WRYZ926

Radios are like potato chips, you can't just have 1,

Another good choice is a Bridgecom GMRS repeater. You can get a Bridgecom repeater without a duplexer for $1599 or one with a duplexer for $1999. Our club is running a Bridgecom repeater with a separate (and higher quality) duplexer and the system works very well. Another option is to find a used Motorola repeater and have it programmed for GMRS. Dedicated repeaters will be better than trying to use two mobile radios as a repeater. By the time you buy two mobile radios, and a good duplexer, you can buy a dedicated repeater.

One can absolutely run digital and analog on the same repeater as long as everything is setup correctly. This is done all of the time with 70cm repeaters using analog and DMR. Now if the settings are not correct, then the digital side can interfere with the analog side and visa versa.

While the recommendation of getting a good mobile radio is good, go with what you currently own or can afford right now. Many GMRS and amateur radio operators have started out with a 5 watt hand held radio and a magnet mounted antenna. That setup works for short distances on simplex and also works pretty good when using repeaters. A 25 watt amp will work just fine with a 5 watt HT when using a good antenna. @WRQC527 gives a good use case for using a hand held radio and an amp.

Go to menu number 19 to change the color of the WT-LED. It is set to orange by default. Options are: off/red/orange/green. Menu no. 18 changes the TX-LED and menu no. 20 changes the RX-LED. The options are the same for all three. TX-LED is red by default and the TX-LED is green by default. You can set all of them to what you like. I have the RX-LED set to green, TX-LED set to red and the WT-LED set to off.

The speakers work fine on the KG-1000G. A lot will depend on how/where the main body of the radio is mounted. One also has to take in environmental noises too. The built in speakers are fine for the KG-1000G in my office/shack. I did have to go with an external speaker with the KG-1000G in my Ford Escape size the main body is under the driver's seat. The Mic speaker was not loud enough. One word of caution. Don't bother trying to get a Y adaptor and using only one external speaker plugged into both speaker ports. It will cut the volume in half. So if you want to monitor both A and B, you will need two speakers to hear both sides. I like the Icom SP35 speakers and use one for my KG-1000G and one for my TYT TH-7800 in my Escape. They can be found for $35 on Amazon. I know there are cheaper speakers out there but the Icom SP35's work well.

I guess the MXT 575 does not suffer from low power output like the MXT 500 does. My MXT 500 would only put out 35 watts on high power.

I did my research before buying the MXT 500. I compared it with the MXT 575 and went with the MXT500 since it can be programmed and firmware updated with a computer. My family member bought the MXT 575 only to find out that you can't program or update the firmware with a computer. My MT 500 came with older firmware and only had a limited number of memory slots. I had to do the firmware update to open it up to have more memory slots.

The cigarette lighter/charging port will work fine as long as it is a switched circuit. One does not need a lot of amps to active the relay. That is why relays are preferred when adding a high power accessory to vehicles. Your high amp draw circuit goes from the battery in to pin 30 and out on pin 87. Pin 86 can be a low amp circuit since it doesn't take much to close the relay and allow the higher amp draw between pin 30 and 87. You can also add an On/Off switch on the positive switch source (from power to pin 86) if you want. Again this is how high amperage off road lights are commonly wired. And as @Sshannon said,, any automotive 12V relay will work as long as it is rated for the amperage draw of the radio. The Wouxun KG-1000G will draw about 12-14 amps when transmitting on high power. So a 20 amp relay will work if you only want to connect one radio. If you are wanting to install two radios then I would go with a 25 or 30 amp relay.

Here is a basic diagram on how to wire up a 12V relay. So for a radio, you wire the ground lead directly to a chassis ground. The radio's power lead goes to pin 87 on the relay. Run a wire from the relay pin 30 to the battery positive post. Find a switched power source and wire it to the relay pin 86. The relay pin 85 also goes to a chassis ground. The nice thing about relays is that you can use a lower amperage circuit to control the relay. The relay will close when power is applied to pin 86. Using a switched power source to control the relay will cut power to the radio when the vehicle is off. It is recommended to ground accessory, such as radios, directly to a chassis ground for newer vehicles with the auto start/stop system. The reason is due to the battery control module that is connected directly to the battery negative post. Hooking accessory grounds directly to the battery negative post can mess up the Auto Start/Stop system and the Battery Control Module.

The KG-UV9PX very well could be capable of being unlocked. From what I could find, and as @OffRoaderX said, the Wouxun GMRS certified radios are locked down in the firmware. I also haven't found any easy way to unlock/modify any of the Wouxun amateur band mobile radios either. I was surprised on how easy it is to unlock the KG-Q10H hand held and how quickly that information came out.

Yes I read all of that. And the only way to program a MXT575 is through the hand mic I know this first hand when I had to help a family member program his MXT575.

The KG-Q10H is the only Wouxun radio that I have found that is easy to unlock. I think there might be sources for programs from Europe for unlocking Wouxun radios, but I haven't messed with any.

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I posted the correct pinout for the extension cable on page 1 of this thread.

I will still suggest using a shielded CAT5/6 cable and shielded RJ45 connector for making extension cables for removing the head. The factory extension cable is shielded and uses shielded RJ45 connectors. Shielded cable and connectors will help keep RFI out of the radio. I have to agree that the overall length is not as critical in this instance. In fact I don't see anyone making a 100 foot, let alone 300 foot, extension cable.

We run our 2m, 70cm and GMRS repeaters on a 900 foot tall broadcast radio tower. There are also other radio services on the tower too. Properly tunes duplexers will keep interference at bay.

I hate when that happens. I have to deal with that myself. It gets so bad at times that I can't even keep my call signs straight.

The Baofeng hand held radios definitely have their place. They work and are cheap enough to get new GMRS and amateur license holders on the air without breaking the bank.

I am going to trust my cable tester that I have used for years making network cables over a printed manual. Especially after testing cable for two KG-1000G radios. I have been out of doing any type of network administration for some time so my memory might be off. But generally the maximum length of any CAT 5/6 cable is 300 feet/100 meters for computer networks. PS; I'll stick to using actual cable testers to test my network/communication cables.

I found the same thing with pins 5 and 7 swapped. It was the same with the short cable and the extension cable. None of my cables showed Pin 2 shorted at all. I tested the short and extension cables on my KG-1000G and KG-1000G Plus.

I'm curious to see how it compares to the Bridgecom repeaters if that is possible.

GMRS repeater channels share the same channels as Simplex channels. We will use channel 17 and repeater 17 as an example. The repeaters output will be on 462.600 MHZ and Channel 17 (simplex) is also on 462.600 MHz. So if you don't have a receive tone set on your radio, you will hear the repeater traffic and any simplex traffic (with no tones). And yes you can still hear the repeater even when it is using the output tones even though your radio does not have a receive tone set. Setting the receive tone just filters out any unwanted traffic on the channel so you don't hear it. We have tones set for both receive and transmit on our repeater. Last Saturday there were a bunch of kids on Channel 17 simplex. I did not hear them at all since I do have the receive tone set on my radio, others that don't have the receive tone set did hear the kids.

The pinouts I got was when using my standard RJ12/RJ45 cable tester with the connectors both facing the same direction ( clip on bottom). I tested both the short cable and the long extension cable. IMG_3755.MOV