LeoG

I'm just assuming it takes a pretty big hill to stop the signal, or a bunch of smaller ones in succession. The signal makes it over the hill still above your radio but because of propagation of waves it starts creeping down again. In the shadow of the hill and as you get farther from it you can get more signal bleeding down. One of the main reasons not to have a super high gain antenna in a hilly area. If you laser beam your signal in one small plane it will get absorbed more by an blocking object.

If you have vertical "walls" of rock it will. But in my case it's hills and I wouldn't expect a bounce to put the signal where I want it.

We be doin' some bouncin then

Oh darn. It's showing information that isn't corresponding to my results for me. Or my signals are punching through hills. This is my repeater (gr) and my sisters location (bl) and I was happily talking to a friend across the river through the RT97S repeater. Just seeing a red line doesn't equal no signal. And I had a very nice signal talking between two 4.5 watt HTs and the repeater.

Great reference !

Here is your area in the topographical map. Have fun https://en-gb.topographic-map.com/map-gn9tp/Connecticut/?center=44.45529%2C-87.92378&zoom=14&popup=44.44725%2C-87.92001

The maps I use work off of ASL so that's what I'm using. You can do the extra math if you'd like. Both are relative if I stick with ASL or AGL and don't mix them

Which is why I want to set the repeater up at my shop which is 48 meters above sea level plus I need to put the mast at least at 60' to get above the tree line which would put me at 56 meters.

Well I looked on google maps and found an ideal path for the signal and had to see if I could get it to work in real life. It had a bunch of signal travel over the river and not a lot of dense forest. Using a interactive topographical map the end point is 19 meters at ground level, it says I'm 21 meters. It did pretty good, about 50% signal strength on the Wouxun signal meter in the truck. Dropped off pretty quick after that. I made a big circle to come back and I traveled over the river and I was surprised that I got almost nothing for a response. Just random low power jitters. Came back up the interstate and really didn't get a reliable signal until I was about 3.7 miles away. And now I see why. It's the hills... My antenna is at 33 meters (21m+42') Can't get through that 40 meter hill. My shop is at 48 meters and then 60' of mast would put the antenna at 66 meters and I would be able to get past those hills. Which is why I want to put the repeater at the shop.

You really don't get that I don't live in a desert with no obstacles. Everything around here is hills and trees. The antenna is at 42' off the ground so 105' altitude above sea level. I'm in the upper middle of a hill at 62' ASL and the top of the hill is at 85' ASL, so effectively I'm at about 20' above ground level. The trees around here are 70' tall. I'm obviously running the RT97S and that is outputting 7.8 watts into the coax. I have a 1.92dB loss so it's 5 watts at the antenna and it's a 7.2 dBi (5.05 dBd) gain antenna so effective radiated output is around 15 watts. I'm sure if I lived where you did I would be getting 30+ miles out of the repeater. But around here you get 5-7 miles best case. 2-3 miles is the usual. I want to get my shop antenna above the trees so I'll need it to be 70-80' above ground level which would put it at 170' ASL, still pretty low.

So since I put up the antenna at my house I decided to try the repeater here. So I could get out to about 4.6 miles and hit the repeater but the signal was weak. I came in about 1/2 mile and the signal was much stronger. Rode around town and checked out different distances. Most of them were about 2-2.8 miles out and had a good connection just driving around with my mobile radio. Anything within 1.5 miles was full quieting or close. I went to the shop where the repeater usually is and was able to hit it and talk. It was scratch because of all the trees. But if I went out to the road it cleared right up because the trees are out of my way. So I suspect if I can get my shop antenna up above the trees it should do quite well. The shop is on ground 100' higher than the house.

Digital is a newer tech. It isn't compatible with analog to share the same frequencies.

Seems to be an epidemic up near another repeater I frequent. The seem to think it is a pair of cranes lifting large beams that are communicating with each other. They don't know if it's automatic adjustment between the two cranes or the guys running them communicating with each other or others. But they know since the 2nd crane got there the interference has been brutal for them on the 575 I'm not sure if I get any of that, but I do get bleed over from my problem onto the 575 along with the worse interference on the 625

As long as you get to play with the radios first....

Usually only a couple of the mods do 90% of the work. The rest like the glory. I take care of politics and religion in one of them..... That can be fun.

I'm a admin on one and a moderator on another forum. I get paid $50 a year for one, get a gift card and the other isn't paid. It's not a requirement to moderate. Come as you please and if you see something you clean it up. You get a dozen volunteers across the nation and you have the time slots all covered.

Cry, they are coming this way out of school, both grade and college.

You have to transmit the codes from the TD-H3. Put them into function 13, Tx CTCSS. Put the H3 on the frequency and then press the blue button, press 1 then 3 and press the blue button again and then the up button until you reach the proper tone and press the blue button again. Should transmit and receive after that.

The Smiley cost almost as much as a radio kit of one. But that's the one I prefer to have on if I'm not planning on a lot of repeater talk. I figured the 701G wasn't really much better than the OEM so I didn't bother. I did think about it though and watched many videos which is why I have the Smiley.

Tx encode and Rx decode more specifically. At least that's how it's listed on my repeater.

I think the longer antennas increase the range and the readability on the other end significantly over the OEM antennas. I got the TD H3s and replaced the OEM with the Smiley Rubber Duck and the Nagoya 771G. The Smiley is great because it's a little better than the OEM but much shorter, very convenient. The 771G is long and a bit cumbersome, but it gives you that extra range if you need it. I talk through a repeater that's 21 miles away with the 771G while the Smiley works, the voice volume is much lower. For the most part I leave the 771G on the radio for the extra range.

I don't know what I don't know.

Ya, no such luck that I have a KrakenSDR

After playing around more I actually think the frequency is 462.6325, not that it really matters that much, but the signal strength seems stronger and more stable. I put the TD-H3 on the frequency by VFO and didn't hear the signal using the base antenna with an adapter. The adapter has a pretty small coax on it. I found another one at a lower frequency that was stronger and the H3 could receive it. Corrected the original post

Which is exactly why I have one