Santiam

Yes, all of the tones are correctly set.. First thing I checked.. My brother doesn't have a base, he just uses his HT..He likes the repeater there so close because he can transmit from inside the house.. I might add that once, while I was on the other repeater that he thought I was calling him and he answered and I did in fact hear him.. Hmmm?

I have a Retivis repeater set up at my brothers house 4 miles away..462.6500 with a 136 tone.. Has a N9TAX antenna at 10 feet..It is just for comms in our valley and is centrally located.. Works well for our needs helping with the hills.. My base is a 20 watt radio with a vertical at 25 feet..It gets out very well.. Now there is a repeater 60 miles out that is also 462.6500 but with a tone of 141.. What is confusing is when I broadcast on the far off repeater at 141, my brother says I come thru on my repeater on 136.. It is definitely not receiving the far off repeater on what would be channel 19, but my base is hitting it even with the different tone.. Sitting here scratching my head and thought what the heck, I'll ask...

Yes, the radio shows H for high power..

WOW! Thanks for the in-depth explanation.. So cool..

That is the Ebay one.. They are bent that way.. Had a note with it that said he has changed the radial design..Said this was better.. Told him I needed it tuned for 462.6500 and it came in 1.0 on channel 19...I didn't test any other channels as 19 is all I am going to use it for.. It seems to be a great little antenna..

Now I am confused, I thought the radials were a ground plane.. Interesting..

I picked this little antenna the other day for my RT97 for back country communications...Easy to pack and easy to hide were my main considerations. After playing with it for awhile I must say I am thoroughly impressed. Definitely out performs my roll up N9TAX that was my previous back country antenna.. I was able to talk to my repeater at 16 miles with a HT, it was high on a hill though.. I just had no idea this little antenna could be so good...

I have since learned that on chirp, "M" is actually high. By switching from M to H, we are actually changing from H to L.. Now that I have that figured out life is easier and no more problems.. I do like the radio and it is putting out a tad over five watts..

High on the ridge I can talk thru my RT97 with a HT out to 15 miles..That is as far as I have checked it so I don't know the actual range.. Using a base antenna will get you considerably more range than a HT, but unless you can place it in a central location, it probably won't help a lot.. I do like my repeater though..

Now that I have the SWR figured out I deployed my portable repeater back to compare it against the copper J-Pole I had there last week . Working like a champ and I can hit it at many fars...I changed out the KMR-400 coax which I learned was not the best choice for repeaters with M&P Ultraflex 10.. So far so good... Not always a handy tree to hang it..

Yes, I have the 102, but the HT's were connected to the Slim Jim, so that should have negated the ground plane problem?

Yes, seemed weird to me also, but I did get an answer.. Nothing to worry about as the repeater transmits on 462, only listens on 467.. So obvious that it makes me feel stupid...LOL.. I was doing my antenna testing using HT's.. When I went thru the repeater it was a perfect 1.0.. Still, that is a awful big jump from 462 to 467.. Hmmm?

I have a roll up Slim Jim antenna..I got it for easy packing and set up in the mountains for my portable repeater..On all simplex channels the SWR is perfect or near perfect with little fluctuation thru the channels..The SWR goes through the roof on repeater channels..Like 3.6 through the roof.. I have eliminated,radios and coax by going through my base station antenna, a J-POLE... SWR goes up a tad on repeater channels , 1.0 to 1.3, so the problem must be in the Slim Jim.. Near as I can tell there is no tuning.. Hoping someone has a idea or it's time trash it and do something different..If it doesn't work for a repeater I have no use for it.. Thanks

Well, I have had one annoying problem..After programming on chirp and uploading back to the radio my power level mysteriously goes to low power even after I programmed all channels to high.. I end up using the radio menu to change everything back... Other than that, no other problems..

I really like my RT97..Works great for what I need, which is occasional use in the mountains for communications. I can get about a 30 mile circle which is more than enough for my needs.