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Plenty of activity here in the metropolitan Los Angeles area! On 725: maybe too much! ?

9dBi is really 6.5 dBd of actual gain. 6 dB is nothing to sneeze at - but for the "what am I going to get by moving up the antenna?" question - the best thing to do is model your system. Radio Mobile is the go-to for an online tool that's actual useful and doesn't take more than 30 minutes to figure out the basics. Radio Mobile online coverage map Once you've mapped out your proposed initial system, you can toy around with it to see what you're going to be able to cover given certain heights and gain. If you make the areas where you need it to work at 25 or 30 foot, and there's no appreciable coverage gained by moving to 50 ft, then you know it's probably not worth the trouble. If you're still not covering where you want at 50 ft - then start moving upward until you see the coverage you desire. Hint - 5 or 10 ft. height difference usually doesn't do that much. I've found their coverage predictions to be fairly accurate if you push the desired reliability to 99% and use realistic figures for your wattage & losses. The antenna height should usually be figured as half the total length for a vertical omni.

There are a couple of ways to do it. The most expensive is cold shrink wrap, which is used in about 50% of the "professionals/commercial" installs at cell sites: https://www.theantennafarm.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=627_656_660. At $50/each connection, its pricy. The LMR guys like to wrap the connection in multi-layers. First tape, then a waterproofing tape/butyl layer. This is less expensive, and many LMR guys like it because after 20 years, you can still take it off and the connectors look new. https://www.theantennafarm.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=627_656_657&products_id=1956 Good Luck! This is just 1 of the many things that Nickle and dime your installs, but its important.

Alright. Since I am the guy with the tens of thousands of dollars setup and the commercial install I believe I need to interject here. Never did I say that a small repeater system is useless. And there are COMMERCIAL repeaters available that ARE indeed two mobiles in a box with a controller between them. And those work find if that is all you need. My point was if you are going to put up a big commercial grade install that you need to NOT pull the crap of wanting fee's paid for access, as this level of install has a huge footprint that will interfere with other repeaters on the same frequency in that footprint. And the frequency resource is limited for repeaters. I am all for guys that want to put up a repeater on their roof or short TV tower and be able to talk 8 or 10 miles. This sort of thing SHOULD be encouraged. But you still need to be aware of others on the frequency and try to find a quiet pair to set your repeater up on. The other thing that needs to be said here is IF you are going to stick an antenna WAY up in the air and cover a 60 to 80 mile radius, you DO need to have good commercial equipment and not two portables with a back to back cable between them and a cheap duplexer. And here's the reason. If you are the only one that will be using it, and the usage is light, it don't matter. But with a big coverage footprint there is a good chance that it will see a lot of use and portable radios are NOT designed to be run at that duty cycle. The commercial repeaters I use for GMRS are 100% CCS (continuous commercial service) rated. This means they are designed to be transmitting up to 100% of the time, 27/7/365 and live. If you were to try that with the two back to back mobiles the transmitter would not survive the abuse, even with a fan and additional cooling. Now, my repeaters are only logging 30 to 45 minutes of use a day currently... but that number keeps increasing. And that's fine. I built it to run all the time, and offer it for free to all licensed users in the coverage area to use at their leisure. But I would hate to see someone put in inferior gear at some remote site and it die when it was needed. That situation is actually worse in my mind than it not being there at all. Because if it's needed and expected to be operational. And that operational repeater is part of someones emergency plan, then it needs to work as such.

