LeoG

I see you went to Harbor Freight. I opted away from the orange box myself LOL.

Got a different mobile antenna. I was running the Nagoya UT-72G and I picked up the Midland MXTA26 to see what that might do for the repeater. With the Nagoya I was able to get 0.9 miles with the OEM antennas on the TD-H3s. I brought two of them with me and had to get about 50-100 feet away from each other to talk to myself. Did I mention it's no fun playing walkie talkie by myself? LOL Then I picked up a pair of the Nagoya 771G antennas and did the same test a few days later and was able to get 1.3 miles out. I also have a pair of Smiley rubber duck antennas that I didn't test with the Nagoya UT-72G on the repeater. When I was using the Nagoya with the repeater I was able to push 6.4 watts into the antenna with an SWR of about 1.24 I put the Midland MXTA26 on the truck and did the SWR test and got a 1.01. The repeater was pushing 7.8 watts into the antenna. I took my walk using the Nagoya 771G antennas on both radios and passed the first hurdle at 0.9 miles and it was still clear sounding, quieting about 75-80%. With the OEM antenna it was scratchy and crackly. I went out to 1.3 miles and quieting was about 70% and voice was still clear. I tried the Smiley antenna on the transmitting radio and it seemed to work about the same. So I kept walking and got about 1.5 miles out and the Smiley antenna wouldn't connect with the repeater anymore. Changed over to the 771G again and back in business. I made it out to 1.8 miles which is nearly to my woodworking shop and I had to place the radios about 100 feet apart from each other before I could get the receiving radio to hear the repeater. Desense is hitting hard now with the 5 watt radio being so close to each other and the repeater being nearly 2 miles away. Scratchy sound 50% quieting or less, breaking up a bit but that could have been the desense. Was far enough from the receiving radio it was difficult to hear it easily. I was going to walk until it failed which I'm sure would have been pretty soon when one of the renters in my building just happened to be driving by and pulled up and asked if I needed a ride. Hell ya, so I was able to get a ride back instead of needing to walk back. Made my night. So the Midland MXTA26 was a good improvement over the Nagoya UT-72G. Same with the 771G vs the Smiley rubber duck over the OEM. Both giving improvements over the previous. It's a pretty clear path. Still lots of houses and trees in the way. The repeater antenna was about 85 ft above sea level. The 0.9 mile reference is at 128 ft above sea level. 1.3 mile reference is at 150 ft above sea level. 1.5 mile reference is at 157 ft above sea level and 1.78 mile reference where I ended the test is at 161 ft above sea level. So all in all a 76 foot rise in elevation from the repeater start point.

Have you used something like this for a mast? The UK ones are almost double the length. I'm actually a customer of Supply House already.

Does anyone in the US sell these things? Every time I think I've found one it's in the UK. Looking for one that will encompass a 1.5"OD mast.

Fantastic. I wouldn't doubt it I searched through my junk piles I could find the CB unit. But no antennas I bet.

Or you can put the tones on the base station.

Been a loooong time since I played with a CB radio. But that's what got me to want to try GMRS just recently. Licensing was easy and it was for family. Use to have a 40 channel SSB midland and a ground plane antenna on the backside of my Dads house. Ya, that's how long ago. So do they still use handles? Mine was "The Suicide Jockey", everyone had one and no one went by their real name. Just like now more or less where you go by your license call sign instead of a name.

I can regularly hit a repeater 17 miles away with my TD-H3 HT that outputs 4.7 watts. My voice volume is definitely soft when receiving on another HT in the within the same couple of towns still 12-17 miles away from the repeater. The repeater is 1000+ ft up on a mountain and I'm 62ft above sea level. Yet going HT to HT is usually limited to about 2 miles or less depending on what is in the way. I have another repeater that is 21 miles away on another mountain and that one is iffy when I can get in contact with it. Quieting isn't good but I'm still understandable. I pretty much figure that's the limit of range for my little HTs

Funny, he actually got back to me from my asking permission here. I let him know I already got permission from him though facebook and he said he was far behind at getting his requests out because it's baseball season for his kids. Busy man, and I can fully understand that.

That's what he told me.

My arms aren't long enough to reach the 40' up.

I tried to get permission through here to a nearby repeater and didn't have any luck. Waited 10 days. It also said to contact on facebook, which is something I don't do. But my wife does and I pestered her until she contacted the owner and he was glad to give me permission. Also said he gets so much spam that he pretty much ignores what comes from here. So it may be that.

Yup, not accounting for connector losses and SWR. But at the shop mine is about 1.04 so close enough to 1:1 to not worry about it.

I have to get my antenna up above the tree line. And then I'll have a real report.

Thanks. And yes I realize that. But the way the meter reacts tells you something of what the circuitry might be

Funny, I just checked my email and there was a message from them. They asked what is the codeplug for the walkie talkie I'm using. I have the TD-H3s and have no idea what a codeplug is.

Interesting. So at least I'm not alone. I've sent several emails to them and the last couple have been ignored. So like you I'm not exactly impressed. As for the antenna I can say it produces a great SWR over a broad range of frequencies. So they are employing some sort of "circuitry" system to do that I'm betting. When I apply a DC current using my ohm meter it acts strangely. Like some resistors/impedance and capacitors are in the system. I just checked their RG58/u cable and it seems above standard for loss. But it's still RG58 and lossy. When I was screwing around I switched the "machine" from 400 to 450-520 and I couldn't get any power out of the repeater for a while. Hmmm.... I wonder if I had to power it down after the change. Because I did do that but I don't remember if that when things came back to life. But when it did come back to life it was only 1.5 watts out. Very strange and very inconsistent.

So 7.89 watts out of my repeater through 50' LMR400 is 5.78 watts into the antenna. Nice to be able to figure that out.

Little bit better than spec-ed. I'm using a higher frequency so the loss would be slightly more than shown in the table.

Anyone know how to calculate the dB loss with those numbers And yes, I'd like to see the math.

I just did a real world test of some RG58/U cable. Why? Because that's what I have kicking around unused LOL. Using my little TD-H3 radio at 467.625MHz going into a 50ohm dummy load through my Mcbazel Surecom SW-102 SWR/Power meter. The 1st connection is an SMA-F to PL259F and then a PL259M-M, 1 ft RG58 jumper cable to the meter. The output on the meter was 4.69 watts I then switched out the RG58 jumper cable for 50' of RG58/U cable (Retevis) and checked the output and it was 1.48 watts. Pretty significant.

That is definitely a problem with almost any popular repeater, linked or not. I listen to a repeater in Holyoke and there is one guy who definitely likes to hear himself talk. And getting in otherwise for the other members of the repeater has been a challenge at times. If he is conversing with someone else they have no space between keying so the repeater is jammed continuously with no one being able to get in or talk to someone else without keying over them. I can't image a large widespread system being held up by two chatty kathy's because they think it's a telephone.

Well it's designated as family radio. The whole world is my family isn't probably something the FCC is going to say.

So what about a wireless connection to each other? I know 3 repeaters in NY that are connected by wireless means to each other so they act as one. Not sure I should mention which they are... I can talk to Niagra Falls from Utica.

Well if you go back to this post, at the bottom of the post you can see what I am dealing with for terrain. And it ain't no mountain top. I wanted to use the shop because it's up 100 feet more than my house is. And I still have a line of trees near my house. But I'm not surrounded like I am at the shop. Never really realized how much forest I had around me til I started this project and then looked at google maps to see what was going on.