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Epilogue... It's a happy ending. Thanks for everyone's advice and links to radio and antenna mounts and an antenna, All was installed and tested to 8 miles Simplex to base this morning. I was amazed that this tiny Tram antenna bested the roof magnetic mount Nagoya UT-72G on my SUV with the same radio (I need to check the SWR on that install). And no drilling or other alterations to the Ferrari were necessary and it's all temporary. The car will be ready for the caravan drives with the car club. 1. Tram 1126-B 2. Rugged Radio suction cup antenna mount 3. NMO mount & RG58 cable 4. Rugged Radio/Scosche cup holder mount (modified to work)

Sounds like the door-chime at my local Kwikee Mart.

Thanks for the suggestion. I decided to go with a Liard FG4603. Still want to figure out what the deal with th Comet is.

What does “duty cycle” mean? I bring up duty cycle every time I hear somebody talking about making a repeater out of cheap Chinese mobiles and worse any type of handhelds. Duty cycle is the maximum time an amplifier may transmit within a five minute interval, expressed as a percentage, to avoid overheating. Suppose a mobile amplifier is rated at 30% duty cycle. This means that it may transmit for no longer than 1.5 minutes and must remain off for not less than 3.5 minutes. Some people forget that a repeater is transmitting for 2 or more people, duty cycle will be reached quickly if you get into conversation. More people in the conversation just amplifies the issue. Once a radio reaches it's thermal design limits it will no longer be able to adequately cool the output transistors. Even if a radio is not hot to the touch the transistors are, in part because of the inefficient transfer of heat to the units housing or internal heat sink. The longer you exceed the duty cycle the more heat builds on the transistors, surrounding electronics and heat sink effecting it's ability to remain on frequency without spurious emissions. Exceed duty cycle long enough and you will need a new transmitter or radio. I have tested a few Baofang and TYT radios on my service monitor without great results. All of the radios started deviating outside of the allotted channel bandwidth after simulated conversation at 50% duty cycle, the longer I allowed this the worse if got. Testing was done using an Aeroflex 2975 IFR recently back from the calibration lab. GMRS is a tiny sliver of spectrum surrounded by the commercial land mobile part 90 service. It is important that any repeaters that are built or re-purposed are held to the highest standards and operated as to not cause any interference inside or outside of our allocated spectrum. I wont get into the part 90/95 debate but i do stand firm that non certified import equipment has no place on GMRS.

Mike they say on one it’s ok. But I’ve not heard anything on that channel yet. So I don’t know if I’m on or not. The other one says permission required. One person asked for the tones almost 20/days ago still nothing. Where I live in New Jersey there are not so many repeaters I can log onto. Three actually an I am on one but even with that one I’m on its very quiet. I only have the handhold so my output is just the 5 watts. I’m still new to this. Appreciate your ongoing help. bob

Look at it this way: I’m a ham and a gmrs licensee. Once the GMRS license comes down and the ham license goes up, I’ll still be paying exactly the same average cost for comm licenses. ?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/224684607008?epid=1800453427&hash=item34503f0620:g:VfgAAOSwdh9gAbBL

If the FCC admits in writing that Part 90 equipment is perfectly legal to use in GMRS, again, in a written memo that you can show to the tower owner, then that would be "by the book". I don't understand what the issue is here. Again, without reading the memo, and the proper legal representation on the matter, anything said here is just speculation, hearsay, and to me its also fear mongering from the Kenwood guys that after a Motorola repeater beat the crap out of a Kenwood repeater... so now lets attack Motorola superior equipment because it lacks certification, and that black SUVs and fines can come piling down your door.... so you should instead buy inferior Part 95 equipment... Sorry, I've played that game before: and I'll stick with Motorola and their superior Part 90 stuff. In fact, in my opinion, the Quantar is most likely superior to anything repeater Kenwood has ever made (hence why it costs x10 times more, right?), and the OP post just confirms it. Also, the OP post also confirms what I've been seeing for the past two years from ISOteeing different brand radios. The question is, why is it so hard to admit that the Quantar its just a better repeater out of the box? Get one, stop complaining that the Kenwood could be better if tuned, etc... just get a Quantar and be done with it, just like the OP did, or just like I did I went Motorola on all my equipment, sold the inferior stuff, and never looked back. Making any claims that the XPR7550e could be an equal to the APX8000 with some tuning or whatever will server no purpose, these two radios will never be equal, not even close. So when I see threads of APX guys bashing the XPR radios I simply steer clear, there is no point in denying a fact, except indicate someone might be jealous. Now, what I can tell you I'll do is that when I have enough cash burning holes in my pockets I'll get myself a whole fleet of these shiny APX8000 radios and join the Luxury Transceiver exclusive club with style, and probably dump the inferior XPR7550e... until then, the order of things is APX8000 > XPR7550e G.

I can recommend bluemax49ers programming cable. It works with both the TK-840(N) and the TK880-H 1

link for software https://hamfiles.co.uk/index.php?page=downloads&type=entry&id=radio-programming%2Fkenwood-programming%2Fkpg-76d_v100 also can confirm that the programming cable is 8-pin however it only utilizes 4 ( 3v txd rxd and ground ) cant recommend a cable as I build my own using a usb to ttl converter CP2102 , have heard a lot of good reviews about bluemax49ers cables https://www.ebay.com/usr/bluemax49ers?_trksid=p2047675.l2559