Why does every new license holder want to setup a repeater? I would like to shed a little light on some of the important things to consider if you recently got your GMRS license and now want your own repeater. First thing to consider, are there any open well placed repeaters in your area that you are able to use? I can assure you most repeater owners want people to use there repeater. Owning several repeaters I can assure you all are welcome and encouraged to use my machines. Do you have access to a location to host your repeater? If your answer is your garage roof you should reconsider. Your garage roof will give you about the same coverage as simplex. Unless you’re on top of a mountain and all your users are at the bottom you will never be happy with this setup. GMRS is not as popular as one would like to think, unless your repeater covers 20 miles or more you may find you only have 1 or 2 users in the area. Unless you already have a group of friends together you may want to consider this before spending money on a decent well positioned site to install your repeater. So you found a nice high site and the price is right, all you need to do is get the repeater installed, sounds simple right? Some thigs to consider first and foremost are the costs because they can add up quickly. Are you on a commercial tower that requires a license and bonded climber? If so this could be by far your largest expense depending on your area. I have spent $600 to $1200 on a climber; I have had quotes as high as $2500 depending on the amount of work and heights involved. Keep in mind commercial sites require certified mounts, hard line cable, cable clamps, engineered grounding solutions and commercial grade antennas. No tower owner is going to let you install a comet antenna and 200’ of braided shield coax. This brings me to my next point, the antenna. Because of the costs involved with climbers you will want to expend your budget on the antenna. Remember a $2000 repeater on a $200 antenna is going to work about as good as a $200 repeater. Whereas a $200 repeater on a $2000 antenna is going to work like a $2000 repeater. On my first repeater I was gifted use of a 150’ tower, I installed a DB-420 on the top and 160’ of 7/8 hardline. Total cost of equipment for the antenna install was $2500, with the climbers labor coming in at an additional $800. This left me with enough to purchase an old Motorola R100 repeater running at 25W. To my surprise it had 30 miles of coverage, all due to the cash spent on the antenna and waiting for a decent spot. Things happen, more so if you have an antenna 200’ in the air with a conductive cable connected to sensitive electronics. Antenna issues, feedline issues, repeater issues all cost money and I promise at some point you will have issues that need repair and require your money! It is my opinion that the GMRS community does not need another 2 to 5 miles repeater as it just becomes background noise. What use is a public listed repeater if somebody in a mobile can’t use it 5 miles away while moving or the portable coverage is only a mile? If after reading this you are still going to build a repeater for your garage more power to you, just don’t expect 20 people to show up if it only reaches a mile. As the owner of several GMRS and Commercial repeaters I can attest to the amount of money and effort go into my repeaters. I have only touched on the basics, if you add in any kind of testing services, duplexer tuning, addition of a combiner channel to an existing tower system, RF engineering, rent and insurance your costs can sky rocket. The best advice I can give any new licensee is to try and use the available systems in the area. Take the time to learn a little about what you’re doing and to assess the usability of the service before investing in a repeater for the sole reason of saying you own one.

HAVING TROUBLE WITH Y VISION AND TYPING SO CALL MEAT 6027999581

YOU WILL SEE TWO VERTICLE SCROLL BARS ON THE RIGHT AND FAR RIGHT, BRING ONE OR BOTH DOWN UNTIL YOU SEE A HORIZONTAL SCROLL BAR ON THE BOTTOM TO MOVE THE VIEW RIGHT. ALSO IF YOU CLICK ON THE CHANNEL NUMBER ON THE LEFT IT WILL HIGHLIGHT THE ENTIRE LINE.

And so it is with many (most?) other GMRS operators. A lot does depend on the area one lives in. Here in NW Indiana we are blessed with no fewer than eight (yes, all of 'em) repeaters easily reachable by mobile or base, and in my area at least three are reachable by HT as well. At least three of them have weekly nets, and many are busiest in the evening hours when folks are at home with nothing better to do... ?

The Wyoming website for 307 is more specific:

If you were local I'd say go see Ed at Wifi Expert in Valencia. Still, I would recommend you call him at 661.200.0771 or email, sales@wifiexpert.us and check out the website coaxrf.com. I got my LMR 400 coax from him, plus a pigtail for my swr meter. He has a small shop and was able to make what I needed while I waited. Very affordable (lower than other advertised products I've seen). If you call him, tell him the guy on the Harley sent you ?

I'm very familiar with the 3M rubber splicing tape. I was a Journeyman Electrician for a number of years and we went through miles of that stuff. Thanks!

