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Yeah, I have had several of these that I have worked on. Kenwood turns off the oscillator when they are not keyed. Motorola, Vertex and some others just turn the PA on and off. It allows for a quicker keyup time if the oscillator is already running on frequency. Now that delay isn't typically very long, but with trunking radio systems it can have an effect. The other thing is if it is still locking on frequency when the PA turns on there can be an audible tone heard on the air as the frequency stabilizes which can effect the signaling the transmitter puts out to the subscriber radio letting it know it's on the channel and transmitting. That stuff happens pretty quick but any delay is still a delay that the user can see and complain about. ANd if it effects the outbound signaling word on the trunking system, the call can be lost by the subscriber.

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

Sshannon, no lights, no notthing, except the speaker pops softly when radio receives power & when power is dropped. 13.8 V is getting to the terminals were the power cord attaches to the circuit board. I did not see the fuse , so I guess its on the under side of the cercuit board, & I was trying not to take the radio that faqr apart if I did not have to. According to the schematic the fuse is very close to where the power first comes into the radio. So, since the speaker is getting power, I thought it was not likely the fuse. I also put 13.8 v to the yellow ignition sense wire & that did not change any thing.

Makes sense to me. It appears that the Quantars have more shielding to them though. Probably why they can be stacked 10 high in a big system and not interfere with each other.

Also if you don't want to work with hardline for 100 foot runs LMR600 can work well. Hardline is still less lossy. Have you tried adding an extension to your mast mount? This could help with far receive. Having a good antenna helps, but uHF really likes height. Even with that said, its a matter of luck sometimes. Sounds like you were experiencing some light ducting in the early morning, that wasn't there at night.

I haven’t used one for GMRS but I have used Yagi antennas for finding radio trackers. If you only want to reach in one direction, such as to a repeater, a Yagi is a good way to enhance gain, but it will be nearly deaf in other directions, so it might not be a good choice to talk to your friends on simplex. How would you picture yourself using it?

Obviously you missed this since we are still discussing it. It's NORMAL. That's the way the Vertex works. And Vertex isn't the only repeater that does this. Some others strip the PL. MTR's and Quantars have a programmable REST frequency they revert to when they are receiving so this doesn't happen in situations were the repeater is located close to where portable radios are going to be. But again. This is normal and expected. Look in the programming and see if there is a setting for a REST frequency. If there is it's probably set to the TX frequency of the repeater. Change it to something else but DO NOT set it for the receive frequency or it will interfere with the receiver of the repeater. Once the issue goes away, program a radio up for to receive the rest frequency and you will find that it will hear the repeater generating a signal on the rest frequency. And when you key the repeater, the signal will go away. Or you can continue to connect and disconnect your antenna's, walk around the house and see where you can hear the signal. Ask more questions and get told more nonsense about what is NOT causing it and continue to wonder what it is. Even though I have told you. And since I believe I am the only one on here that does this shit for a living. I just might know what the hell I am talking about. Maybe... But at this point, it's anybodies guess.

I have heard a ton of digital on GMRS. Get near any port on the coast and its non stop. As I go thru DC and Baltimore I hear it on and off in the cities. Alot is simplex but I know of locations with repeaters on the air. Sad part is people buy CCR DMR stuff and just program away not knowing anything about rules or caring. When they sell stuff on amazon to anyone who has a CC its going to happen. When I was at a radio shop in the past they put a IDAS/NXDN repeater on GMRS for a school "cause they have no money" for licensing. I wasn't there much longer. All we can do as GMRS users is try to follow the rules and encourage others to do the same.

I would be Amazed if the FCC allowed a European DMR system on an American Radios Service over the American P25 with maybe the NXDN system which is gaining Traction in the US.. Not something they normally do..

I absolutely think we need more repeaters. I'd have put my own up already, but for the fact that once I got out the topo maps and found the best place within thirty mile, I discovered that a) the whole hilltop is owned by the water company, b) it has a large water tower on it that's already covered with ham repeaters, c) a local ham group convinced the water company to let them manage all antenna placement, and d) the ham group won't even discuss details like access/rent/maintenance/etc. unless you're a licenced ham who's joined their group. Instead, I'm trying to convince my wife to let me cut a hole in the tower ceiling of our victorian and place one up there. It'll likely get a quarter the range, but no one gets to tell me how things are going to work! As for the "don't be stupid, that's what ham is for" brigade, I'm ignoring them. My group wants to build reliable emergency comms for our region that *doesn't* require gatekeeper hams to use it. You'll never get churches, schools, and community centers to fund/maintain personnel to get and stay trained so they've always got a ham on staff, but a $35 license and a $100 HT is completely feasible. And that's not to mention being able to interoperate with actual community members for the price of $15 walkies from Walmart! A school or community member can keep a whole box of those things in the basement and just hand them out with ten minutes' instruction in an emergency, and they can even just listen in to repeater outputs to keep track of what's going on locally.

^^^^^^^^^^^ I hate linking for that point. And its the same conversations on ham or GMRS. The only GMRS repeaters around me are run by hams and just use it as another ham repeater. Drives me nuts.

Since the OP asked for opinions, I will offer up my opinion. I disagree with his statement that more GMRS repeaters are needed. In my opinion, GMRS is not a hobby, it is a service primarily intended for short-distance communications, to facilitate the activities of the licensee’s family. Since that intended purpose comes directly from the FCC’s definition of GMRS, I don’t see why we need more repeaters. My opinion is that GMRS is not ham radio. It is not CB radio. But the high profile GMRS repeaters in my part of the world are used by people that already talk on CB, and on ham radio . The conversations are exactly the same, regardless of where they talk, so why do we need to waste precious bandwidth on GMRS for those conversations, when we already have other band allocations for that ? For those that believe GMRS serves a function in civil emergencies, I would also direct you to amateur radio, specifically the ARES/RACES groups that provide those functions. Again, I believe we do not need to duplicate these functions across radio services. It is fine if a local neighborhood repeater such as mine could serve people in a time of need, but that is not it’s true purpose, and I don’t have lofty goals of making it that way. And most people within the couple of miles range of my repeater would not have access to repeater-capable radios, and likely only have FRS radios, so it would be of no use in that case. My repeater covers maybe 4 miles…on a good day, and only with mobile radios (hey, GMRS stands for General Mobile Radio Service, not “sit in my easy chair with my walkie talkie and talk to someone 40 miles away via a repeater”). It serves the needs of my family for short distance communications. We do use Zello as a means to extend coverage, if necessary, but it is again only for the family…not for a guy in Michigan to ragchew with a guy in Florida, or to hold “nets”. This is exactly why the amateur radio service exists, and where these activities should take place. A nearby GMRS repeater is connected to the MyGMRS network, and it simply transmits conversations of people not even within the state, all day long (not really all day, just exaggerating to make a point). A nearby ham repeater is connected to the America Link network, and transmits conversations of people not even within the state, all day long. What is point of having these broadcast stations, when local users are not using these repeaters ? We do not need more repeaters for GMRS. We need fewer people that think GMRS is CB or amateur radio.

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.

You just guaranteed this thread will never end.

Or we could go back to using Channel 20!

FCC Line A also excludes people in Seattle, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Lansing, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, most of I80/90 through Ohio, Buffalo, Syracuse, Montpelier and 75% of Maine, from using GMRS channels 19 and 21.

But all in your group would have to have a Ham lic. too. With FRS/GMRS they can go to wally world and get a handheld FRS cheap and have communication. Can't get a consents on the channels we have now on GMRS why would we want more bandwidth/spectrum and more confusion?