LeoG

Still normal for me on FF and Chrome

Well I'm not putting a 1/4 wave antenna up on an 80' tower. That would look silly. LOL

As long as it doesn't say "shall be". Should and must can be gotten around legally.

Also if you do a ctrl F5 it will clear your browser on that website and reload it. Maybe something wonky happened with some data. Not sure if that's universal, I know it works with Firefox

Works on Chrome for me also.

Ya, that's not happening. That's just causing trouble for myself. I'm sure if there were regulation violations Btech would be the first to know about it. I'll keep the box output under 50w and it's not going to bother anyone.

And it would make sense. You can have a 50 watt radio and put all kinds of doodads internally but as long as it all complies with part 95 and is 50 watts or less out the connector they probably don't care. Btech made a big deal out of it being an all in one unit along with being able to output close to 50 watts. You know people are always miffed when it says 50 and you only get 40 even though it likely won't even make a difference. But it's the thought that you paid for that output and it comes up short. As long as I can make it to my house I'm pretty alright with it. And I know that 25 watts from my house couldn't punch through the leaves and 50 watts does it in spades. So power can matter.

Manufacturer says the whole setup is Part 95 compliant. Pretty sure as long as it's designed and built as an all in one unit the output at the connector is what is limited to 50 watts.

This is what I have in Firefox. Looks normal

This is compliant with part 95. Because it is sold as an all in one unit the output at the antenna connector is limited to 50 watts max. It has nothing to do with the internal components. But if you had this same transmitter and hooked it up to an external duplexer it would be against regulation. It's just like buying a 50 watt mobile radio. The output of the radio is 50 watts (or less) at the antenna output which falls within part 95. The duplexer needs to be inside the system and specifically designed to be an all in one system to comply. I think it's a 65 watt transmitter. I can't get it to go below 60 watts with the voltage on the power supply dialed down to 11.5 volts and I think it went up to about 71 when it was dialed up to 13.8v. I've never had it higher than that. This is what I bought, not something I made.

So far my wideband duplexer is working fine. Maybe the out of tune lets you throw more power at it. IDK. Looks like Btech will let me purchase another one of the newer Duplexers. It's the one I'm currently running and has been able to take the 70 watts in so far for about a year with no degradation. Not sure if they'll send it tuned to my spec or just send me another wideband. In which case I'll get it tuned. I have to go to their link they made specifically for me because the duplexers aren't in their catalog to sell.

This was the duplexer that came with the repeater originally. It was suppose to work with the transmitter power they had but obviously they were mistaken because they had to replace them. The duplexer they replaced it with seems to have the same power rating but has been working well since I replaced it. Most of the ratings I've seen on duplexers have a range rating and then a listed rating like this 40w-80w (50w). Before I toss it I'm going to pull it apart to see if there's any scorching of the internals. I don't expect anything to be wrong on the high (receive) side but on the low side there might be issues.

Swapped the wideband duplexer back in and did my test loop. Pretty much back to normal. I think yesterdays test was slightly better but not by much. Had trouble in my usual spots. But I had trouble in a reliable spot too. Looks like for now this duplexer is staying put.

Well the news is anything but exciting. Reception is markedly worse. I only had one spot in my loop that I was able to communicate through the repeater. The rest of them either kerchunked it or didn't register. Very disheartening. I thought this would be much better than the other duplexer and right now it's looking like it is reacting like it was when I first got the repeater. I can contact it with my 50 watt. And I have a guy 2 towns up that I was communicating with before with good clarity, R7 and now he's barely an R5. Lots of background noise and very low modulation. Worked but you had to concentrate to hear what he was saying and even then it was hard. Since tomorrow is a bust for things to do at work I'm going to swap out the duplexer tonight and make the rounds again. It's always possible it's atmospheric and not the single channel duplexer. Or maybe it just can't handle the 65 watts in like the 2nd one they sent me. Either way it's getting swapped out for now. Thank you very much for the effort Marc

Oh it absolutely was. Noticeably so. I wasn't able to contact the repeater from my area with the original duplexer and when they sent me the newer one I was able to connect somewhat reliably. Still pretty iffy and right on the fringe. But communication was acceptable.

