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I think, based on his putting the word “up” in all caps, that he Michael was emphasizing the direction of the split, more than that the shift would be exactly 5 MHz. That’s important because repeaters on some ham bands can be offset in either direction.

I asked Retevis if I could use the SM01 with the radio using the RJ45 cable or would I need to make a custom cable? I received back that the the two are incompatible. I assume the issue is all the control buttons on the stock microphone. Thanks for all your help.

Repeater, even my tiny 5W one with 20-25' Antenna does extend range if you want end to end range. So, like my example a few pages back. My handhelds, 1.3 miles without. 2.6 apart with repeater, small town hills two sides. Then mobile to handheld 2 miles, bounce off the repeater 15w mobile 4 miles and handheld can be 1.3 opposite direction, about 5.3. The question is how far you want to talk to others you know or want on your repeater. I have not tested my 50W mobile except once, 4 miles to repeater in a valley, mobile on a hill behind trees and buildings. Seems like 5W repeater is limit out at 4 miles in a valley @ 20ish agl in town, 200' hill between them plus trees, per google earth pro. So in my case it is how far can I reach around the home to include people using handhelds. I still don't have alot of traffic, only 4 requests to test on my test repeater. I am no expert either. From my results, Sshannon sure is correct. I need more height. Next, I will test more power on a repeater since elevation is not a possible option except 4 - 5 feet, likely less then a mile gain.

Why does every new license holder want to setup a repeater? I would like to shed a little light on some of the important things to consider if you recently got your GMRS license and now want your own repeater. First thing to consider, are there any open well placed repeaters in your area that you are able to use? I can assure you most repeater owners want people to use there repeater. Owning several repeaters I can assure you all are welcome and encouraged to use my machines. Do you have access to a location to host your repeater? If your answer is your garage roof you should reconsider. Your garage roof will give you about the same coverage as simplex. Unless you’re on top of a mountain and all your users are at the bottom you will never be happy with this setup. GMRS is not as popular as one would like to think, unless your repeater covers 20 miles or more you may find you only have 1 or 2 users in the area. Unless you already have a group of friends together you may want to consider this before spending money on a decent well positioned site to install your repeater. So you found a nice high site and the price is right, all you need to do is get the repeater installed, sounds simple right? Some thigs to consider first and foremost are the costs because they can add up quickly. Are you on a commercial tower that requires a license and bonded climber? If so this could be by far your largest expense depending on your area. I have spent $600 to $1200 on a climber; I have had quotes as high as $2500 depending on the amount of work and heights involved. Keep in mind commercial sites require certified mounts, hard line cable, cable clamps, engineered grounding solutions and commercial grade antennas. No tower owner is going to let you install a comet antenna and 200’ of braided shield coax. This brings me to my next point, the antenna. Because of the costs involved with climbers you will want to expend your budget on the antenna. Remember a $2000 repeater on a $200 antenna is going to work about as good as a $200 repeater. Whereas a $200 repeater on a $2000 antenna is going to work like a $2000 repeater. On my first repeater I was gifted use of a 150’ tower, I installed a DB-420 on the top and 160’ of 7/8 hardline. Total cost of equipment for the antenna install was $2500, with the climbers labor coming in at an additional $800. This left me with enough to purchase an old Motorola R100 repeater running at 25W. To my surprise it had 30 miles of coverage, all due to the cash spent on the antenna and waiting for a decent spot. Things happen, more so if you have an antenna 200’ in the air with a conductive cable connected to sensitive electronics. Antenna issues, feedline issues, repeater issues all cost money and I promise at some point you will have issues that need repair and require your money! It is my opinion that the GMRS community does not need another 2 to 5 miles repeater as it just becomes background noise. What use is a public listed repeater if somebody in a mobile can’t use it 5 miles away while moving or the portable coverage is only a mile? If after reading this you are still going to build a repeater for your garage more power to you, just don’t expect 20 people to show up if it only reaches a mile. As the owner of several GMRS and Commercial repeaters I can attest to the amount of money and effort go into my repeaters. I have only touched on the basics, if you add in any kind of testing services, duplexer tuning, addition of a combiner channel to an existing tower system, RF engineering, rent and insurance your costs can sky rocket. The best advice I can give any new licensee is to try and use the available systems in the area. Take the time to learn a little about what you’re doing and to assess the usability of the service before investing in a repeater for the sole reason of saying you own one.

1) That is because of "desense" - the transmission of radio 1 blocks out the reception by radio 2 even though they are on different frequencies; 3) Maybe a different 725 repeater? 31 and 32 are set for offbeat frequency shifts; otherwise it looks good (there is no GMRS 467.52500 channel)!

Snaps for doing your research (studying this Forum for helpful posts)! ? In any event you make a reasonable point that is the exception to the 5 MHz UP rule (if there even is one; it is certainly the custom and some GMRS radios cannot do a different split). I don't have any experience with the Btech 50X1 Mobile, but apparently it is one of those fixed 5 MHz GMRS radios, unless perhaps an updated firmware changed it, as @wayoverthererecently pointed out. Of course the downside is that using a different input GMRS input frequency, is possible interference to another GMRS repeater on that different input frequency, especially in an urban area such as Tampa.

It was a fun intellectual exercise in any event...

I can't remember what I had for dinner last night and you are chiding me for a post I made in December 2021?!? ? Governor Desantis sets his own rules...

Based on the markings on the PCB in the microphone housing it would appear that the hardware Anytone is the OEM.

Steve: Following the colored wires coming out of your Mic; here is the other end of the cable: And you clearly can see Red, Brown, Yellow from the top end and... I think it is two spaces then White and then a space and then Grey; leaving Black out, or am I missing Black? That could be a braid just before White and perhaps Black is stripped to just leave the braid connected. Now compare that to the Ailunce pin-out and it looks like they could match, depending upon polarity of up/down.

