Leaderboard

Assuming the photos are a true representation of V1 and V2, that is not a "full redesigned radio board". 2 parts worth about $0.23 and 2 solder jumpers on the same board (RDA2300 UHF v1.5, dated 2021/10/13). 1 additional capacitor, 1 added resistor, 2 solder jumps.

It’s a feature… new heat sink design ?

I agree it doesn't look like a "full redesigned radio board" but I see a lot more changes than that. On the front side of the board, there are a couple areas with multiple new surface-mount components to the right of and below the "2226" on the new board. I'm not too impressed with the big solder "blob" to the left of "2226" though! On the back, it is interesting that the original board is missing the RF shield (but maybe it was removed for the photo). There is also an IC on the old board that has been removed on the new one. Actually the third photo shows another IC that has been removed.

I pulled those photos off the device reports (pulled from the interwebs) that went to the FCC for approval.

1 to 2 miles....do not even worry about any of this. Coil up the slack coax and secure it, leave the antenna where it is (do not worry about grounding), you will be fine. Having a SWR of 1:1.2 is great.

Good form is to use monitor function for a second or two, and/or look at the activity LED that most HTs have. LMR (Part 90) radios have Busy Channel Lockout feature, which is also can be used. Stomping on somebody's conversation is a bad form, indeed.

No Balun needed. No loops needed. As said use it. If you find you are having trouble with coverage upgrade your cable to LMR400. LMR240 is about 5.25db loss per hundred so you have maybe 2.6 db of loss. Should not be noticeable for our current situation. LMR would effectively cut that in half. I would not worry about grounds in the attic. I have a few antenna's in the attic and they work fine.

I can save him the trouble. Since I'm not a circuit expert (I think many 'Sad HAMs are though), I can't tell you what might be different regarding the radio board. BTECH GMRS 50V2 vs. BTECH GMRS 50X1.pdf

Yes, I used a NanoVNA H3 to tune duplexers. I did bypass the internal screen and use my computer with the NanoVNA-APP and increased the number of data points (and took my time). Afterwards, I took the whole repeater over to a friend who had real equipment, and ended up not changing a thing. The real challenge is to go slow, take your time and move in small increments. Also, make sure you have the correct jumpers, adapters and dummy loads before starting.

In the past it was referred to community repeater. I still use multiple tones on my repeaters for specific reasons. One tone is for normal chit chat and another is to call my parents base radio. They dont want to hear all sorts of traffic all hours of the day and just want to hear if myself or a certain person wants them. I did the same in the past for my control station at home. We had a good repeater in a county park that used the travel tone for hikers to use. We used another PL for SAR folks and a third for another user group. It basically allows certain users to only hear the user group they want to hear. Yes there is training involved in a community repeater but they are still used in the LMR world.

I did separate the radios maybe about 5 feet between them at the most. My friend had his Maxons sitting on top of each other for the Test Comparison and they appeared to be working fine. The KG1000G Plus RF output power was about 37 watts into the duplexer and about high 20s to low 30s coming out of the duplexer, which varied at times. I was drawing between 10+ amps to about 12 amps with 14.1 volts when the two radios were in the repeat mode. In my opinion I think the KG1000G Plus radios are a poor repeater setup.

Good to know...I was under the impression that with tones set on ham simplex you wouldn't know if the frequency was clear before transmitting so it's considered bad form. I suppose it would be the same with GMRS, but that nobody really cares. I say this with my deep expertise and experience; I've been a ham for 2 weeks and a licensed GMRS user for 3 months, so everyone should listen to me.

There are no standard CTCSS tones for a particular area and in general it’s a bad thing (very inconvenient) for radios to arrive with any tones set. However, there’s nothing wrong with using tones with simplex.

Sshannon, Thanks, I have seen those videos "VNA", good ones to watch. I will go look at the gmrs ones to see if I can follow any of them to a solution for me for the Vertex repeater node building.

Thanks. Sounds like a "normal" issue for all cables then.

@WRUA262 ?

