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The best antennas for bandwidth are the ones designed for single band, commercial use. Dual and tri-band antennas are all compromises made to tweak the antenna to work acceptably.

In your vehicle or your house? In your house just use a 115vac power supply In a vehicle using an inverter to get 115vac and then a 115vac power supply to get 13.8vdc is inefficient. Just run it off the battery. Your output will suffer very slightly when the engine is off because your battery probably provides 12.7vdc then.

They both have good audio fidelity, but the KG-1000 has a better class of receiver. It has a better ability to discriminate between noise and weak signals, making it a better receiver.

Connected to C201-R201-R202-L200 filter. Looks like an input for a secondary receiver, behind the antenna switch. Maybe for scanner working off the same antenna? That would explain BNC connector too. Clever, I need to remember this for possible future installs. Edit: the more I look at it, the more I think this is for a scanner working off the same antenna. The tap is behind the antenna switch (to not fry the receiver) and before the L203 band pass filter (to keep wide band receive). Refer to page 28, fig 2 in service manual.

For receive, the main criteria is length -- longer antenna "captures" more input signal; tuning for frequency/SWR is less critical unless you are really into weak-signal work. Transmit, OTOH...

13 amps should be fine. Midland FAQS say any power supply exceeding 15 amps. https://midlandusa.com/products/mxt575-micromobile®two-way-radio That’s almost certainly estimated conservatively, but a radio that puts out 50 watts of RF power must consume more than 50 watts of electrical power. At 13.8 volts the very minimum the radio can draw while putting out 50 watts must exceed 3.62 amps, so 2.5 amps isn’t right unless the radio was putting out much less RF.

Had good Conversation with owner of this Yagi! Comes in real good and quiet. Can't really Roast Something if It can do the Job!

According to Duracomm literature, its good for 13a 13.8vdc continuous. Finding power draw in manufactures specs for these GMRS's seems to be impossible, but I googled it and found someone who benched one and got 2.5a / 13.8vdc on high output.

"50w radio in a car's cigarette lighter" I got the impression it's in a vehicle with either a built in inverter / 115 vac outlet or a portable inverter.

Thank you all!!! I got my first repeater programmed into the radio today and was talking. I appreciate it!

Yeah, we have chatted about this a bit here. Just my personal opinion, the KG-1000 is a great mobile radio if you are a radio geek and really enjoy bell's and whistles AND you are a technically inclined person. The MXT500 is great if you want a full power, full bandwidth, repeater ready radio... no frills, works out of the box and not confusing to operate. There are many good radios available when you look at new market specific gear, as well as legacy LMR equipment... but those two just seem to be my top favorites.

Per the Manual https://cdn.accentuate.io/6946947694769/1644868577928/MXT500-Owners-Manual-05-27-21.pdf?v=0 and Programming Guide https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0531/2856/0817/files/MXT500_Programming_Guide.pdf?v=1640104635 for the MXT500, you are locked into the GMRS frequencies. The 0.5W NFM 467MHz frequencies are not available at all (in the unified FRS/GMRS numbering scheme, these are channels 8-14. The programming guide indicates that you CAN program 8-14, but only with frequencies from the 8 GMRS MAIN channels (guide says 16, but that's only because they treat simplex and duplex [repeater] as separate channels, you can not duplicate the interstitials [1-7] with different tones). So... If you have a number of repeaters on the same frequency using different tones, you can program them into the 7 empty slots instead of having to change tones as you move from one to another. NO SCANNING or selection of frequencies outside of those predefined channels GMRS channels. The KG-1000G manual https://www.buytwowayradios.com/downloads/dl/file/id/1411/product/5287/wouxun_kg_1000g_owners_manual.pdf specifically lists wide receive capability (including AM Air band, and 6m Amateur). They didn't spend much money on images in the manual -- page 26 shows a rig set for 2m and 70cm bands. Manual also implies you have receive-only for the 0.5W NFM (8-14) (which are not available at all on the MXT500). It has just short of 1000 slots available for specific repeater configurations, or receive only non-GMRS frequencies.

It looks like the Wox has a little more general rx capability than the Midlland, which just seems to have GMRS and NOAA RX. All manufacturing literature aside, putting good coax to a good antenna can make up the difference between a mediocre radio and a good radio. I would plan on an aftermarket antenna. I ran the included mag mount mini with my Midland and its okay. From HAM experience, just switching out the antenna can make a noticeable difference.

Hello All Love this site. Best repeater database online. Long time HAM and periodic FRS/GMRS user, now that the hardware base is expanding. I have a Midland mobile in my off road rig, great radio. I live in a rural community and if there is enough interest would put up a repeater. I like that the GMRS service is giving non HAM operators a higher power choice than FRS. Ryan

You only need the code in receive if there is interference from another repeater on the same channel. Ussing no code for receive means you will hear all transmissions on that frequency. It's always better to leave the code out of receive except for specific instances with co-channel traffic.

They never came with N connectors but I know alot of guys who swapped them out to N but normally N(F) and not N(M) like yours shown. Look for voltage on the BNC, or Audio. May be a discriminator output for going to a meter. I have some BNC cables for my CDM to go to my service monitor while aligning simulcast. Could have been used for something like that. I guess the other thought is they broke RX and TX to separate lines. Not sure why but seen lots of modified stuff over the years. If it was used as a control station on a TX combiner and RX multicoupler I can see why.

