Leaderboard

You likely would have done better using a N female to PL259, MPD digital cables basically have a lifetime guarantee, but if you cut them you lose that LMR400 also crimps a bit differently. You need to have the proper connectors and tools to make sure the crimp is correct with as little loss as possible. My experience is that your better off with soldier/crimp combinations when it comes to LMR cables. You have to make sure the cable is cut cleanly (Using a pair of shears is not advised) and accurately (1/16" of an inch off with your shielding can cause a lot of issues with reflected power) A lot of people will claim the loss is from the PL259 connection added in, but personally I haven't seen much effect unless you have multiple PL259 connectors in a long run of coax, and even then, I think the length of coax has more to do with loss than the connectors do. Lastly, its very difficult to get a perfect 1:1 in SWR and 0 reflected power. II tell people that if they are less than 1.3:1 SWR they shouldn't continue tweaking their system as its easy to lose ground just as you have.

And with the current system of 'hide offline repeaters' and 'hide outdated listings', a lot of the repeaters that have been around for a long time get hidden by those settings and mixed in with the dead repeaters. There absolutely needs to be a user-reported repeater status function. Most of the repeaters in my area aren't actually listed on MyGMRS, and those that are listed are inactive or offline. It makes frequency coordination an absolute pain. I'd consider the output tone 'public' information as well since it typically identifies a system uniquely within an a particular area and channel, and gets transmitted along with the carrier. Keeping that information hidden when reading a 'found repeater' report makes it hard to tell if that reported repeater is actually the one you're hearing. This could also help with people claiming ownership of repeaters they do not actually own. When I first got my repeater, I used a particular frequency and tone that was in use nearby. Due to California's highly variable topography, I couldn't hear the incumbent user's repeater when I was doing frequency surveying, but the coverage area overlap was a serious issue. I had to reprogram the repeater and several radios, and get the cavities re-tuned to a different pair, because the only people currently allowed to report a repeater's existence are the owners. Many repeater owners don't want their repeater's existence or site location to become public knowledge. I do believe it's against public interest to enable that behavior, since the 8 GMRS channels are all accessible to the public and there is no right to privacy on what information is sent over the repeater's output channel. However, there needs to be limitations on access to what specific information can be seen by other users. Frequency, output tone(s), general location, and CWID (if any) can all be narrowed down quickly with a receive-only station or two, and it may also be possible to determine whether a repeater is open or not (only the owner can give the final verdict). The user-reported repeater entries should be marked separately from owner-reported entries since there's no way to attest to the accuracy of the information, and there needs to be some inquiry as to whether there's an abuse potential for such a system that would make the risks outweigh the benefits. Personally, I think there's much more benefit than risk, and Repeaterbook uses a similar system for their ham repeater listings. Over there, change history isn't made public (allowing non-public information accidentally contributed to be removed), and the repeater owners can hide all information beyond frequency, callsign, public/private system, and on/off-air status. Unlike ham bands, there's heavy frequency reuse on GMRS because 8 channels is a lot less than several hundred channels, so there needs to be a more granular way of identifying repeaters beyond using the frequency alone. I think it could also be worth allowing 'found repeater' reports to include general comments, such as hangtime duration, activity level, or peculiarities with the repeater; but anything suggesting the input tone should be censored.