one of these on Saturday while I was in a small town of about 30,000 people near me. I had the radio on scan when I heard that annoying warbling sound produced by somebody hitting the "Call Button" on a walkie talkie. If that wasn't annoying enough, the scanner was following him up through the channels, one, two, three, four, etc. After listening to him move through all the channels twice, I thought maybe someone was actually in trouble and trying to find help on any possible channel. I identified myself and asked if someone needed assistance. The response was "No, I'm just trying to see if this radio works". To make a long story short we talked for maybe 3 or 4 minutes while I explained to him (obviously an adult male) about licensing and the power and channel restrictions. I encouraged him to stay on the FRS only channels if he wasn't going to get a license and to especially avoid the Repeater channels, explaining that he could be interfering with legitimate communications. He responded with short, unintelligent answers. I finally signed off and went back to scanning mode, only to hear him back on the repeater channels warbling through every frequency, just as if nothing happened! ​The famous turn of the century evangelist Billy Sunday once said, "Anybody can get born again, but stupid is forever"!

That would take away the fun of my Santa sleigh up in the air at Christmas time... Code? Wow I'm glad I don't live in an area that picky. Never had one at my house lol! Just 5 bucks for a permit to build And none needed for an antenna tower!

Ha! If I have another conversation with him I may tell him he made the big time on MYGMRS!

next up is getting it all assembled in a metal box to allow plenty of cooling, etc... then replacing my bad feedline and getting my antenna back up on the roof. if i can reach the school great, if not, then i have to find a new home for this repeater with more elevation. i'm going to use the good cable this time, maybe half inch and put the radio up closer to the antenna for a shorter feedline. we'll see.

with some help from facebook, i was able to get my repeater running 100% .... i had to move a 0 ohm jumper from R94 and install it at R24 to enable the Mic Input. Shown on page 20. that was a pain, because the jumper was just a surface mount thing. i had to pop it off with a knife then very carefully solder the smallest blob i could get on R24 but it worked. i'm on the air! I have my repeater controller working and tones and levels are all set. so far, the audio quality of the two dk880s is good, i tested levels to make sure simplex and through repeaters are the same, and you can't tell the difference now. I'm operating it through a dummy load on the bench. we'll see once i get it up on the air long range. my goal is to reach the school from home, but there is a small hill in the way. we'll see.

The problem with the Maxtrac, the PA actually backs down in power based on a timer in the logic board. The GM300 on the other hand used a thermistor to control power.