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Preface: This thread isn’t to start a war against 2 different manufactures… you do you! I’m sharing the FACTS of what I’ve done here and the experiences that me and my users have had! You can leave the arguments off this thread! Kayyyyyy, thanks, bye! I have to share this success story because it’s worth everyone reading IMO. I will start by stating that I’m well over 5 figures in on the Rugged 575 repeater in Naperville, IL on a commercial tower which has the receive antenna at the top at 300’ and the transmit 50’ further down at 250’ (Which I paid to install). It’s been quite a learning experience and I don’t care how much money you may have; experience wins here! You can check the repeater listing for the back-story and read from the bottom up: https://mygmrs.com/repeater/3838 I’ve had this repeater on air since 8/17/2020. As a whole, it’s worked VERY well for what I need for my family and for the hobby in the suburbs of Chicago. While it doesn’t have near the traffic as other local repeaters (Joliet 550 which is another local only repeater (Not linked) which is also taller), it’s stayed on the air 24/7/365 with zero down time. The repeater was the VERY CHEAPEST component in this ENTIRE build with the antenna, feed line, and tower climbers costing FARRRRRRRRRR MORE of course. In the words of Corey, a $1,000 radio with a $30 antenna is a $30 radio and a $30 radio with a $1,000 antenna is a $1,000 radio. This is and always will remain true and he is correct 100%. With this theory, off I was with a cheap $365 Kenwood TKR-850 which was also aligned by Corey up in Wisconsin (Thanks again for your help here sir!) with a massive antenna and feed line system. It worked VERY well for the last year and a half and is still a working backup system at this point. I was also lucky to finally tie into the sites master UHF receive antenna at the top through a 1-8 split multi-coupler (so no duplexer as I’m using 2 different antennas) which made ALL the difference in the world VS using 1 antenna with a duplexer. Fast forward a year and a half later we come to the Motorola Quantar which I finally had the time to take on and install and has been installed for about 2 weeks now with ZERO changes since I left the tower site! This Motorola Quantar repeater *IS*, up until now 2/26/2022, the best repeater you can get according to the people I’m surrounded by that know more than I do about it – You all know who you are! They are *ALL* right (again, I never said they were wrong!). I never doubted them or thought they were wrong, but I wasn’t “in tune” with the whole, IMO, “overhyped” Motorola game to say the least. (Can you blame me?!) Here it is in plain text: I WAS WRONG ABOUT MOTOROLA. In particular the receive is INSANE, which always has been the selling point of this particular repeater and it’s one of the main reasons why this repeater excels over Kenwood (and others I’m sure but I cannot comment as I have no personal experience) ... It’s hard to fully explain in writing but the Quantar has *ALL* the things that “normal” repeaters (any brand other than Motorola) simply don’t have and simply put, it runs C-I-R-C-L-E-S around the Kenwood TKR-850. Without getting too complicated, a pre-selector being the most important part is key here combined with a receiver that makes a Kenwood look like a children’s play toy. The experts that know more about it can explain better but it’s more of a “system” than “just a repeater”. This is why it takes up 3 times more rack space and sucks down electricity like Darjeeling even at standby… Anyways, getting on 2 separate antennas with 50’ of vertical separation was the first BIG step basically doubling the usable coverage especially for hand held radios which was done last year. The 2nd step was the Quantar which doubled everything yet again. Many of you see Quantars on Ebay for $800 or $1,000 bucks and its hit or miss… I can assure you that by the time you’re done getting it CORRECTLY tuned and shipping it to and back, you can simply DOUBLE that number. I’ll put the numbers below so you can actually see but it’s NOT cheap. Sunny Communications out of Cali has done