Leaderboard

Not knowing what it is you’re trying to achieve it is hard to say. There are cases where some form of directionality may be desired, but I suspect those are few and far between. Generally speaking, repeaters are positioned towards the center of their intended coverage area. A Yagi in that environment would be counter productive. However, if your repeater is located along a coast line or the edge of your desired coverage area you may favor directional antenna to maximum power into your target area. I would speculate however that there are few cases where a highly directional Yagi is the appropriate solution. Conversely, I can definitely see where a Yagi could benefit the distant base station trying to hit a distant repeater. Now, a collinear antenna with high gain is different story. With a collinear design you can achieve high gain and uniform horizontal (azimuth) coverage all around then antenna. I believe you will find some variant of the collinear design to be the most common for high-performing repeater sites. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM Edited for spelling. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Yes. Look on page 11 of the service manual for how it's done for the TK-370G models with full keypads. A hardware mode needs to be done in addition to enabling self programming in the software. http://www.repeater-builder.com/kenwood/pdfs/tk-360g-tk-370g-svc-man.pdf For the older TK-370 32 channel model the instructions are here. http://rsws.zapto.org/radiosoftware/kenwood/Tk270.pdf After looking at how it's done for the 370G I would rather use the software. Trying to do this in the field would be "interesting" to say the least.

I still have my very first radio, a Kenwood TH-G71A dual band, I purchased new. Had some repairs done on it over the years but still in great shape and working. Only draw back is it can't do narrow band.

There could be other GMRS repeaters than what is listed on the map too. Some may be private or, just haven't listed their equipment for the public to find easily. These are found by actually listening to scans of the channels over time wnd hearing them if/when they ID themselves. So far as a newbie, the SCAN MODE has been my friend in locationing two such repeaters while traveling local and afar.

Probably several days but I always put it on the charger at night so I can't say for sure. For example, today my btech 50x1 was on it all day scanning and I transmitted for maybe 30 mins total on high power (50 watts) and it never dropped below 14.1 volts. The radio needs a minimum of 13.8 so I figure under normal use I can get several days out of a single charge. I also have 2 large deep cycle batteries from my trolling motor that I keep hooked up to a 100w solar panel so in the worst case scenario I have that to fall back on. The small battery I use for my station is the 10ah harbor freight one for their electric start generators. It's smaller than a lawn tractor battery and easy to transport so that is why I use it. I think a regular size car or truck battery and a small solar panel would be more than enough to keep you on the air 24/7 as long as you you aren't rag chewing the whole time

Thanks bud, I was able to make my first repeater contact today while mobile because of your help. I am starting to figure out how to program this thing and work the menu. It's pretty confusing until you have messed with it a bit.

The in-vehicle repeaters are useful for extending the range of a hand-held and little more. It's what public safety does with them.

I do not think anyone would argue with your points about the potential benefit of a portable repeater. However, I do think you took @Corey's post out of context. He was responding to an earlier post in this thread which proclaimed Low-altitude, low-power, and transportable systems can be extremely valuable. Given the specifics of the original post, I would have to agree, a low power low altitude (car top) repeater is not likely to offer any improvement over simplex operation on the same terrain. However, the examples you provided did not match that criteria. They were either effectively not-portable or temporary and well situated, like between you or your friend, or used antennas mounted at a significant height above ground level. As to your last statement, it would be nice if that were true. But sadly, I think there are an awful lot of cases where that didn't happen.