I run the Larsen NMO 150/450/700/800 on my work trucks. Additionally the MSI Tri Band antenna sweeps pretty good on both 2M and 440 and GMRS. I'd use a commercial antenna before a HAM antenna most days. Just like the performance and quality better. JMHO

Correct code 25 is 156.7. Be advised that will be both TX and RX in the radio.

No... it's 2.6:1 on the 467mhz channel. I don't see a 1.6 on any frequency with that antenna. I think the best I get is on 2m, it's 1.7. The advertised range stops at 465mhz and it's used in very limited circumstances. So, I'm not too worried about it. The UHF and the NMO are mounted in very different locations, but have near identical performance. I also mo Ed them to a few different vehicles with the mag mount and there was very similar performance. As I mentioned, it's it's compromise to use it, but I don't worry about SWR until it's at 3:1. Then I consider tuning are replacing the antenna.

It's 2.6:1 on GMRS? That's high. I'm guessing you mean 1.6:1. The antenna is a good wide band design, but it's a bit sensitive to the mounting location. Being a 5/8 wave it needs a good ground plane.

The repeater NOT generating tone during ID is usually a function of the radio and not the controller. And it's going to depend on where the PL is generated. If the controller is generating the PL and NOT the repeater, then the controller can be configured to NOT generate PL during ID. If the repeater is programmed to generate the PL and you key it via one line it's gonna generate the PL, if you are using mobiles as a repeater then this is also going to be the case. Again you have to control where the PL is generated. The problem with generating the PL in the controller and not the radio is the level of the PL. Wide band FM is 5Khz deviation at full send. The PL is generated at .7 to .8Khz deviation. So much lower than the intelligence. But the radio will typically have filters on the input that drop all audio below 300 Hz which is where the PL is. If your radio / repeater has a FLAT AUDIO input then you can send the PL up the audio line and it will be transmitted. But the level issue still exists. To set the levels, you about need a service monitor to get the levels right. If the PL is hot, then it's gonna be heard in the transmitter intelligence and people will ask what it is and complain about it. So lets go back to the i20r. What's wrong with it to begin with? Those were not exactly complicated and the failures were typically easy enough to repair. Typically they worked well unless they got hooked up wrong and a control transistor got huffed. Care to share the issues with it?

What does the repeater listing show? Typically, you need to enter the tone shown for the repeater in the TC slot. Don't worry about a receive tone, it isn't neeed.

The i20r controller he had sent CW ID in CSQ mode. Only PL was on when the RX radio received the PL (tones). The Communications Specialist controller does the same thing. Its all how the controller is programed and radios are programmed. Built many of those repeaters when i was at the shop with the i20, zetron, comm spec and other controllers at the time. Most commercial controllers will accomplish what the user is looking for. A ham/hobby controller will not. @mikevman I'd search ebay for a CommSpec TP3200, CSI 32, Zetron CR-310 or any of the Trident controllers. They pop up on and off but finding one the size of the i20 may be challenging. Most are 19" rack mounted.

From my experience as a not-very-interested amateur radio license holder, I observed an interesting phenomenon occur on the local ham radio scene, as digital modes such as C4FM (Yaesu System Fusion) and DMR began to appear. It absolutely killed the local ham radio scene. People either embraced the technology, or hated it, and in that process, people got angry with those who disagreed with them (think modern day politics in America). As such, there is little-to-no amateur radio activity on repeaters anymore, and amateur radio as we knew it, has got both feet firmly in the grave…in this neck of the woods. Dozens of repeaters go unused. Those who embraced the digital voice modes (or “the dark side” as many called it), started out on talkgroups with fairly large gatherings of hams. Over time, they would get the azz of one another, and break off into other talkgroups of smaller, more intimate groups (another way of saying, only those who can tolerate each other), because they realized they could just keep creating new talkgroups. Now there are hundreds, if not thousands, of talkgroups, where two or three hams talk, where they used to talk to large groups on their local analog repeater. Excellent use of bandwidth. It is interesting to see the discussion of DMR, or perhaps some other form of modulation, on GMRS, with it’s limited bandwidth, and no requirement to understand anything at all about radios. When asked to share spectrum space with analog and digital users, I can only imagine what will happen. My worthless and unsolicited opinion is…if you want to play with a DMR radio, get yourself over to amateur radio. All sorts of people struggling there with code plugs, color codes, time slots, etc. And these are people who have “passed” a test to demonstrate proficiency in radio operation. I think there is too much effort being placed in trying to turn GMRS into amateur radio. People want internet linking, wide coverage repeaters, nets, vanity call signs, ARES/RACES affiliations, digital voice modes. It all exists over on ham radio.

It is quite and likely possible that they are NOT operating illegally. Many businesses had their licenses grandfathered and so are still operating legally on GMRS frequencies. Now that said, it is also possible they have let their former license lapse. In any event, it is never a good idea to confront whoever you believe may be operating illegally.

Somewhere between sometime and never, I suspect.