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I have a Tram 1486 and i tuned mine because the instructions said I had to - following the instructions to cut both the top and bottom sections, I tuned it to 467.700 because it is for a repeater... But when I checked the tune on 462.700, the SWR was still a very low - dont remember exactly what it was, but under 3:1.

Forgot to mention..Thanks for reminding me... Always beware of the "some people" that try their best overcomplicate everything.

I'm on a repeater and was going to go with 465 but since SWR is for the TX, I wasn't sure. Didn't want to start cutting if I wasn't sure. Thanks!!

You’re best off tuning it for your transmission frequency. If that is strictly in the 467 range then tune to that. If it is divided between 467 and 462 then tuning to 465 works.

Using the cable that came with the RT97? Just for fun, try UNinstalling, then installing the software again, but run the installer "As Administrator", then after installing when you run the programming software, run it also "As Administrator" and see if that makes any difference. and.. See if you can see the cable in Device Manager - should show up under USB/Serial Devices (IIRC).. make sure its not showing any errors.. .... or... you might need to try a newer OR older driver for the cable depending on what version of Windows you are using.

That's a sad post to read; but I also think it's great that they posted the story directly and cleanly for the community to digest; it's disappointing that they weren't able to get the support they needed. Many don't realize the hard work and costs (be it direct or merit based) it takes to put up a good repeater on a good site; it's not just the hardware costs, it's the maintenance of the gear, it's the work to earn your keep there or pay the bill or both, it's the fuel to drive to these places which can be hours away, it all adds up both financially and in terms of time. These machines are ubiquitous, such a tremendous part of people's every day use yet in the background so that it's not realized that someone has to put them up and keep them up, someone has to pay for them in one way or another, someone has the balance their work/family time to look after them, and yet they're often made freely available to the community because it provides a public service for the greater good. They were assessed $125/month to be on a tower covering the bay area and then some; in reality this in itself is an amazing rental rate for a site covering small city let alone the bay area! Support your local GMRS groups! It's hard, time consuming, and expensive work to provide these machines. If you can't do this financially; help pull some weight in other ways - step up as net control operator, help out newcomers, buy someone a beer, and if for whatever reason you can't do that, at least be courteous and don't complain that you can't receive it S9+60dB on a Boafeng in your mom's reinforced concrete basement 80 miles away.

Well regardless of reasons when you sign a contract to be on a tower things need followed. We ran into this when I was at the radio shop. Our owner let a small ham club on the tower and the install was horrible. He gave them 3 months to resolve the issues. They did nothing so he kicked them out. Regardless of service its not your property. In todays world I can't imagine the tower owner didn't kick the stuff out already. When rent isn't paid normally it was 3 months and I went and powered off the equipment until we got paid. Sounds harsh but its the reality. Lessons learned by that club. This also enforces the issue to all the new folks on this board buying $25.00 radios the real cost of repeater ownership and time commitments it takes to do a proper site.

The spurs are in section 5.9 starting on page 23. I don't know, I doubt it though since the radio got a "PASS". Hey thanks for the link on the GRANT.. It took me a while but I finally figured out what to click in their search results to see how you got it Lol! This is a great thread.. lots of info. Ken

These days, with the reorganization of FRS and GMRS (which prohibits marketing of "FRS/GMRS" bubble-pack radios, the odds are very good that anything found in a "big box" store is labeled as just FRS yet still allowed up to 2W power. No license required. Unlikely to find things like the Baofeng UV-5G in those stores (though Amazon does have a pair for $52 sale; and that page does specify license required.

It's called the Open Repeater Initiative. It failed. There was a nationwide group of repeater owners who participated with the Open Repeater Initiative to set their ch20 pair (462.675/467.675) to use tone 141.3 (known as 4a). The idea was, to make the repeater open to the traveling public through common knowledge. If you found a repeater on the rCH 20 pair with a 4a PL, the assumption was to be that you don't need special permission to use that repeater.

Ahhh, no. I am all for people that know what they are doing putting up good equipment after they have PROPERLY identified an open repeater pair in their area that will not interfere with the operations of others. I am willing to assist folks that want to do it right, work with other repeater / system owners to minimize interference and create additional coverage in area's that are lacking any current coverage. But I don't really think it's a good idea for EVERYONE to put up a repeater. First problem is the definition of a repeater. And depending on who you talk to that ranges from a quality 100% duty cycle commercial repeater and duplexer on an antenna of reasonable height to two mobiles or even handhelds taped together with an vehicle antenna on a wall mount screwed to the peak of a roof on a one story garage. And what that sort of this does is screw with a big repeater because the person that was told they needed to put up a repeater did so without even bothering to check the frequency first to see if there was another one that covered their area. You need to monitor a frequency for a MONTH before thinking you can use it. You need to setup a PC with a VOX audio recorder like ScannerRecorder that will record any traffic on that repeater output. And you need to do this with an antenna that's outside and up at least 30 feet. If you can't do that, IMO, you don't need to even consider putting up a repeater. We are limited to 8 repeater pairs for all of GMRS, everywhere. And repeater owners need to cooperate with each other to manage this resource. Failure to do so will just create problems.