me right numerous times and they are the one that provided this Quantar this time too! Now for the tuning: A big shout out to Mark Dannon at Northcomm in Plano, TX. This man deserves a gold medal and is a FORCE to reckon with. His intelligence, experience, and overall willingness to not only help and DO IT RIGHT from beginning to end is just the start in addition to his post-sales support. He has equipment that your normal “radio shop” simply doesn’t have, and he *DOES* do it better. I’d even challenge ANY radio shop to tune a Qunatar, then send it to him and he’d make it even better. I’m LITERALLY not a spokes person for this guy or his company and I am *NOT* being paid to put this review here but what he has *IS BETTER* than any other “radio shop” and he specializes in Motorola Quantars too. I have to iterate this loud and clear that your repeater is only as good as the equipment that tuned it and this guy has it all dialed in and WILL run circles around others even with “$40,000 worth of equipment” (measly) … Trust me here as he has far more than that… In closing, I want to state some insane improvements which the numbers show in plain text proving its worth. I’m redacting names and call signs but if you read this and recognize the scenario then you know who you are!! 1) A gentleman in the SAME TOWN only 6 miles east, in a VERY, VERY hard to service area in low elevation next to several high rises blocking the signal couldn’t even get in on an HT 6 miles away, had to stand on his balcony to BARELY SCRAPE IN now get in now gets in FULL QUIETING on a 5W HT anywhere in his apartment. 2) A gentleman 59 miles away who could barely scrape in 2/10 quality on his 50W mobile and couldn’t even hear the repeater on his HT now gets in 9/10 almost full quieting on his mobile and can hear a conversation loud and clear in his living room on an HT 59 miles away with the same 50W of power going back out. Even better, he can get in 4-5/10 quality on his 5W HT but he has to be OUTSIDE to do so… Literally how is this possible… The curvature of the earth alone is in the way. No this isn’t a band opening; this is EVERY DAY…. 3) Personally, I could scrape in with a 1/10 quality (literally all static) on the first level of my sister’s house in Downers Grove, IL which is only a measly 11.15 miles away from the tower is now 8/10 almost full quieting on the first level on a 5W HT (Tree city, trust me here). Was 6/10 on house level 2 is now 10/10 loud & booming full quieting from the 2nd level of her house on the same 5W HT. 4) Another gentleman hasn’t EVER even been able to even key the repeater from his work on a 5W HT can now get in with a 7/10 in quality. More perfection… 5) And for me personally… I’m only 9.5 miles from the repeater at my house…. Not far, right? Except when I wiggled/moved around just a bit people couldn’t tell I was moving around…. Now I can be crazy with my 5W HT and hold it sideways like you see in the movies (DUMB), walk around while talking and literally no one even notices… Literally no picket – fencing… Like some magical sorcery… Literally I’m not making this up… Upon talking to others, we’ve noted that the Kenwood TKR-850 was a $1200 - $1600 repeater when new VS the Quantar being $20,000 - $25,000 new…. Well, it shows… Damn does it show… I’d encourage ANY wide area repeater owner to upgrade whatever system you have to a Motorola Quantar (With the right tuning!!!) and TRUST me, you and your users will be glad you did. I’m not knocking Kenwood (Well I am for their repeaters) but literally the Quantar has it beat hand over fist! Sorry, this might sting to some but for others it’s a “Duh, I told you so” situation! I still have THOUSANDS of dollars’ worth of GOOD Kenwood radios… (NX300’s, NX800 Mobiles, TK8360’s, etc etc etc) and I’m *NOT* going to go and replace them all…. I’m still going to use them; but I’ll be DAMNED if I don’t think twice…. THREE times before considering another radio purchase and trust me, I have a LOT of radios lol! They say Motorola invented the 2-way radio and now I see how & why. Thanks for your time and feel free to comment and leave questions below. I’ll do my best to answer them between work and life.