DX engineering has a good instruction sheet on the topic, and offers kits: https://static.dxengineering.com/pdf/weatherproofingcoax-techtip.pdf https://www.dxengineering.com/search/part-type/weatherproofing-kits/product-line/dx-engineering-weatherproofing-kits?GroupBy=SKU&SortBy=Default&SortOrder=Default And I'll echo @Lscotton AntennaFarm being a good reputable source. I haven't ordered that specific cable package, but had a number of other orders with them, and zero issues. I also did a little searching and didn't find any other solid alternative options with what you were looking for.

Antenna farm is a good place to purchase. You will be sure its actually Times Microwave cable. Don't forget, you will need to weather proof the connection at the antenna after you hook up the coax.

Spoken like a true engineer!

I was thinking how I would join a GMRS network with my KG1000G based repeater. The signals that go between the two KG1000G have all the signals (I believe) to create a network interface. Today Rx Radio -------------------------------------Tx Radio Mod Rx Radio--------------------Network Tap---------------------Tx Radio | | Repeater link(Pi) https://shop.mygmrs.com/collections/repeaters-and-accessories/products/repeater-linking-bundle?variant=31428894785571 I would have to design the Network Tap. Would be a box with 3 RJ45 type connectors (what the radios use) and a bit of circuitry. Thoughts?

Other than your Santa Ynez split tone repeater glitch, I have found no fault in my two 779’s they even match up well against my Yaesu ft-857d for 2 meters and 70 cms

While I'm testing my AT-779UV, I'm also dragging in my other radios for similar testing. One of the things I'm checking is RF output. So far the AT-779UV is doing quite well. VHF is ~18 watts output, UHF is 15 watts, both on high of course. My TYT-8600 measures the same. Edit: I didn't have my connections correct when I was measuring my 778UV. Didn't have the dummy load connected. . . . Anytone AT-778UV, VHF band power is 18W. UHF power is 20W 779UV benefits over the 778UV 500 memory channels vs 200 faster scanning 8 alphanumeric character naming vs 5 dedicated volume control much faster downloading/uploading between the PC and the radio

Yeah, I'm not particularly worried about it. I figure if I choose to take a risk, it's one thing....I've made my choices. It's a little different to hand out advice to others, especially if they're not aware of the risks...therefore, I try to keep up on where the line is, so I can give a good representation/explanation of the right way to do things. If someone chooses another route from there, they've made their own choice as well, but I've done what I can to help it be an informed one.

Here is a tip/trick we discovered last week getting 2 KG9000G's setup as a repeater. It was super simple to setup if you watched the video from BuyTwoWayRadios.com or NotARubicon. However one thing we noticed was we did not have a repeater tail. This is disturbing because when you put a call out there you don't know if the repeater is up or not. We found a strange menu option in the advanced settings called Repeat Hold Timer. Here is what the manual says: We were skeptical but we ordered the RT Systems cable and software and put in 700 milliseconds for this value in the software on the transmitter radio and now we have a tail. Very useful. @rayep

I have spent some time today investigating the pinouts and behavior of the RJ45 connections on the radio for the purpose of integrating with other things. I have also messaged BTWR to ask for the official information. I will post the results here in the near future. One think I discovered today is what I consider to be an error in the manual. The pin numbers used in the manual for the RJ45 (8P8C) connector are backwards from the standard. So if you make you own cable and reverse the conductors based on the standard pin numbers, the cable will be incorrect. If using the standard pin numbers, Pins 5 and 7 need to be reversed end to end, not 2 and 4 as indicated in the manual. However, if you follow the graphic in the manual you will be fine. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM Edit: Here are the current pinout findings.

I am fortunate that a local amateur radio operator has a repeater available. It is done properly on a 400 ft tower. The repeater covers the entire county and portions of adjacent counties. My initial itch for my own repeater was because I live in a low lying area and needed help getting over a hump to reach my wife’s mobile when she is at work. Once I discovered the local amateur radio club, I joined and got access to the repeater. It eliminated all desire to set up my own repeater. Like you mention, GMRS is not wildly popular. For the most part it is only we two who use it, with the occasional visit from one of the hams. If the repeater owner ever decides to stop maintaining the repeater, I may very well become interested in building my own again. Fortunately, my coverage needs are modest, about 10 miles. We probably could blast through most of that distance on 40 Watt simplex, except for the hump right in the middle.