WSBQ643

I am going to look into that Ryobi suggestion. That might be just what I need. Thanks for the help.

I will start with the 4 port USB charger. I initially posted that I had a baofeng UV-5G plugged into a cell phone battery charger and a SR-112 simplex repeater plugged in. Every time I tried to use it the SR112 would lock up on transmit and stay that way for a while before it quit transmitting. The guess was the battery pack did not have enough horse power to support to devices. So I got a 4 port USB hub and plugged both directly into it. Sure as the sun rises the SR112 locked up again on transmit. So I put the radio on the 4 port USB hub with a laptop and a phone and the SR112 on a single USB charger and it worked perfectly. I have no idea why, when both devices are plugged into the same USB port or the same batter pack that the SR112 locks up. Now for the simplex and duplex repeater. I live in a very woody area with lots of hills and ridgelines. I setup an RT97 repeater on top of one ridge and I could talk to the person on the other side of the ridge. When I went two ridges away and was down in the draws I could not hit the RT97. So I decided to take a baofeng UV5G and flip the frequencies from what the repeater had and put it on the second ridge. I was surprised but from the draw after the second ridge I could hit the simplex repeater and it keyed the RT97 and we could talk just fine. Repeater frequencies in the RT97 and the radio stayed the same. Before anyone starts in on why this is not legal, I will say this was testing just for emergency purposes. Just thought I would share

Looks like everyone was right. Not enough horsepower that battery pack. So, I got a charge controller for my solar panel, 7ah battery, mini inverter and all is well in paradise. Should have posted this sooner and saved myself the headache. By the way the Ammo Can looks great. Thanks for the help.

I don't have any idea. It's one of the big solar panel ones from Amazon and not a name on it anywhere. Did not think of that. I guess it's back to the drawing board and see if I can find one for this. I guess I figured as big as it is and with two ports and supposedly would charge a laptop it was big enough. I saw these used on making bug out boxes to set in the woods and people were using phone charging battery packs. I guess I need to see what the SR-112 calls for as far as amperage as well. Thanks. Still confused but that's not really abnormal. HA!

I am not a battery expert by any means so if someone can explain what is going on I would appreciate it. I am running an SR-112 simplex repeater with a baofeng UV-5G plus radio. I had the SR-112 plugged into a usb charger plugged into the wall and the same for the UV-5G plus. Everything worked perfect. The I took a dual port solar battery pack that I use to charge my phone when outdoors and plugged the SR-112 into one port and the UV-5G into the other. This is when I had a SHTF moment. I could transmit on my other radio and see the UV-5G open on receive but the SR-112 would not pass anything. I tried this a couple time and still the same thing. So I unplugged the SR-112 from the batter pack and suddenly my radio lit up and I started getting all three test messages I had sent and then it hung on transmit for several seconds before going back to receive mode. I plugged them back into the wall separately and they started working perfect again. Sore, thinking I had lost my mind I plugged them both back in the the battery pack and got the same results. Nothing! When I unplugged the SR-112 i got all my test messages like before and the same squeal and transmit stuck for several seconds. Any ideas would certainly be appreciate.

I do have to add that I have no idea or equipment available to check the tuning of the duplexer's. The repeater seemed to work fine for about a week right after I got it and then we had a rain storm and it started this. That is one of the main reasons for putting up a new antenna and changing the coax.

The repeater was supposed to have the duplexers tuned for 467.6500 receive and 462.6500 transmit. That is the freq. I have been trying to use. I tried other frequencies that are programmed in the repeater but same result on all channels.

I just installed my RT-97 in a new location. I installed a new antenna, new ABR400 coax. Tested the SWR and got 1.2 and power out was 5.4. Everything looked great. When I use my HT or mobile and key up the repeater even momentarily I get a lot of static back and the repeater stays stuck on transmit crackling for several seconds. This happens on two different antennas and two different types of coax. If I am within 1/8th of mile from the repeater I can hear audio. Once I get past that when I key the repeater up I don't see the receive on any other radio. Once I unkey the repeater I see the receive light come on, on another radio but no audio. I am at a complete loss unless the RT97 which is new has some kind of issue. I wouldn't think it was the duplexers because the SWR's are perfect and the power out is great. I thought maybe turning up the squelch on the repeater may help but I don't think that would have anything to do with not receiving any audio. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I think I am going to take one of my baofeng HT's and use the SA 112 to see if that has the same issue to figure out if its the RT97.