+1 on this.....but then there is the joke, just because you can do something, doesn't mean that you should do something. I once saw in the military, a Marine connect about 100 feet of RG-58 coax onto an Icom IC-F43GS handheld radio. Upon further inspection, I noticed it was not even a continuous length of coax, but several lengths of RG-58 with BNC connectors and barrel adapters in between each segment (and adapter at the antenna connection to the radio). He wondered why he could not hear anyone or get out during transmit. This became a training moment on radio theory and coax line loss.

Congrats!!, it sounds like you've reached the same conclusion I've reached as well. Motorola is not hype as they would have you believe, that is for sure. Totally agree, experience wins a lot of contests, for sure. @gortex2The only reason the "do it cheap crowd" gets away with their cheap stuff because guys like @JB007Ruleshave spent 5 figures on their repeater setup, so the overpriced pieces of garbage trash CCR radios have any hopes of working: Simple as that. Well, I think depends on what 30 dollar radio you are talking about, but in general most cheap radios mated to a 1k antenna will desense really bad, so you'll end up with a deaf radio. You'll need to add several hundreds of dollars of filtering to the 30$ radio front end (or lack thereof) just to make it work. I am certain the ISOtee on that Quantar is off-the-charts good... and all Kenwood radios I've ISOteed were not that great. Even the Vertex Standard radios were only marginally better, but there was a jump going from everything else to Motorola, even the 6550 receiver beats every Kenwood radio I've tested to date. Tuning goes a very very long way (understatement here). as I've found that tuning the radios correctly can make the difference between 3 miles and 30 miles with ease!! Given the cost of used Motorola gear, IMO, once your eyes are opened, there is no reason to ever go back to inferior equipment. G. EDIT: Forgot to say this (again), but there is a reason why the longest running, furthest reaching radios ever made by humanity are made by Motorola. Yes, the Voyager probes have Motorola radios... been running non-stop since the 70s, and they are past the Heliosphere, or about 14.4 billion miles from Earth (as of 11/2021)... so, if you want range, think only Motorola (except the R7 turd... ) How far does your light shine?

As a former Zetron/JVC/Kenwood Group engineer, I'll second the, "I'll spend my money on Motorola first" epiphany, due to real world experience. Great write up on the details and advice given here. Currently, I am sitting on about 100 corporate Quantar repeaters, 800 MHz units that served the company well for a decade, only to be replaced with GTR8000's as a planned replacement/upgrade. They sit in storage until a new site needs to be stood up, as they just work. I mentioned how they were the "cockroach" of the radio world when corporate wanted me to surplus them, as they would probably still work throughout the next ice age, doing their job until something physically breaks. Sadly, 800 MHz spectrum is becoming hard to come by, and I wish they had been UHF 450-470 MHz Quantars, as they would be more useful to me now in 2022. Like the OP, I will not be getting rid of any of my Kenwood gear either, but look at the use case and decide from that what to spend. (Often being Motorola, but I did buy a Radioddity GM-30/DB20-G package and an Anytone AT-878DUV II Plus a while back as well.) Also a +1 on SunnyComm, has worked with them for many years as well. Out of several hundred radios, only two were ever received in non-working order, both due to damage in shipment. However, they made good on them, and have a great repair policy as well. Will continue to work with them as much as possible. Great people, and business there. (I have made purchases on behalf of my employer and my own hobby use with Used-Radios.com/SunnyComm.)

@HCCFCA This looks like a great source and advertiser/supporter of the site, too. https://www.buytwowayradios.com/tram-1126-b.html @wayoverthere no doubt. 410MHz-490MHz is outstanding.

Nice wide tuning too..1/4 wave was my thought also...the Laird 1/4 wave ive used/was thinking of is around the same size, but rated much narrower (450-470mhz).

Thanks for the advice. I have settled on the CX-333. FYI, I passed my Technician Exam this past Saturday.

All 3 pictures look like a much better situation. If the back window positions the antenna higher than your head, that would be the better location for both health and radio performance.

I recall when my previous employer in the oil industry started to receive Motorola Trbo XPR8400 repeaters and XPR6550 handhelds. I used my Aeroflex 3550A test set to check for receive sensitivity (UHF), which was between 0.17-0.20 uV. My boss said "I don't believe you", so he walked down to the lab and grabbed a few handhelds and checked for himself. He was impressed, as previous radios (Motorola PR1500's) were no around 0.25-0.35 uV, everything else being the same. In spec for UHF, but not as good as the digital capable handhelds. The XPR8400's and Quantars were essentially the same, with the XPR series repeater having digital capability, it was a one for one swap infrastructure wise. Those surplus UHF Quantars ended up in many local Auxiliary Communication Service (ACS) roles ever since (this was around 2010 or so). Quantars are one of the best repeaters ever made, and will serve any person or organization well.