If you get moisture inside any coax you’ll have an issue, whether the shield and core are dissimilar metals or not. That has happened to people here on the forums and they end up lopping off the last couple feet or completely replacing the cable. But that’s not strictly the fault of LMR400 and I wouldn’t avoid LMR400 for that reason, especially if you already have it. I would take great care to waterproof the connections. In answer to your question about what to use, professional radio people would specify “hardline” and N connectors. If you have access to it, it’s measurably better in terms of losses and resistance to the elements, but it’s also more costly and less flexible. The link kits, as I’m sure you are aware, are unobtainable right now, but if you don’t mind paying a scalper high prices for a Raspberry Pi (or if you’re fortunate enough to already have a Raspberry Pi) you can assemble one yourself. [Edited to add: in other posts/threads of yours, it appears you have got all the parts, but were looking for help, so I’m confused. Did that not pan out?] I haven’t done it, but there are some threads on the forum. Take heart; Raspberry Pi models are reportedly expected this summer. We will see. Rpilocator.com is a good website to use to learn about availability. Here’s a link to a website that discusses building nodes: http://pascogmrs.us/video/how-to/ I have seen a video on YouTube that shows using a NanoVNA, using both port set up to measure insertion loss, to tune each side of a duplexer. I’ll see if I can find it. If I do, this is where I’ll place the link: The same person has another similar video:

I am not the most interesting guy (I'm certainly not NotARubicon lol) and this is technically for the UV5R, but it is exactly the same. But instead of clicking (Baofeng-UV5R) click (Radioddity-UV5G). Even though this thing is a baofeng radio, the UV5G/UV5X is actually not listed in the baofeng section of chirp. It'll say UV5X but it's actually a whole different radio.

#3 - I have been using about 60ft of LMR400 with my VXR7000 for over a year with no issues.

A lot of radios have BCLO (busy channel lock-out) capability, which may work in this situation.

As a quick addition to this, I licensed up in July of 2019 for a family trip, and received a WRDT callsign. I did a quick check of ULS just now and found the sequence is up to WRWF, and there were 1,390 GMRS licenses with a grant date in the past week alone.

Oh yes. I picked up my license last year so I could contact my wife when I'm out of cell coverage in the local mountains. I'm a ham, she's not really interested, so the no-test-one-license-for-the-whole-fam-damily-for-a-penny-a-day works for us. Also, a lot of off-roaders, overlanders, etc, are using it. Maybe there's someone like that who frequents this site who can elaborate.

The growth of licenses (and site users) would seem to say yes. One of the ham clubs in my area even added a gmrs repeater, likely to give the hams a way to communicate with non-ham family.

I agree, its a possibility. I didn't really think about that. It is a good practice to follow. I am looking forward to this! Even if it doesn't make the video, any chance you will put it on the Tiny SA and see how the signal looks? I'm curious, because a lot of people trash BTech / Baofeng radios, but most of the units I put on the scope are cleaner than any of my UHF ham radios at 2x to 4x the price. It's good to know if the build quality is there in a more affordable radio. Especially if someone is on a budget and trying to make good choices for the money they have.

Most if not all repeaters will have a "squelch tail". I've heard different people call it different things. But if you can receive the repeater, when you transmit to the repeater, you will hear this "squelch tail" at the end of your transmission. Some repeaters have certain noises on their squelch tails, such as beeps, and some have none. That is why you will hear people "kerchunk" a repeater. They are just testing that they can hit it. When you unkey your mic, if you don't hear this squelch tail, you aren't hitting the repeater. It is kind of hard to explain this sound as it can be different on every repeater. One repeater in my area does a small double beep, and another one doesn't so it just sounds like a quick burst of static at the end of my transmission. Side Note: The squelch tail is actually the end of your own transmission. due to distance and time through the duplexer, you receive your own transmission, just a few hundredths of a second behind.

I heard a rumor that a major GMRS YouTube Hobo will be doing a review of the 50V2 next week.

You may be correct on that. With the two together though, it's...worrying. ?

The only instance where GMRS repeaters are not required to be separately IDed, are those where the only users are those people who are legally entitled to operate under the call-sign of the repeater operator, and even then they must follow the regulations for individually IDing (which is the ID of the repeater). If those people talk longer than 15 minutes they are required to ID every 15 minutes. Will anybody care at the FCC? Probably not, but the rules are clear.

No problem. Some of us here are the “well, actually“ types, including me, but I’ve noticed that Marc isn’t. He seems pretty friendly and humble. From a loss standpoint I’d say you’ve made your case for going with KMR400 over LMR400. I would also look at how well the cable will withstand weather, how the connectors are attached, and do be sure to seal them so they don’t admit moisture over time. That’s something I’ve noticed, that people install cable and everything works great but then it gradually starts worsening. These cables are sensitive to moisture and the pl259 connector is not sealed so you’ll need to do something to seal it. Good luck!

Although I don’t know him personally, Marc isn’t the type to act that way. I think his question was because cable loss is usually described in dB, not percent and hearing it referred to as a percentage was slightly confusing.

Finally found somebody who has more look ups than I do on QRZ!

I believe that university was grandfathered on that frequency. They have been using it since the 80s (that I know of) when it was a licensed frequency. I read that previously licensed businesses can keep the license as long as then dont make any changes.