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I just notice that Repeater 18 just reduce his coverage area from 13.6 miles to 6 miles. This means he can't reach Bastrop which might explain why I haven't been able to reach it. I'll be glad when my repeater is working. I'm still waiting on my parts of which some haven't shipped. Part of them are due Monday 5/6/2024

Will do. I think I might have seen that video. I’ll search for it later and watch it. Thanks for the info

I'm going to try to put together my own repeater. I've ordered 2 1000G Plus and connect them as a repeater, the IASDUP 1037 Duplexer, and the TRAM 1486 antenna with M&P cable. I'm thinking about putting it on my "Car Port" which has a 14' roof and I was going to raise the antenna another 10'. So that would give me 25' in height. I'm at the top of a hill and I believe 25' would be above any structure, except my house which is 32'. The carport is 200' from my house so I shouldn't get much interference. If that doesn't work I'll move it to my house, which I don't want to do. With that as a repeater my handhelds will easily connect to it even if we are in the house (I hope). Time will tell.

Wow!! That makes sense. My house is almost at the top of a hill. When I stand on my roof there is nothing in my way. Unfortunately we only have 5 watt radios so it doesn't reach the repeater. We are getting the Wouxum 1000G Plus for a base station which has 50 Watts so that should help.

According to the area for the repeater on mygmrs.com my house is about 8 miles from his coverage area. So I'm not expecting coverage there. I think I did reach the repeater when I was at Home Depot because I did hear a "kerchunk" and when I did a test my radio showed a signal reading of 4. I never received those before. According to googlemaps.com Home Depot is 8 miles from the repeater and his profile says it has a range of 13.5. I was going to drive towards the repeater to see if I could get better coverage but since Home Depot seemed to work I ruled that out. Other places in town I tried were a little closer but did not connect. But, like I said earlier, I did hear something on it. He did state that he's going to up the range so I'm assuming he's working on it.

It looks like I might be able to move the location of where the antenna cable comes into the house. I already had a place where all my security cameras cables came into the house so I was thinking about using it. Didn't consider the cross talk that might happen between the cables. That was why I was going to have the 1000G Plus over there and need to have 30' of microphone cable. As I was considering this conversation I found a place where the antenna can come into my house and closer to the recliners AND it would shorten my antenna cable by about 8 feet (save some $$$). Now I can put the 1000G Plus next to the recliners and not need to extend the microphone cable. So I'd like to thank those who responded and kept me from making a terrible mistake.

Thanks to all who replied to my post. I did what was suggested, clear out the receive tone, and when I was in town at Home Depot yesterday I clicked the mic and did hear a "kerchunk" which was more then I ever heard. So I did a test and noticed that my signal strength went to 4. I didn't get a response but at least it looked like it was working. I wanted to show my wife that it was working but I couldn't repeat the results. It was kind of frustrating but at least it looks like what ya'll recommend worked. It sounded like, on the way home, that someone was talking on it but couldn't understand what they were saying.

I can make my own RJ45 cable and I know how to swap the connections so it won't be a problem. Moving the head on the Wouxum will be able to cut down the distance. I MIGHT me able to move the radio a little closer but still have about 12' from the wall to the recliner, which would also save me money on the LMR400 cable. I want to keep the cost down but don't want to "Cheap" out. I haven't purchased anything yet. I'm just doing research to see what my options are. I'll go check out the link you gave.

I'm probably going to be getting a base station, Btech GMRS 50V2 or Wouxum KG1000G Plus (any suggestions), but I have a question about extending the microphone. It is hard for my wife to get up and down all the time so I want to put the microphone next to her recliner. I don't want to run it straight from the radio to the recliner because it'd have to be in the middle of the room and too easy to trip on. So I'd want to run it up against the wall and to her recliner which is about 30 feet. I'd use a RJ45 cable, I have plenty of them, and an inline coupler to connect the cable to the microphone. So my question is: will 30 feet of RJ45 work? I believe it should work because RJ45, i.e. Ethernet cable, is good for transmitting data. Any suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks

To answer yall's questions: The repeater uses the same tone for both TX/RX so I set them both to the CTCSS tones he indicated. Neither one of us can hear any traffic on the channel. I thought 100 feet apart would be enough I think I'll try to hear some traffic by myself. I was in town by myself this morning, my wife over 17 miles away (that should be more then plenty but the repeater doesn't cover my house). I did a few test but nothing came back, not even the "kerchunk" According to Google Maps I was about 9 miles from the repeater which, according to the repeater coverage on mygmrs is well within his coverage area. We are both going into town on Monday so we'll try again without the receive tone. I'll also try with wife's radio off. We are using the Btech GMRS Pro which is suppose to put out 5 watts. I think I can put it on low power (0.5 watts) when we test it in town again. I was able to contact her this morning on GMRS 18 about 3 miles away but, as it was pointed out, that was the simplex channel. At the house it's no problem while I'm working outside contacting her but it's mostly line of site. I don't think a lot of people are on GMRS in this town. It was a small town but is growing rapidly. Musk put his Boring Company out here and is trying to create his own town. They are trying to put an Airport out here but people are fighting it. My wife an I say there's too many people moving out here so we need to move further out. I appreciate your help/comments. alfie

Hi ya'll I've searched the mygmrs database and YouTube but could not find a solution to my problem. We've received permission to use a local repeater, Rept18, so I've programmed the tones to the correct frequency per the owners information. My wife and I were both in town, we both have the Btech GMRS Pro, and were tuned to REPT18. We were about 100 feet apart and I tried to contact her. According to the coverage area on the mygmrs web site we were well inside it's coverage area. I know we can't receive it from out house because because I'm out of the coverage area. But that is a different issue I'm working on, get a base station or install my own repeater. I've done other tests and could not hear the "Kerchunk" from the repeater. I've sent an email to the owner to see if I did anything wrong. I have received a reply yet. So the only thing I think I might be doing wrong is trying to communicate being on REPT18. Do I need to be on GMRS18 to use the repeater? That wasn't clear on any of the YouTube videos. I still consider myself new to GMRS/Repeaters so if anybody can help I'd appreciate it. Thanks

Climate change? Isn't everything being blamed on Climate Change?

My radios when haywire. I live outside of Austin and the lights on the radios just kept flashing. Couldn't turn the radios on or off and there was nothing on the display. After the eclipse passed everything returned to normal.

I am about 8 miles (as the crow flies) to the "Edge" of the repeater range. I just now got approved to use the Bastrop repeater so I'll see what that does. I'm located in Cedar Creek, TX. I don't think doing my own repeater is the answer. I did to a test run on my handheld. I drove from my house to Bastrop and got no replies from anybody, I was on GMRS 16. I think I'm almost at the top of a hill and everybody else is below me. Of course my wife was in the house (metal roof) and there are lots of trees around the house (Subdivision is call Thousand Oaks). If I stand on my roof (2 story house) nothing is in my way. So I'm thinking of just installing a base station an putting an antenna on my chimney. I'll first try the repeater and see if that gets me anything.