Ya, I have one of those 97S repeaters. More of a bug out repeater.

Well I was wondering about that but never asked the question. Since the wideband was tuned flat(ish) I was wondering if it might restrict the power. Just another compromise when doing this type of system I guess. Was pretty shocked to see 70 watts out of the transmitter. Thought maybe 60 at the most. Hopefully the receive will give me the same boost as the transmit.

OK Boyz and Girlz, here we go. I opened up the Btech RPT50 repeater to remove the original wideband duplexer First thing I did was check the output wattage from the transmitter. The power supply was set at 13.8 volts and it was putting out 71 watts into the duplexer. Had 42 watts out of the duplexer. And not the best SWR on my 50 ohm dummy load. Right at the edge of spec. I turned the voltage down to about 11.5 volts and it showed about 65 watts out. Probably the lowest I can get it. Then I swapped the original wideband duplexer for the one that Marc so graciously tune to a single frequency for me (600). I relabeled it so some future person doesn't think it's wideband. I should probably strip the other frequencies out of the channel selection also. And I tested it and got about 48 watts from it. I said what the heck and boosted the voltage a bit and got it to put out 50 watts. I haven't put it back into service yet, soon. And testing won't be done until it cools off from the 98ºF it currently is. Says it's going to be low 70s tonight. Probably be to excited to test things at midnight, so likely around 10 or so I walk my route. Of course I'll key it up on the way home, at home on the base and try an HT from inside the air conditioned house. LOL Most of the duplexers I looked at said "40-80 watts (50 watts)" so hopefully I don't melt this one. The replacement was accepting the 71 watts without blinking and the original had the power supply set for 12.5 volts which is about 67 watts into the duplexer.

Well I am actually going to find that out tonight. I have a Btech 50w repeater and it has a wideband duplexer in it and soon I will be changing that out for a single channel tuned duplexer. The receive should be more sensitive. The receiver will be the same, but the desense should be much less with the >-85db vs the >-45db of the wideband duplexer

Or I got luck and got one that was fairly accurate. I have two of them and they both read the same for power and SWR. I had one on my home base and when I got the new one I swapped out to see if it would read the same. It did, so I didn't even swap them back. Just took the older one and it'll go into my shop setup.

Not going to be the receiver sensitivity that'll be the issue. The wideband duplexer is what is really going to limit the sensitivity.

My Surecom 102 seems to be pretty accurate. 4.7 on a 5w HT, 48w on a 50w mobile, 25w on a 20w mobile. Might not be perfect but seems close enough.

All they have to do is put "up to" and there ya go.

Of that I am very aware. These are mostly leaf trees so there's that.... Always had issues from the house to the shop which holds the repeater. 50w vs 25w. I could always come in mostly clear to the house, but from the house it was hit or miss. Then I got a 50w radio for the house and the problem is mostly gone, certainly not R9 reception but easy to talk and understand. Needed the extra wattage to punch through the leaves it seems. On top of that what helped later on was swapping out to the Comet 712EFC. Eventually the repeater will have that same antenna and upgrade from the Retevis 7.2dBi. So sometimes a little more wattage works. And since the 1st wideband duplexer was swapped out for the 2nd wideband duplexer I've been able to hit the repeater mostly successful with a 5w HT. R7 at best, no communication at worst. Duplexer is coming in today

Since the radios have a real off switch that physically disconnects the battery from the radio when off it really doesn't matter a whole lot as long as you turn the radio off when you charge it. I've been using the charging stand since I've got the H3s and I only charge them when they are turned off. Sometimes I charge the batteries separately when I need a new battery now and pull from my extra pile, then that weak battery gets charged out of the radio. Just don't charge the battery while the radio is on and you shouldn't have any issues.