MSnow

Yes, you can do this. Highest tree you can find in the middle of everyone. I used a 40' telescoping flag pole attached to my RV ladder to the roof and this was able to overcome our issues being able to talk simplex. I used the rt97s the 10W version and it worked great.

Maybe look into the Radtel 880-G, if you really want the APRS tho I think the Kenwood HT and Yeasu are considered best, but those are 5 times the price your wanting to pay.

Just remember a Youtubers job is to get you to buy things. Especially with their Affiliate links below. As the other gent said as long as your holding the HT your body does the work of the counterpoise. But hey If you like collecting stuff and have no issues spending the money I would say buy and try it out for yourself, part of the fun of it all really.

just buy the midland nmo mag mount it comes with a very robust rubber cup around the magnet so it won't scratch anything.

I don't think adding a duplexer is going to give you what your trying to do. I think I understand your logic, but even the open unused receive port on the duplexer would still receive the TX signal from the other antenna. you either have to get the antenna's farther apart, or you can run one antenna on the duplexer, and that for sure solves your problems. As for the loss through a duplexer you can get some that have lower loss, I run a Sinclair Q3220E which factory spec says around .8db loss you can tune it and get it a bit better I think I got mine down to .6. Going with a duplexer you will have to get a good SA or VNA to tune it, and you'll want to tune it on site. The Rigol dsa815-tg is a common one due to it being somewhat affordable. Still not going to get full 25 watts if that's your repeaters output power because your getting loss in all the cables, adapters, splices, and lightning arrestors as well. Best bet would be to start with more power so that after all your loss you end up with 25watts at the antenna. Toronto Surplus is a good place to pick up duplexers that are used for a decent price FWIW.

The Retevis portable repeaters are pretty nice. I have the RT97S 10W version and it works well for what it is. I use it when camping and I put the antenna up around 40ft on a push up flag pole off the top of my 5th wheel. If you don't need or want the portable aspect however your best bet is to get some retired commercial grade stuff. Most of it will still have quite a bit of life left it it, but you will need some things extra. you can ebay an Icom fr4000-3 for around 500, then get a sinclair q3220e duplexer for 400. you will need to rent or make friends with someone with a good vna or at least sa to tune it. If the duplexer is tuned well you won't loose half your wattage, more like 15-20% ish.

turn the volume on the radio all the way up, like you did with your text.

I bought 2 GMRS Pros from Btech website, both came in nice sealed boxes and every part inside was individually bagged. including the antennas that were not affixed from the factory. beyond charging them and programming them they haven't been used much, maybe 10 to 15 mins. not a fan of them personally.

Yeah that looks way different. When I try to cut anything from this list is just does nothing and just reverts back to this stock look.This is the CPS from B2wr where I bought the unit. Of course anything past ch30 I can put anything I want with no issues. Perhaps the OG poster was using same software and creating issues. I think Chirp or RT systems might allow such edits.

Interesting, I have several Wouxon HT's & my KG1000g+ and the only ones that allow me to change any of the first 30 are the Ham versions. All of the GMRS type accepted radios I cannot change any of the channels if I try the CPS software reverts it back or gives and error stating out of band. Maybe I should try Chirp or RT systems to program. Now the Boofwangs allow pretty much anything I want in chirp.

No need to over complicate things. Instead of spending an additional 600$ repeater, buy a better antenna and a taller mast to put antenna up higher and that repeater will go 10 miles. I had an RT97S 10W version on a Comet CAF712EFC around 40ft up or roughly 282ft above sea level and had no problems getting into it with an HT from 5-10miles away in the Piney woods of Texas with 80Ft tall pine trees everywhere.

it's literally the same stuff from the same Chinese manufacturing facility. Just buy one and be happy.

For future reference, typically on GMRS radios they are type accepted meaning the first 30 channels can't be changed. if you copy pasta one of those channels to memory 31 you can change adjust add tones as you please with now issues. they are just required to lockout those first 30 for fcc approvals.

Maybe change your post title to New to Interwebs message boards?

Closest thing you could get to what your looking for is a Repeater and run it in base station mode. Btech makes one and I think retivis. But with that said all they are is a mobile radio with a power supply crammed into a box. In fact if your being technical almost every electronic runs off dc voltage so when you plug it into AC its converting it to DC it just has the power supply built into the device. So the answer is buy something like a Wouxon KG1000G Plus and get a Power supply and enjoy, because its the same thing as any other base.