Another poster started a similar thread for KG-1000G and I thought it was such a great idea, I figured I'd start one for KG-935G. Some of this may apply to the KG-XS20G (manuals look very similar) or to other KGs. Here's one I'll start with (and it has much to do with the software): Scan Groups Preface: The KG-935G has 999 memory slots. Scanning channels is fairly slow. Priority Channel scan is a great idea, but implemented globally (vs within a scan-group). If you visit different areas frequently, its best to scan only the stuff near you. If you have less than 100 channels of interest in any given area (I have 25 at most in any geographic area), this may help you. Aside from where I live, I regularly visit 2 areas, and less frequently visit 2 others. Using the (less than great) Wouxun software: First: Renumber all scan groups to Group1=100-199, Group2=200-299, etc etc (I made Group10=001-099). This makes it such that any channel's first digit is the same as the scan group number. (out of the box, group 2 runs from 100, to 199. Not so intuitive later on...) Second, create a fake "Channel" at 100, 200, 300, 400, etc. Set it to no transmit, Scan Add = OFF, and give it a name for your areas of interest. For example, I have: 100="<HOME>" [settings: Rx 137.1, TX off, TX Power low, Mode narrow] 200="<DFW>" (Dallas) 300="<ETex>" (east Texas) 400= "<Hou>" (Houston) 800="<HotList" (stuff I might like to hear anywhere) several others. I left channels 1-99 factory stock. Finally, separate all of your regional channels under the appropriate bank. For example, I have Tyler GMRS repeater in 311, DallasFire at 255. The Northwest Houston GMRS repeater in 401. You could further subdivide these by band, service, interest (e.g. 200=DFWGMRS, 400=HouGMRS, 500 Hou-HAM, 600-HOUfire) so you only scan GMRS for your area, or all the HAMs in an area, or only Fire/Police in another. After doing that, it is a simple matter to use the radio's menu keyboard to set the scan group to match wherever you find yourself. And here's the true magic: Because you renumbered the groups, and stored a fake "label" channel at x00... if you ever forget, you can just key in "200", "400", etc, to see the channel group label ("<DFW>" & "<Hou>" in my case). Press UP Arrow to quickly find the channel you want, or set the scan group to #2 and you're scanning all the channels you saved for that "region" (Dallas on my radio). Now it's your turn: Have any tips/tricks for KG-935G (or very closely related) radios? Post them here!

Yeah...whatever you Motorola Snobs are just angry my 200 dollar Retevis RT97 does the same thing. ::Heavy sarcasm::

Tram 1126-B works fantastic and is very low profile. I have been using it for years and love it.

I'm going to do this right, so I ordered the specific-purposed suction mount for an NMO that Steve suggested -that I missed entirely - and will place it top center/hinge area of the glass over the engine compartment as Marc suggested. If I had seen this method it would have saved us all a lot of conversation once I realized nothing else would work. So now we have the mount figured out... Antenna suggestions (I want to keep the antenna relatively short) What do y'all suggest Tram 1174? Midland Ghost? Other candidates? Continue to appreciate all your help. We're almost done.

And in the end, that's all we can do...help understand the features and limitations, so users get the radio that meets their needs...one of those "right tool for the job" kinda things. My 50x1 was a great learning tool, but I wanted more. For some use case, midlands are fine radio, while others, not so much.