This question may have been asked before but I need a little help. I have an RT97 with an MAO9 antenna. Installed it and worked great until the rain. Now when I key up my HT the RT97 stays stuck in transmit for a 10 or 15 seconds putting out broken up static. I don't think I have a repeater problem but was wondering if the the antenna maybe got wet at some point in all the connection where it is screwed together that may be causing this. Thanks for any help.

So, I bought the RT97 which came with the MA09 base antenna. Hooked everything up including my SWR meter and all was perfect. SWR 1.0 The repeater is tuned and apparently the antenna for 462.6500. When I change the antenna over to use on my HT I get an SWR reading of 2.5. At first I could not figure this out but it dawned on me the antenna was not tuned to transmit on 467 which is another repeater I was wanting to hit. I checked the Retevis website and tried googling to find a turning chart for the antenna like the one used with the Tram 1486 but could not find one. So am I just going to have to purchase a new base antenna or is there a way to tune this one if I decided to use it for a base antenna instead of for the repeater?

I will have to admit I screwed up not paying attention when I ordered the new Btech UV-50V2. Not paying attention I did end up with the Ham version instead of the GMRS version. Was tempted to send it back but decided to see what the major differences were. Need less to say there were not GRMS freqs in the radio but there is a list in CHIRP that has all the freq's and RPT channels as well. Once you upload the radios configuration you can copy and paste the CHIRP list right over the top of the read you got from the radio and it works perfect. Not saying I would use an illegal radio but wanted to see how it worked. Got a constant 45 watts out end to end. Being a law abiding citizen of course I purchased the GRMS version but decided to keep the other one as well just for "listening". Really like the radio. I live a dense wooded area with several little hills and valleys and it had many more far's (credit to notarubicon) than I ever expected. Coupled with the UV-72G mag mount antenna I could not ask for more. Got my vote for what it's worth.

I posted this in the technical discussion forum and thought maybe it would be better served in the general discussion forum given quesitons i have enjoyed reading. So, being the impatient person I am I purchased the UT-72 Nagoya antenna without realizing there was a UT-72G which Baofeng is quick to point out for GRMS you need the UT-72G. Not only am I not patient but I am curious as well and "fars" in the Army just made this worse. After reading more on the two antennas I more or less came to the conclusion that the difference between the two was the rod. The other interesting fact is there is no set screw in the UT-72 to remove the rod for tuning. I went through the channels and found that 1-7 I got an SWR of 1.0 to 1.1. Then 8-14 I was getting 2.2 avg. The repeater channels went up to 1.8 on avg. As mentioned there was no set screw to remove the rod but removing the protective cap on the tip of the rod seemed to work just fine since a little math said I needed it shorter. I cut 5/32 off the tip and retested and came up with 1.0 to 1.1 through all the channels from 1 to 22. I am pretty convinenced there is loading coil differences between the antenna's or at least they are so closely related that a simple tuning of the rod fixed the issue without going for what now seems like a marketing startegy. Could someone tell me if I am missing something or if they have encounterd the same issue? Thanks.

Thanks for the info.

So, being the impatient person I am I purchased the UT-72 Nagoya antenna without realizing there was a UT-72G which Baofeng is quick to point out for GRMS you need the UT-72G. Not only am I not patient but I am curious as well and "fars" in the Army just made this worse. After reading more on the two antennas I more or less came to the conclusion that the difference between the two was the rod. The other interesting fact is there is no set screw in the UT-72 to remove the rod for tuning. I went through the channels and found that 1-7 I got an SWR of 1.0 to 1.1. Then 8-14 I was getting 2.2 avg. The repeater channels went up to 1.8 on avg. As mentioned there was no set screw to remove the rod but removing the protective cap on the tip of the rod seemed to work just fine since a little math said I needed it shorter. I cut 5/32 off the tip and retested and came up with 1.0 to 1.1 through all the channels from 1 to 22. I am pretty convinenced there is loading coil differences between the antenna's or at least they are so closely related that a simple tuning of the rod fixed the issue without going for what now seems like a marketing startegy. Could someone tell me if I am missing something or if they have encounterd the same issue? Thanks.