WRYW415

Thank you. These are the kinds of things I NEEDED to know!

As the title says, I'm trying to outweigh the pros and cons of using a duplexer or not for a planned repeater. I see through research that there is a power loss going through a duplexer in one form of another and that's to be expected when trying to tx and rx at the same time on one antenna. Space isn't an issue to run 2 antennas, and I would think that I'd have less loss in both directions doing it this way even with twice the amount of coax. I've read somewhere that the rx and tx antennas should not be on the same horizontal plane. Is this a myth or fact? I can go to 20 different sites and get both answers. How do I know how far apart to put them, or is "as far away from each other as you can possibly get" the theory here? I'd like input from someone who has actually tried this both ways (duplexed or not) and their real world results, and not just opinions. Thanks!

I know there is / was a 400 going around on Amazon that was terrible.

Yup. LMR400 is literally the best stuff you can buy for our frequencies aside from the hardline and high dollar stuff as far as loss.

Not sure about the traffic on the others since I'm too far from them to hear them. I'm also wondering about my antenna height. While I'm certainly not the highest area around (one of the the evac areas, crystal river is like 6ft above sea level and floods at nearly every storm and about 20 miles away as the crow flies). Hwy 19-98 is just over 13 miles from me at it's closest point. Figure the antenna will be 100 +/- feet above sea level. I just don't know if it'll make it to Crystal River.

Is the comet tunable? I see that it's only designed to be used up to 450MHz.

Hey, I have a bit of a dilemma and this may be a long winded question so I'll give details. I was looking at the repeater map of Florida. I noticed there is a HUGE "hole" in available repeaters where I am. A group of us around here help coordinate preparedness for storms for elderly and disabled persons (securing stuff from become projectiles etc) and use gmrs to do it (its a small subdivision). I'm located pretty much in between the 2 closest repeaters that are both on a highway (hwy 19-98) which is a known evacuation route (if you look at the map, on the West coast you'll see the South repeater i'm referring to "Hernando 625" and the one North of me "Tennille 625". I'm in Dunnellon in between hwy 19-98 and the "Silver Spring Shores" repeater. I don't mind spending the money (I see I can get a whole setup from a guy on eBay for $6-700, which is 2 radios, power supply and duplexer, and he programs them how you want). I believe it's a 50 watt setup. I just need some good LM-400 coax and an antenna. The downside is I'm only 55ft above sea level and i have a LOT of tall pines around me. The antenna (probably a good Diamond or Tram) will go up on a 40ft tower next to my Sirio. Would having a repeater at my location help with evac crews, people fleeing or just anyone coming up 19?? Been into the radio thing for nearly 4 decades but unsure if it will get used enough to bother.