It wasn't so much price as it was features. Specifically, the ability to add additional GMRS frequencies/channels into memory, which cannot be done. I never suggested it was a 'bad radio', just that for the money, there are other radios available that provided more of what one might expect in an over $200 (Chinese) radio (and I exclude the KG-1000). Indeed, there are many sub $200 radios that offer a lot more capability. All that said, it seems the radio meets your needs and I am happy for you. The 50x1 simply did not meet my needs or expectations for a radio in the $200+ price range. IMHO, the 50x1, while a perhaps a good performing radio (RF wise), is anything but a good value at $220 given it's lack of flexibility when it comes to memories/programming. If there was any benefit to me from purchasing it, it was the learning experience and a lesson in doing your research before buying. As noted, I returned the radio the next day. However, as always, to each their own.

Agreed...imo, that side window is the best balance so far for getting it up and out, and still leaving an easy cable routing

With all due respect to posters above and with complete understanding of the shortcomings, I have to tell you that for $400 ( which is $30 less than single 1000 unit) I got two 50x1 units. These are working perfectly fine as a base and mobile radios. I can monitor 4 frequencies at the same time. And its powerful enough for what I need. Working in tandem with a fleet of different HTs, including two 935g units - I am covered 360 degrees. After all 1000 is priced at $370 now and 50x1 is $220. I am sure 1000 worth every penny. But is it a great value at $370? I don't think so. 50x1 is a great value at $220.

As for where to place the DB20, that's still up in the air too. The previous picture was just to test power. Italian cars are not know for their robustness, well robust anything (except maybe the engine ?. But she powered up with the car on and transmitted. I have a cupholder with bracket but it's about an inch too tall, well, probably 2 inches to provide some air flow. I feel I'm getting closer and will look forward to any and all suggestions. This may work after all.

Chapter 3: Why didn't I see this earlier, Steve? I have LOTS of glass... Do any of these work guys?

On your DB20-G, if you push the FUN button on the radio, a menu should appear. If you use the V/M key for UP and MAIN key for DOWN, scroll through the Menu and see if you can get to Menu 01:T-CDC with "Off" or a number below it. If you can get into 01:T-CDC with your radio keypad, then you can use the Up and Down arrow keys above the FUN key to scroll through the available CTCSS tones to get to the specific one to enable your access to the specific repeater. A Receive tone is not needed for now. If you cannot get into 01:T-CDC, but it scrolls through other Menu items, then it appears to me that you will have to use the programming software to program the necessary CTCSS tones. I continue to do research about this issue and programming from the radio, but it seems this ability is limited when the radio comes out of the box as a GMRS only radio.

Beyond having a very sensitive (hot) front end, the Quantar was also very selective, a difficult combination to achieve. I'm surprised to hear that the Quantar transmitter at 50 watts greatly out-performed the Kenwood transmit at 50 watts. I'd have to think that the Kenwood was falling short in either Deviation or it was off frequency. Lesser radios do tend to have some frequency drift as they warm up. The good stuff will be rock steady on frequency center. The biggest thing I've noticed with Quantars (and their cousins the MTR2000) is that all the internal audio processing is done with PCM (pulse coded modulation) - so any noise or hum is filtered out, and only the audio is passed. That would effectively mean that the MTR's and Quantars were full quieting with a receive signal strength of less than .35uV (around -116 dBm) - which is where many commercial radios are just beginning to break squelch.

Larger diameter wire/tube tends to increase the bandwidth of the antenna. That's why when you look at a disk-cone commonly used for scanner applications the vertical element has a bunch of wires to increase the bandwidth so its a better match to the feed line. On a simple 1/4 wave ground plane at mid to high VHF and low UHF 3 to 4 ground radials is usually enough. Adding more won't make much difference. I built a simple 1/4 ground plane, 4 wire radials, out of a BNC socket and 1/16 inch buss wire. I got a 2:1 SWR bandwidth from 430 MHz to 470 MHz after tweaking the element lengths a bit and radial down angle. Looks sort of dumb but works good enough when I went to the Dayton Hamvention a couple of years.Hattenna UHF SWR Scan Results.pdfHattenna UHF SWR Scan Results.pdf If you want to get into modeling software for antennas try looking at this package. The guy has retired and doesn't feel like providing further support so he just made it license free to use. I've used it a bit on and off since V3. It does a good job in most cases. https://www.eznec.com/

It was the twelfth post on the first page where I posted this link: https://www.amazon.com/Rugged-Radios-NMO-SC-Suction-Antenna/dp/B08177PQPH

Did I miss this suggestion?: vacuum mount? I have one in a drawer somewhere that I used for a radar detector. Let me check it out.