If you want to try and figure it out, here are pictures of the circuitry inside the microphone.

Michael, I haven't bought it yet. This is what I am looking at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BFGPK8GM/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_1?smid=AJFR970E0U757&psc=1 Since both have RJ45 I assumed I would have to go that way. The problem is without knowing the pin out of the DB20G I don't know if a straight through cable will work or whether I will have to make an custom cable, and what the wiring of the custom cable would be. I did contact Radioddity support and they sent me the a dimensional diagram with no no pinouts and I emailed them back and so far no answer Thanks for your assistance.

The main problem is finding a repeater controller that will work with the equipment at hand. People will build a cheap repeater using a couple of HT's or a couple of mobile radios. A lucky few can afford a real purposely designed repeater with the required interface for a controller available. Most often there are no provisions for access to a COR, carrier operated relay, etc. so the builder ends up hacking the radios to gain access to necessary signals. When the builder's family are the only users then simply cross coupling the mic and audio outputs, with VOX enabled, is sufficient for basic functioning, because at least no ID is required. I picked up a simple interface box to do the cross coupling between two HT's, with VOX contol, to experiment with a cross-band repeater for Ham use. A simple duplexer like the below is sufficient to get the isolation at a 5 watt level. https://mfjenterprises.com/products/mfj-916bn#description https://www.buytwowayradios.com/surecom-sr-628.html

I reached out to the operator of the massive repeater network on Georgia. He confirmed that the repeater for GMRS themselves do not need to send out a call sign because they are used purely for retransmission from licensed users, therefore operators of their own “stations”. Anyone not authorized is traced and asked to not use it until they get permission as well. See highlighted in red below. So mine would fall under the same classification were it to go live. § 95.1751 GMRS station identification. Each GMRS station must be identified by transmission of its FCC-assigned call sign at the end of transmissions and at periodic intervals during transmissions except as provided in paragraph (c) of this section. A unit number may be included after the call sign in the identification. (a) The GMRS station call sign must be transmitted: (1) Following a single transmission or a series of transmissions; and, (2) After 15 minutes and at least once every 15 minutes thereafter during a series of transmissions lasting more than 15 minutes. (b) The call sign must be transmitted using voice in the English language or international Morse code telegraphy using an audible tone. (c) Any GMRS repeater station is not required to transmit station identification if: (1) It retransmits only communications from GMRS stations operating under authority of the individual license under which it operates; and, (2) The GMRS stations whose communications are retransmitted are properly identified in accordance with this section.

Sounds like a solar recharged RT97 w/ a simple N9TAX rollup antenna might work for you. Simple, small, portable, and little to no environment impact. If you want a complete setup that can be carried in a large backpack: A 30 watt solar panel can fit in a large backpack. A 30 watt panel and a 14 amp hour SLA battery seems to work well here in Alaska during the Spring/Summer/Fall Season but can't keep up during the cold winters with little sun. If you are not in an area that suffered from greatly reduced solar in the winter it would be a solid place to start. Use some alum angle riveted to the back to mount the RT97 and a small solar controller directly to the back of the panel. You can attach the panel directly to a tree, place the SLA battery at the base, and hang the N9TAX in the tree itself. I have posts in this forum about my setup and it might stir some ideas for you. Is this some 100% Duty Cycle Commercial Grade Setup? Nope. But I get 20-30 miles out of mine to 5 watt handhelds and it works for us.

That's not a mobile repeater in that pic, its a HAM operating HF. As far as a mobile repeater it really is a waste of time. I have done this already and it was a total disappointment.. Unless your car is at a substantial height advantage you will not have any better coverage then simplex. Again you can and will try to explain or reason away my logic without listening to what I and others have been trying to tell you. I have tried the mobile repeater, the setup was a 50W Motorola SLR 5700 with a 4 cavity BP/BR duplexer connected to a 5.5dB gain antenna on the top of my truck. After testing for about month I realized it had no practical use and only offered slightly more range than simplex, best part I ended up needing a jump after a day at the fair. Mind you this was a $2400 repeater, $800 duplexer with an antenna that was tuned using an Anritsu S331D. I promise I nor anybody on this site will try to steer you wrong, I hold a Commercial, Amateur and GMRS license, own and operate several large repeaters and have all the gear for building, testing and maintaining these kinds of systems.

Corey is dead on. I spent many thousands of dollars on each repeater system i have online and have money sitting in new repeaters waiting for towers. It is not uncommon to spend upwards of $10,000 if buying all new gear. My last repeater that went online was a MTR3000 ($6500.00), Duplexer ($1800.00), 7/8" Hardline (175' @ 2.50'), DB408 - ($800.00), plus connectors, hangers, cable pulls, ground kits, ground wire. Yes we can all do this stuff for a lot less but it really depends on what you want out of the repeater. If you start your post with "Currently running on two Baofeng 5R with limited range" then its not a repeater that we should be putting in a database nor one that will benefit you or others. The goal is to have a repeater that is beneficial to the end user. Since I moved south I have 2 repeaters, antenna's and hard line. Neither are up yet as i want it to be worthwhile. One is waiting on a tower for my house and the other will be on a 400' tower if i can ever work out an agreement with the owners.

Staff Memo - The subject of this thread is important enough, for newly licensed user reference, to pin it to the top of this posting area.

We have seen that the Google, Bing, Ask and other search engine spybots are camped out here reading new posts. Just a word to the wise... use your discretion in posting personal or sensative information that could possibly compromise your personal safety, security, lead to identity theft, or give non-licensed individuals a way to access your radio systems.