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So I went through every single port I had (6 on hub, 4 on back of PC, 4 on front of PC) with 4 different USB cable. 45 minutes later I've identified 2 cables that work with 2 different USB ports. Yes, one cable works on one port but no others and another cable works on another port but on no others. Can't make this stuff up. What the actual... I'm hoping the TD cable I've got coming in will work with any port. Anyways, it *seems* to be working with CHIRP now and has increased my grey hair count by several dozen. Geeze I hate debugging. Thanks for everyone's input.

Isn't this a repeater ? If so there is no need for 800 frequencies. 99% of the time a repeater is on one channel and one channel only.

Good advice. Thanks for that!

Those 9 -10 ah UPS batteries work well for 20 watt and QRP radios. Expert Battery/ECI batteries ar good and reasonably priced on eBay. You can get 12v 10ah lead acid battery for $27.49 or a 12v 10 ah lifepo4 battery for $38.99. One guy has been using the ECI lead acid 12v 10 ah batteries for his QRP radios for years. I use the lifepo4 versions for my Xiegu G90, Wouxun KG-XS20G and my WRP radios. ExpertBattery 12V 10AH Battery 2500+ Cycles Rechargeable 12V 10Ah LiFePO4 Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery I know buying replacement batteries from the UPS manufacturer are expensive and close to the cost of a new UPS system.

Have you simply done trial and error by, wait for it, trying ctcss rather than DTCS and see if your problem goes away?

I have had a few radios that did this with DTCS tones.. Switched to CTCSS and the problem went away on all of them.

If you are running a base station, simplex or repeater communication I'd say that might be so. But if you are running a repeater I wouldn't go much more than 50' with LMR400. Plus the dissimilar metals in the coax can cause issues long term. I'd use 1/2" Heliax minimum for a repeater for the whole run and when it got farther than 125' I'd switch over to 7/8" or larger.

Wow really!!! All he did was asking to confirm the rules that's all. If you had to do that I rather you didn't answer or give your 2 cents worth

There is no doubt that a known brand helix is the best way to go. For my GMRS repeater, my LMR400 coax run is just shy of 50 feet, with an arrestor, but it is a known quality brand coax used by commercial radio shops. Also, I am using a Laird FG4605 Omni 5 dB antenna with the tip at 30'. On relative flat terrain, I am able to hit the repeater with a portable approx 15-17 miles away.

A lot of people make that common mistake of assuming one can overcome the loss of using that crappy coax by brute force and throwing more watts at the problem. The main issue they overlook, whether intentional or ignorance, is how much the receive is attenuated. You can pump the same amount of water through a 1/2" pipe compared to a 2" pipe by turning up the pressure on the pump. A wasteful exercise in futility.

Thanks for that input! For occasional 2m/70cm I use a very good local linked repeater network without any problems. For GMRS, I use mostly short distance simplex when travelling with a group or at the lake or other destination. The performance from my current mag mount which I usually place on the cab directly in front of the 3rd taillight, (basically where the antenna would be if I use one of these 3rd taillight mounts) works just fine! I like that location (up and centered) because it keeps the antenna up and out of the way of getting things in/out of the truck bed and I don't have to stare at it while driving. All the discussion about the effectiveness of the ground plane, while interesting, and not at all irrelevant, is just not too significant of a factor for my purposes. That's why my OP was a question more about the antenna mount itself (water leaks, strength etc.) and less about the RF propagation characteristics associated with its location which seems to be the direction the thread drifted. I'm not going to drill into my roof and I'm sort of tired of taking the mag mount on and off, so without any specific feedback that indicates that this type of mount is structurally problematic to my vehicle, l will probably give one of these mounts a try and hope for the best.

True, the small ones definitely do have their limitations when used alone. I've standardized my 12VDC items with Anderson PowerPoles and made up a bunch of PowerPole 'Y' pigtail connectors along with several 'extension cords' so that I can parallel several of the smaller capacity batteries if need be. Also handy when topping off multiple batteries

@Alec Do you mainly use your radio to talk on repeaters or simplex? If you're in an area where there's good repeater coverage, and that's what you mainly use, whatever compromise you make with antenna location should be negligible. Let us know what you end up doing and share some pictures.

