LeoG

That's why I leave the radio on 24/7, so I can listen to strangers. But most of them are really people I know and have talked to because of the nets.

Sounds like something you would do.

How about no thank you. The frequencies can get pretty busy in some areas and all you need is one yahoo jabber jawing for hours on end to destroy a whole bandwidth.

Or just plain old don't feel the need to go onto "bigger and better things". I got the GMRS so I could communicate with my wife and family either during an emergency or just because. I have no inkling to take a test so I can go out and spend thousands more to talk to people that I don't know. Maybe when I'm retired and bored I might pursue it but for now I'm happy with only having the family license to talk with family and some other acquaintances I meet along the way.

Yep, that's the only problem with RX tones is you might interfere with someone else's conversation and not even know it. Most radios will light up when receiving even if the tone is blocking the squelch. That way you can go to monitor and wait your turn.

Not exactly camping if you have full power, now is it?

I know my TD-H3 PTT button is pretty light. I've activated it many times just picking it up. No audible click at all.

Just turn it on and go. Not like yesteryear when you needed to register it including how high your antenna is. If you are using it as a private repeater for your own use then there is no need for auto ID. If you use it for a public repeater then you should ID.

1st time I tested low power it was 5 watts. Haven't tested it since I did the update for the digital tone

I don't like the auto IDer. Doesn't have the setup I want so I don't use it. I want it to stay silent until someone uses it and not to interrupt active traffic. It just has a simple timer or ID after every activity.

Any problems with those radios are usually solved pretty quickly in all of my cases. I text Luxi who appears to be the sales front end and tell her my issue. The only issue that hasn't been solved is the above ch55 issue and I don't think they see it as an issue so I doubt it's going to be resolved. So if that affects you, don't buy this radio. They've even offered me free radio to test for them. A Baofeng Radio UV-26 is on its way to me so I can review it. I'll give it a fair shot and see how it works. I can only test out the GMRS because that the license I have. But I can test parameters into a dummy load to see what the true wattages are coming off the machine. Should be fun. Whether it's a bribe to calm me of my woes or them generally thinking I'm a fair person because of the way I act in my emails to them doesn't really matter to me. I'm git'n a free radio!!

I've already done that and they know of the issue and I doubt they plan on fixing the limitation.

Pretty good radio for $25 each.

Mine's been going for a while. Received it Fri, Sep 6, 2024 and it was in operation shortly after that replacing my RT97S repeater. I didn't really have a problem with the duplexer but I had asked the service team quite a few questions when all of a sudden they said they were sending out a duplexer. I didn't think I needed one but after I replaced it the reception was much better than it had been even from the 1st transmission. That was Sept 20th. Before that they said you couldn't bring the voltage above 12.5v. After the new duplexer they said the limit was 13.8v It's been working well for me on 600 with a Retevis 7.2dBi antenna. I have plans to get it way above the 40' it's currently at along with replacing it with a Comet CA-712EFC.

With a built in duplexer and have all 8 channels available at your choosing.

Yup, depends on what radio you run. Some antennas work better with some radios. Some radios work best with the stock antenna. I have the TD-H3 and the Nagoya 771G works best for receive and transmit. The Smiley Rubber Duck works better than the stock by a bit and it's shorter. It's also the same price as the HT.

Mine does 38-42 watts. I have the power supply at 13.2v I think. I don't like the way the DCS tone functions. You need to run an update to get the DCS tone to work at all. I've kept mine on CTCSS because of it.

Yup, sometime inches can make a difference let alone feet.

I heard you've got the tones back. Can I ask what your ID# is?

You have a 5 watt HT connected to it's antenna and you can hit the repeater from your driveway. But when you use an adapter to connect your HT to the antenna system on the car you are introducing a good deal of loss through the adapter and the thin RG-58A/U that comes with the UT72. The antenna itself says it's 3.5dBi which is 1.35dBd, which isn't very much. Loss of 13' of cable is .85dB which leaves you with a .5dB gain. Not enough to make up for cable losses.

Yep, I already contacted him and got the new tone and my ID#, 461 if you ever want to try to call out. But for the most part I hang out on Holyoke and my own repeater.

Another slight anomaly. Now when it freezes instead of the SWR being 1.13-1.15 it's 1.07-1.08. It seems that me heating that area did something. Not much, but noticeable.

They changed the incoming tone because someone gave it out and the repeater was taken over by people in Hartford who only spoke Spanish. They overwhelmed the repeater and the owner decided the only way to have it stop was to change the input tone. If you go to the repeater facebook page and private message him he should respond and you can get the tone once again. He is also implementing an ID # to users like the Holyoke 575 has. So when you get the tone code you will also get an ID #.

Sorry to hear about your issue with water. Sucks. That's the plan for me. But replace the antenna and the cable from the lightning arrester up to the antenna.