I’m curious why the vacuum mount wouldn’t work.

Internally, repeaters consist of at least two radios. The MXT500 is only one. Depending upon how you built everything else in the system out, including whether you used one antenna or two, whether you were using a duplexer, and whether or not you built custom circuitry to allow you to integrate a mic while the two radios are interconnected, then perhaps. The Wouxon KG-1000G is the only Part 95e radio I know of that is built to be used as a component of a custom limited-use repeater build, and OffRoaderX did it. It has the internal circuitry necessary for interconnecting two like models, and has modes for changing the radios behavior to operate as components of a repeater system. If using this model, yes you could use its mic to transmit while the radio is configured as a repeater, but only on the repeater Tx frequency. However, to use the radios for general comms you would need to be using separate antennas and you would need to switch the radios back into standard mode. My advice, if you want a repeater, buy and put up a purpose built repeater. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Thanks for the real world experience from a repeater owner. When some folks talk about spending good funds on doing it right it gets over shadowed by the do it cheap crowd. I ran very similar equipment for SAR up until last year more because we can only afford what we can afford. 2 sites had the Kenwood TKR850 (VHF). All sites got replaced with Quantars and also went simulcast. Granted its night and day with simulcast but the biggest advantage is the sound quality in my book. It sounds like a radio. Good luck with your site.

Absolutely. There's considerations on routing, type of cable, and power loss in the cable to account for along the way, but overall, yes it can be done, as long as your radio has a removable antenna.

Welcome to the forum and welcome to the wonderful and exciting world of GMRS! Word of warning: Soon you'll be selling a kidney to buy every new radio you see those clowns on Youtube playing with...

You need to scroll to where you see the map dialog and drag the myGMRS icon to where it belongs.

I own and use all 3 of those radios, and they are all great. The 9G Pro is a bit more complicated than then 905G which is very simple & easy to use. The 1000G is probably the best GMRS mobile unit you can buy today.

I have used glass mounts before. Its a compromise, but they work(ish). It will be better than an HT. Just be sure you don't trash the window seal when you roll it up. I would be more prone to use this... Uses something like superglue to mount to the glass. It will look a lot cleaner and when you decide to remove it, you will never know it was on the glass. https://www.amazon.com/TRAM-1192-Pre-Tuned-150-154-Dual-Band/dp/B07B9V77BH/ref=asc_df_B07B9V77BH/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=270610367741&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=14561024409338638345&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9008161&hvtargid=pla-574076094856&psc=1

There is an anomaly when using the weather alert on the KG-935G and the KG-XS20G. When selected 'On' and scanning in area A, the scan will be continuously interrupted while it interrogates the NOAA weather channels for an alert tone. This is very distracting and inefficient. There are two ways to work around this "feature"; (1) Turn off weather alert or (2) Set your scan in area B where it will not be interrupted. The weather scan only occurs in area A. If you find your scan still being interrupted by the weather frequencies, no matter what you do, then set Scan Mode to 'CO'

Add repeater input frequencies into your scan lists as a way to learn who is talking on repeaters that may be within simplex range of you. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

So I did talk to a guy in Marion Ohio today on the 675 repeater. He was mobile, with a 15 watt radio. So the coverage from the site to the Northwest and North seems pretty good.

On forums some people ask questions to hear the answers, some people ask questions to hear their glorious selves. No difference from the real life.