Yeah, with the shape of the ground plane of the trunk (dependent on vehicle and frequency), I'd expect some directionality, given most will have more ground plane to the sides than front to back. id also expect the greenhouse to be blocking/shading the signal in some directions too. It just struck me as a little odd that permanent mounting in that location would mean more loss than a mag mount in the same place, where on the roof it's the other way around.

In the description it says it can be used as a base station. Some people take that literally and think it'll do 1-23 plus the 8 repeater channels. It will not. It can't because it has the duplexer built in which would kill the incoming simplex channels. It's designed so you can respond with the repeater on the repeater stations with the microphone instead of needing a separate radio to transmit to the repeater to talk. Some people.... don't understand this. Even Randy was hoping the description of the "base station" was that of a full range GMRS radio as described. But he to, found out it can only transmit on the repeater pairs while only receiving on the 467MHz side.

I just randomly came across this review of the RT97L that was published on Youtube about 3 minutes after you made this post:

Heliax is the best, but a lot depends on the repeater itself. How much power does the repeater have? What antenna are you planning to use? A low power repeater (less than 25W) can usually get by with LMR 400 or better coax for that length run. Coax loss can often be made up with antenna gain. Where the repeater is located, terrain, and intended use also factor into the need for Heliax over coax. Repeaters only cover the area from the antenna to the radio horizon and increased power only means the signal is stronger in the same area determined by the antenna type and placement.

You want hardline, like Heliax (Comscope/Andrews) or whatever RFS calls it. At 50', you are looking for 1/2" or 7/8", unless you can find a deal for larger somewhere.

Seriously? The 1000s of pages of regulations that are "interpreted" to mean one thing during this case and another during the next? You read them and understand them as best you can and then you might get corrected because of your wrongful interpretation. No one, not even the smartest guy at the eff sea sea knows all the rules and regulations pertaining to even a single class of radio and understands them to the fullest exception of the interpretation of the different people who will eventually rule on them on an individual case basis.

For GMRS, the FCC allows plain language voice communications: 95.1731 Permissible GMRS uses. The operator of a GMRS station may use that station for two-way plain language voice communications with other GMRS stations and with FRS units concerning personal or business activities. Earlier, in the overarching Personal Radio Services definitions (which apply to all of the personal radio services) the FCC tells us what is meant by plain language voice communications: 95.303 Plain language voice communications. Voice communications without codes or coded messages intended to provide a hidden meaning. Foreign languages and commonly known radio operating words and phrases, such as “ten four” and “roger,” not intended to provide a hidden meaning, are not considered codes or coded messages. Even with an executive order to establish English as our official language changes to the above rules would need to be made if the government determined that radio communication must be done in English. Of course legislation could do it, assuming it withstood a constitutional challenge.

The metal underneath your antenna doesn't even need to be a solid. I run my Comet 2x4SR on a magnet mount stuck to the expanded metal cargo rack on the back of my Honda Pioneer 500. And it works well on 2m, 70cm, MURS, and GMRS. And @WRUE951 is correct, you only need 6 inches of metal all the way around an antenna for 70cm and GMRS. You will want 18 inches all the way around for 2m and MURS. But a good ground plane all the way around your antenna is not 100% needed. Yes the antenna will be a bit directional without a full ground plane but it will still work Yes a no ground plane antenna will work better when you don't have good ground plane but they will benefit from having one.

You thought wrong. The only requirement regarding language is that your callsign be announced in English, and even if there was a requirement that you use only English on repeaters, it wouldn't matter because the FCC does not enforce the rules (ie; they dont care). Welcome to the exciting and dynamic world of GMRS in the L.A. area!

For BTECH it's still a work in progress. They say they will keep updating it. It has many plugs on the rear panel that are yet to be connected internally. Not sure if a firmware update or actual tinkering will need to be done to get them active. When I got it, it was version 1 and had issues. No DCS available and wonky duplexers. A simple firmware upgrade fixed the DCS and they sent me a new duplexer without me asking. A likely found out defect. Then months went by and they did the 2nd firmware upgrade and the mic upgrade. The unit I purchase had no usable microphone, disappointing. That next upgrade fixed that and they even sent me the patch cord to do it for free. The firmware upgrade cleaned up the menu system, added a squelch. It was set at 6 (of 9) and that screwed up my reception from my house which is already a weak signal. I knocked it down to 1 and that fixed that. All I need to do is jack the antenna up in height.

