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@OffRoaderX: I successfully joined the Zello Channel. Thank you for the access.

I have one of those Phantom Laird. Still trying it out. Seems to work ok.

I just did the KG-1000G repeater thing - it works great.. its not perfect, but works pretty darn well - with coverage in 30+ miles each direction, and we just made it available on Zello (search Zello for the channel "Notarubicon GMRS 700 Repeater" -.. anyone can listen, request access to talk) If you give a little info about what isnt working we can probably get you fixed up, or at least pointed in the right direction..

LOL, that's me. I am the one who started that thread on RR. I have a couple of T800 Talkabouts and the X-Pand in them appears to be a little less aggressive compared to the older Talkabouts. Motorola probably has tweaked the amount of compression and expansion over the years to make it work better. The older Talkabouts were manufactured for Motorola by Giant International in China. The deal with Giant International ended several years ago and the newer T-series Talkabouts are genuine Motorola manufactured in Malaysia. I noticed the build quality is much better in the newer T-series Talkabouts. I thought Motorola may have tweaked the companding in them based on past (bad) experiences with the older TalkAbouts. My wife (g/f at the time) and I had a pair of Motorola Talkabout 250 FRS radios back in the early days of FRS (14 channels). This was around 1997-1998. The Talkabout 250 aggressively compressed the Tx audio and aggressively expanded the receive audio. When hearing audio from other radios that didn't compand their audio, the expander in the Talkabouts totally blew the audio apart to the point that basic functionality as a 2-way radio was seriously impaired. Even when both Talkabout 250 radios talked to each other and properly compressed the Tx audio and properly expanded the Rx audio, the audio was still BAD. It was square wave audio between the Talkabouts and hearing expanded audio from non-companded radios was even worse. It. Was. THAT. Bad. It is no wonder that Motorola's X-Pand audio companding system is so seriously hated. The Talkabout FRS radios and Motorola's business radios aka business bubble packs as I like to call them could be cleaned up and made a lot better if Motorola would add the option to disable X-Pand. Using X-Pand requires ALL radios talking to each other to be using X-Pand in order for all radios to sound right. Use X-Pand when all radios are using X-Pand and disable X-Pand when one or more radios in a group don't have X-Pand. If a radio has an audio companding feature, the radio needs to have the ability to enable or disable the feature. Unfortunately X-Pand is always enabled in the Talkabouts and in Motorola's analog business radios and there is no option to disable X-Pand. I expected the T600 H2O radios to have X-Pand like the other Talkabouts and was pleasantly surprised to find it is one of a few Talkabout models that don't have X-Pand. The only newer T-series Talkabouts I have experience with to date are the T800, T600, and T460/465. T460/465: Has X-Pand T800: Has X-Pand T600 H2O: NO X-Pand