And this folks is what happens when someone asks something that they should KNOW the answer to..... like "if I transmit DMR into an analog repeater, will another DMR user hear me" which should be obviously NO. And at that point, one would have to assume the other person or people in the thread will assume you know NOTHING of radio and the underlying technology OR you do know and are asking really silly questions to irritate the folks in the thread. Then we need to retort by talking about all the effort put forward to further GMRS and it's users. The TWO HUNDRED dollar a month electric bill, hosting TWO repeaters on the site,,, or the taxes, building upkeep, repeater upkeep, overall mundane site maintenance like mowing the grass. Na.... I don't do ANYTHING to contribute. Not one damn thing. And while the two GMRS repeaters are NOT the only radio equipment on the site,,,, the fact its' done for FREE. Well don't see any effort there. Whats wrong with subscription fee's??? You're gonna ask ME that. The guy that has two repeaters that cover 7 counties in Ohio that are free to use by ALL what's wrong with fee's. Simple, if you can't afford to have a repeater on the air,, take up a limited number of repeater pairs, and think you should be somehow entitled to MONEY for your effort... well screw you. That's whats WRONG with FEES. Go spend 48K on a tower site. 1800 a year on taxes. 15K to rehab the site. Then put a GMRS repeater on the air FOR FREE and support all this out of pocket and then question me about fee's... I have tried to be nice... I am done with that. You don't like me... fine... You don't like what I have to say... don't read my posts. You want to get on my thread, and ask stupid questions that my WIFE actually laughed at because SHE knew you can't TX DMR into an analog repeater and have it come out the other side as DMR. NO,,, I am gonna call you out on it. I brought up post counts because if you were some noob with 5 or 10 posts, the question is relevant and you would be deserving of a real explanation. Not the case here. Oh, BTW,,, she is an accountant. I am the professional radio guy. She's just been around it enough to know better. Only chimed in... but are done with ME and the thread. The what the hell are you still posting for? You said you will stay out of my lane and ask that I stay out of yours. So I said NOTHING and stayed in my lane. PAY ATTENTION,,,, YOUR TURN SIGNAL is STILL on from the lane change there bud. Here you are.... back in my lane. So at this point... this whole thing has been hijacked. It needs closed or deleted.

Update to this build out. At this point. I will not be building out 625 or 575. I have encountered both analog and DMR repeaters??? on these frequencies in the coverage area that the system exists in. The coverage footprint would be identical to the repeaters I have on the air at 725 and 675 and this would not be fair or reasonable for those system operators to attempt to compete with my coverage footprint. If those frequencies clear at a later date and no other repeater exists on those frequencies, or I am approached by those system owners wishing to plug their repeater into my combiner and share my antenna system. I have zero interest in interfering with other open systems. And I will work to maintain coverage for other GMRS users as long as there is a perceived need. At this point I am going to redirect my efforts at setting up the dispatch console and the resources for it. And increasing the HF antenna performance from the site.

OK,,, progress update. Have two repeaters on the air now. 725 and 675. the 675 has traveler PL in it. Need to get 675 on the console and both on the logging recorder. But that's not a big deal. When we added the second repeater and went to the split antenna's the talk out suffered and we ended up installing a Station Master antenna on the TX combiner to make up for the loss. This will most likely end up being a db420 before long though. I am still not happy with it as it don't talk out like it did with the 408 on the top of the tower. Combiner is tuned for 735, 675 625 and 575. If these two get busy I will add another repeater. But I doubt that is gonna happen. Number of users on 725 never really took off like I thought it might so we will see how things go. Site is now going to have public safety radio equipment in it and will meet all requirements for that level of communications equipment. Meaning battery / UPS with generator. So the repeaters WILL have 100% expected up time short of equipment failure. Repeaters are listed on here. As stated on the listings these are OPEN repeaters and if you hear us on feel free to say hello. For short comms, 725 is fine... If you are going to rag chew, please use 675 and leave holes for others to join in. Access IS FREE... donations of useful equipment and cash are always welcome but NOT required for access. We are looking at installing solar and wind generation gear and hope to have the repeaters with GREEN power.

Exact same reason I have both GMRS and ham (technician) licenses. Emergency and vacation comms with the family, and ham for me to branch out further. All good, IMHO. Cheers, Ken WRFC318 / K0RVW

Yep, I read the manual and watched some video tutorials. CHIRP is just faster for me.