So we can call it 2.145 to make it more complicated.

Why is he being an ass again? He may always be one of those "Some People" who is not every ones favorite person, but was his post asinine because the context of the post does not have merit or is inappropriate, or just because of who he is on the forum? His post is a valid question and it amazes me why people with limited funds continue to waste their money on cheap inferior products that have a high risk of failing and if they would have spent their limited monies on a product that is of a lower risk of failing would be further ahead in not wasting their monies and their valuable time. If the said repeater is for a community to have some type of an emergency communications net it should be with a known reliable product and not be a high risk with the possibility of the system failing and being unreliable. Cheap Pandaland products have no place of being used in any important system that need to be reliable and robust for any emergency type of communications involving the preservation of human life or property.

My non output H3 would transmit for about 1/3 mile to my other H3. But it wouldn't connect to a repeater. So very likely there is output even if it's just from the oscillator in the front end and not the main power output. The radios are sensitive enough to pick up very weak signals. Just not throw them far enough for a repeater to pick them up. But ya, check your tones. With the H3 you can wirelessly clone one radio to the other. So if one works and the cloned one doesn't there is an output issue.

Any chance you have the wrong CTCSS tone set on one of the radios, or its power level is set to Low? Also, an inexpensive SWR meter should be available to see if the radio is really transmitting. It may be, but with VERY low output, so you may hear it in a nearby radio, but it is not developing the power it should. SWR meter and VOM are pretty much "standard equipment" for simple troubleshooting.

GMRS IS FOR TALKING WITH ANYONE YOU FEEL LIKE PUTTING A CALL OUT TO ! MALE, FEMALE IS IRRELEVANT ! THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH MAKING RANDOM CONTACTS, GET THIS THROUGH YOUR HEAD, PLEASE !!

The information above is technically accurate, but should we caveat that for the woods? Since the forest isn't consistent in density, levels of foliage change, the amount of water in the trees vary, etc. actual results may vary.

Because RF is emitted in all directions equally from an isentropic antenna, one way to compare the range of different power outputs is to think in terms of the volume of a sphere: Two watts fills the volume of a sphere of a radius of 0.78159 (the units in this case end up being the cube root of watts.) Five watts fills the volume of sphere of 1.06078. So, all other things equal, the range of a 5 watt radio compared to a 2 watt radio, to produce the same RF strength, will be approximately 36% further. Increasing it to 10 watts (five times the power of the two watt radio) results in 70% greater range. Increasing power to 20 watts gets you a little more than twice the range of the 2 watt radio (2.14 times to be exact). Finally, increasing it to 50 watts gets you less than three times the range of the 2 watt radio. (a factor of 2.917). Hopefully this illustrates how little/much RF power actually matters. Edited May 14, 2025: The above should have referred to the surface area of the sphere, not the volume. I regret my error.

So... couple of possible answers. I have done head-to-head-to-head testing for a customer, through 10 miles of heavy woods, with GMRS, MURS and CB. I will make this as concise as possible. With everything being equal, the lower in frequency you go, the less foliage and trees absorb RF... therefore the less the impact on range. That said, due to rules of the services, that doesn't mean anything as far as practical application. Again, no Line of site restriction, heavy woods, abiding to the FCC rules. From and to the exact same locations, on the same day, within an hour time frame. With a mobile CB, legal limit on AM, the max usable power of 4w (3 measured) and a 1/4 wave antenna, range was about 2.5 miles. With mobile MURS, max usable power of 2w (1.8 measured) and a 6dB gain antenna, max range was 1 mile. With GMRS. max usable power of 50w (48.5 measured) and a 6dB antenna, we were able to talk the full 10 miles with about a 50:50 SNR.

thought i would come back and give an update.... I ended up sending the radio back to BTWR, because i was convinced that the radio HAD a failure. Sure enough, they tested it and found fault in the faceplate. they warranted to unit, and the new one came two days ago. YES, I have a plethora of different length data cables, all shielded, that work PERFECT! The permanent install starts tomorrow... Although, it appears that CHIRP has NO solid program for this radio, and im having some difficulty with the WOUXUN data cable....