WRYZ926

Well I figured it was time for a review of the Bridgecom BCR-40U repeater now that we have had ours on line for 12 months. The good; The repeater works pretty good for the most part and the sound and duty cycle is good. The bad: First the built in CW ID cuts people off and no one can transmit on the repeater while the ID is transmitting. Second, the CW ID is ONLY transmitted without tones. So if you have receive tones set on your radio, you will never hear the CW ID which leads to the first problem of getting cutoff mid transmission. The UGLY: Bridgecom customer service is non existent when it comes to their repeaters. I submitted my first support ticket only to have them reply to shut the CW ID off. To make it worse, they closed the ticket before I could even reply to them. I then tried contacting them by phone and on their Facebook page to try and get some answers. This went nowhere. And Yes I was polite every time I contacted Bridgecom. I had to submit yet another ticket and explain everything over again along with asking them not to close the ticket before I could reply to their answers. Well they did that. But their answers were far from helpful. Again they stated to just turn the CW ID off and they had no clue why it was cutting people off mid sentence. Their only other suggestion was to use an external control I try my best to be polite with customer service since I know how people can be. But there was no excuse on how I was treated. To make it worse, I made a comment on their Face book page only to have Bridgecom delete it. It seems they don't want people to see any negative reviews or negative comments. Needless to say I will never recommend any of their products again based on their poor customer service. Here is a screen shot of my comment when I received the notice that it was deleted.

The poor horse should have been beaten so much that it is nothing but liquid puree by now.

A generator that is NOT properly shielded for EMI and RFI will definitely jam radios. You would have to be within 150 feet or less with the generator though. And yes I know this is a fact since I would purposely jam certain peoples radios with my truck mounted machine shop while I was in the Army. The truck had a PTO driven 25 Kw generator that would jam all commo equipment within a 150 foot radius of the truck when running.

Yes he was on our 2m repeater. We would have just told him to use the proper callsign if he was on our GMRS repeater.

I should have been more precise when I talked about the kid. He is at least old enough to drive. He was driving grampa's truck the time he used grampa's call sign. The email to grampa was nice in that we offered to help the kid get his license. We also stated the consequences of what could happen if the kid continued using the radio without a license. Grampa has only been licensed for a couple of months. I bet grampa was pretty upset when he found out the grandson was using his radio(s) without permission. Like I said, we haven't heard the kid on since we sent grampa an email.

We had a kid that was using his grampa's radio without permission. He kept getting on the repeater using CB lingo. We ignored him. Then he tried using a totally made up call sign. Again we ignored him. Then he was dumb enough to use his grampa's call sign. One of our members then started talking to him. We got his grampa's name and address from the call sign. We then send an email to the grampa. We haven't heard the kid on the air since. We have had instances of kerchunkers bouncing from our GMRS and 2m repeaters in quick succession. Again we ignore them while members try pin point the person's location. We have found a couple and just the threat of FCC fines was enough to stop them. We also programmed our repeater controllers with an anti-kerchunk feature. It keeps the people that just push the PTT in for a second from even opening up the repeater. That has took the wind out of a few kerchunkers sails. Sometimes a cease and desist letter is enough to stop people and other times it's not. A cargo van with a bunch of mag mount antennas on the roof parked across the street is enough to stop some people too.

Here is an interesting video to watch. How the FCC Finds & Fines Radio Pirates, Jammers and Interference Generators

I agree with you. The FCC stated themselves that is what they will actually take into account before thinking about investigating. That does not mean they will actually do anything. Their own track record shows they do not do much at all.

The FCC won't even think about looking into things UNLESS threats have been made on air by the ID10T. And the FCC still won't get into any hurry. You have to have things well documented before submitting complaints to the overlords. Otherwise, do as Randy has said. Track the ID10T down and try talking to them. If that doesn't work, send a cease and desist letter. And if neither of those options work then it's time for a good old fashion attitude adjustment in front of his family and friends. A fourth option is to get a nice focused log periodical type antenna and park out front of the ID10T's house and jam him every time he decides to show his fourth point of contact to the world.

I can say that the Bingfu definitely has less than stellar real world reviews from people that have tried them. I would say the other two are probably no better.

You might not find any dual band antennas that fits your needs then. The shortest dual band I could find is the COMPACtenna Model 2M/440 Dual-Band NMO Mobile Antennas 2M/440 which is 7" tall. I have no idea how well those work since I have no experience with them.

I can definitely recommend the Comet SBB-1 NMO antenna for 2m and 70cm.It is only 16" long. I am height restricted myself and the Comet SBB1 just clears my 7 foot garage doors in the center of the roof on my 2023 Ford Escape. Another good option is the Comet SBB-2 which is 18" long. I tested my SBB-1 on GMRS and the SWWR was 1.8 at 467.600, so it is usable for GMRS.

