LeoG

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

No luck, but it gives a pretty wide range. Can't enter the actual frequency. Just the base frequency and a +/- 1MHz offset, doesn't accept decimal offsets.

Yes, I agree 100%. It transmits and receives better than the Nagoya. But it also came with the problems I described. 6dBi gain compared to 3dBi gain of the UT72G. And now 7.2dBi gain of my base antenna.

With my Wouxun XSK20G+ when I first started out I never heard this with my Naygoya UT72G antenna. I moved up to the Midland MTXA26 and I started to hear this interference mostly on 462.625, but it bleeds through many more channels. Sometimes I would hear it in my driveway, but usually I would hear it as I drove up my street to go to work. As I got further from my house it goes away. But it shows up in other areas not just near my house. Seems to show up near cell phone towers but not always, I don't think it's from cell service transmitters. I put up my antenna on my house and of course I get this interference. Right now I'm putting encode tones in to kill it on the repeater stations I usually tune into .575, .625. For the most part it works but not always. So tonight I put the radio into VFO mode and found it seems to center at 462.6325 and it's continuous for the most part. I also noticed that there seems to be 2 different signals on the same frequency. The weaker one is continuous and the other comes and goes but is stronger. I did a video of it and actually caught the 2nd signal. At this point I'm trying to figure out what it is and if I can do something about it. Looked up the frequency and it doesn't seem to correspond to anything but figured I'd ask and maybe it's something that can be there. The interference is really annoying and makes it much more difficult to listen to the repeaters. Here's the video and at 15-25 seconds you can see in the power meter and hear in the sound the 2nd signal. You can see how it bleeds over into the GMRS channels

I would figure if you are a big enough violator and get enough attention from people reporting you they don't have much choice but to do something. But the little guy on the 5 watt walkie not interacting with repeaters will likely never get their attention. But you never know.

Yes, he plainly stated this is what a real FCC violation letter looks like. And the reason you can't be shown the one for the repeater shutdown in NY is because there isn't one.

I bet they really meant to start and stop the operation of the repeater. But they way you are looking at it sound like it's within interpretation. Again, messy regulations with broad meanings can easily be taken advantage of. They can't say "Well this is what we meant" because it doesn't say that exactly.

Nope, told you as a friend in the know. Because if it was in an official capacity paper work would have been initiated.

An employee of the FCC in an unofficial capacity gave the guy a heads up. The two talked to each other, don't know if it was on a regular basis or not but he gave him a heads up. Same thing as a cop friend of yours telling you they see your car speeding down Main st and you might want to take care of that. Just an unofficial notice by a friend. But again, all hearsay.