And nothing wrong with that either. I find that I learn best by hands on.

While one can tune a duplexer with a NanaVNA, how accurate is that going to be. And you really want the duplexers spot on when there are other repeaters on site and/or other GMRS repeaters in the area. As we all know RF can do weird things. I'll say it again, ask around with your local amateur radio clubs and see where they get their duplexers tuned. Most of those people will be more than happy to help.

Well it never hurts to have plenty of different adaptors on hand, especially if you have your amateur license and like to do POTA and SOTA or other portable setups.

I ordered a set of SMA to BNC adaptors from Amazon not too long ago. They work with my Baofeng, Explorer (TYT), Icom, Quansheng, and Wouxun HT's. I mostly bought them so that I can use a loop antenna or hand held yagi for fox hunting and chasing down kerchunkers and jammers. onelinkmore SMA to BNC Kits 2 Set RF Coaxial Adapter Male Female Coax Connector 8 Pieces

My battery was showing 99% when I tested.

I have to agree with everyone else, I would not try to tune a duplexer using a NanoVNA. We have member in our local club that retired from Sound Solutions and he still has access to all of the proper equipment to tune duplexers for us. A person really does need the proper equipment if they want to do it right. @WSGB808 I suggest reaching out to any local amateur radio clubs near you and ask them.

The lack of activity on the 1.25m band in my area is another reason why I have not bought a 1.25m radio. I do have the Wouxun KG-Q10H quad band. Here are the power output levels on the KG-Q10H using a Surecom SW-102 into a dummy load. 1.25m - 1.4 to 1.6 watts 2m - 4.5 to 5.1 watts MURS - 1.4 to 1.8 watts 70cm - 4.1 to 4.5 watts GMRS - 4.1 to 4.6 watts 6m - 1.0 to 1.3 watts Power output will vary slightly depending on the frequency/channel on each band. And output levels are what I expected on each band. Tri band and quad band radios are a compromise. A mono band for 1.25 and 6m is ideal for the max power output on mobile radios.

Good to know about the Alinco. I'll keep that in mind.

The problem with most 50 watt tri-band radios is that they will only do 5 watts max on 1.25m. And HT's will be more like 1 watt or 2 watts on 1.25m. That's why I will not buy a tri-band radio. And right now the only two mono band 50 watt 1.25m mobile radios available is the Alinco DR-CS25T or the TYT TH-9000. And there is the 30 watt Bridgecom BCM-220. But none of those three radios get the best reviews, especially on e-ham. It's a darn if you do and darn if you don't thing with 1.25m mono band radios. The big 3 manufacturers don't make them because there is not much of a demand. And no one wants to use 1.25m in most areas because no one makes a good 1.25m mobile. I would use a tri band if we could get at least 20 watts on 1.25m or even a mono band radio if a good quality one was available new.

There probably is something to that. The temps here have been swinging from highs of 25 to 60 and lows from 18 to 50 in the last week or so. And I have been hearing a GMRS repeater for the last few days that I normally do not hear at all. The repeater is about 50 miles east of me. Now I have not heard any good band openings like I did in October. I fully understand others when they deal with two or more repeaters on the same channel and being in the middle of both. The repeater 50 miles east of me is on the same channel as a repeater that is 50 miles west of me. The west repeater uses PL tones while the east repeater does not use any tones. I normally do not hear the east repeater since its antenna is not very high and there is enough hills in between.

GMRS is a great way to get kids into radio. And that is one of the many reasons we installed a GMRS repeater. It is a good way to get new people into radio, and they might end up also getting their amateur radio licenses in the process. I doubt that a 9 year old would be bothered about talking on a repeater as long as he gets to talk to grampa. We have a 7 year old that gets on our GMRS repeater to talk to his papa and grammy all of the time. He also enjoys talking to others on the repeater. And the rest of us always smile when he gets on the air. Go ahead and try hand held radios. You both might get into a repeater just fine and even be able to talk to each other on simples. Or you can always setup mobile antennas (on cookie sheets) or base antennas and still be fine with HT's The 7 year old uses an HT with a home made j pole antenna inside his house that his papa built. They live both live about 7.5 miles away from the repeater. He gets into the repeater just fine with the j pole inside.

I was given a brand new Melowave antenna recently and rewatching your video on the Midland Ghost and Melowave Shadow is what made me decide to keep it and try it out on the wife's car.

I use two of the Midland mag mounts on my Ford Escape without any issues. And a Melowave mag mount on the SxS. Both do well even with the Comet 2x4SRNMO.