LeoG

I have the Wouxun KG20+ and the squelch on the radio works pretty decent. Because of a lot of DMR interference in my area I am forced to run PL RX codes to keep things quiet. On top of that since I use repeaters which are pretty strong because of a good line of sight antenna I keep my squelch on 7-9. I try to keep it on 7 but on occasion the DMR interference can get through. I don't hear it, but it shows on the meter. Sometimes after someone releases the PTT I can hear the interference for about 1/2 second and then it resquelches. I also run my own small repeater and because of trees and hills the signal is weak. So on that channel I run a squelch of 2. Otherwise when it's at it's weakest it'll be blocked.

To bad you had to get your money back instead of them doing the right thing and replacing a likely defective repeater.

Had our net tonight. Just simple stuff, more like a roll call of people interested in participating in said net. We had a member pass and we held a silent moment after the net manager called out for his reply 3 times. No reply was heard and we put his member number into the books as permanently logged off. After that anyone interested in calling out states their ID#, call sign, name, and radio type (base, mobile or HT). The net manager would repeat it back and log it, then state the R# for the quality of the reception into the repeater. Today we had a member that was trying out 5 different HTs from the same area and the net manager told him how he was received on all. Only one of his radios sounded bad, very muffled sound. Maybe a defective microphone. No big deal or fanfare. At the end he would ask if there was any traffic, there never is.

That's essentially what I did. I bought 10 radios and passed them out to my local family. They are using my radios along with my call sign. They rarely use them. Me and the wife are the primary users and we use the same base station or my HTs.

Your Mom can even use repeaters if she'd like. As long as she is willing to follow the FCC rules and identify herself with the family call sign. Of course if it's a permission based repeater she would need to get permission.

They usually respond when you have issues. Probably cost them more in shipping than the radio costs them to make. And they haven't asked for the defective one to be returned. One day I'll open mine up to see if it's just a bad solder joint to the antenna connector.

Yes, if you are max distance south from the repeater and the person receiving is max north of the repeater you can double the distance of simplex as Steve described.

Actually height of the antennas and openness and flatness of the terrain will determine the tx/rx distance more than the radios connected. Flat open desert with 5 watts will get you 10-20 miles maybe more. 50 watts in a hilly area with trees may get you 5 miles, could be less. I'm in a valley. North and south get me 40 ish miles. East and west have a small mountain range and limit my distance to about 5 miles.

Yep, good little radio. Good amount of features. Power output is close to the 5 watt claimed when the battery is at 3 bars. I have several 3rd party antennas as the OEM antenna is so so. I've hooked it up to a mobile antenna with an adapter and used them in my truck. Somewhat inconvenient so I bought a mobile unit for the truck. I can connect to several repeaters around the area. 7 miles, 17 and 21 without much problem. I'm in an area that has lots of trees and hills so I can get 1-3 miles simplex between the radios. The 771G series of antennas will give you better distance at the cost of convenience of the length of the antenna. Have fun.

Zero feet. It's just a controller and has no transmit or receive capabilities. You need to connect them to two separate walkie talkies which look like they use their own antennas for tx/rx I'm sure you could put the antenna connections into a duplexer to use one antenna.

I had a TD-H3 that wouldn't register on my SW102, it was defective and they replaced it. But it also wouldn't go much more that 1/6th mile for transmitting on high power.

This morning my wife got brave and answered the good morning rounds that go on the repeater. One of the guys there asked if she used a certain repeater and she said yes. He proceeded to ask her if she knew the PL code (it's an open repeater) and the most she knew was it was a 625 repeater. She let the guy know that when I was around I could let him know. She is interested in listening. But not very interested in learning the ropes. It took her a month to figure out the BAND button switches between the two frequencies we have on so if she wants to talk on one or the other. Makes me laugh because it's so simple. But to some it's not. So it's good to ask and answer questions when you need to or can.

H3 is the same. Bluetooth is for programming only.

The Radio Mobile Online Calculator will give you that information if you plug in the correct specifications which may be hard if you don't know the specifics of the repeater you are working off of.

I have that antenna for my RT97S repeater and I went with the UAYESOK from Amazon which turns out to be the exact same antenna with a slightly higher price. I can easily hit the 3 repeaters near me at 7, 17 and 21 miles away. I'm using the Messi and Paoloni Hyperflex 13 cable at the house (84 foot run) and LMR400 with the repeater (50 foot run). If you live in an area with more trees and hills you want to stay away from a super high gain antenna and stick with something in the 6-8dBi range. (convert to dBd by subtracting 2.15 from the dBi value) Both the Retevis and the UAYESOK were under 1.1 for SWR with my setups.

Is it this? I did look at that one because it was one of the few that ranged in for GMRS. Liked the shape of the Abbree better. Looks like you can get 4 of those for a few dollars more than I got one of the Abbree's for.

Well like I said, I have no simplex experience with them and haven't the adapters to test the SWR for them. But I ordered another one so I might do some simplex communications. Maybe let my BIL borrow them for a week to see how he likes them on his radios inside of a building. If anyone gets one of these and can do an SWR test please put it here for the Abbree antenna. I'd like to know without having to go out and buying more stuff. But I like buying radio stuff... stop it, you don't need it. What is this "need" you speak of... More like "want" Oh.. sorry, did that slip out?

Are you using the Diamond version stubby? Most of the ones I have seen are not for GMRS but HAM and go up to 450MHz

It'd be nice to have such a flat area. I'm in a river valley with mountains on either side. North and south you can get many "fars" but east and west are limited to about 5 miles max before the signal is blocked by rising ground. And even in between the larger mountains are tall hills that will cut off different areas from reception.

Abbree AR 805S GMRS I bought this because it was $8.00. Figured I'd try it out. My BIL uses the TD H3 for inter-building communication when he is running cables for internet/phone/etc in large buildings. I figured this might be a good antenna for him because it's very small and looks pretty rugged. After I got it onto my H3 1st thing I did of course was to key up my local repeaters. From inside my house I was able to connect to one 7 miles away and another 17 miles away. No conversations as I know from inside my house my 771G antennas struggle for voice communication from inside. I was already surprised by this antenna. I didn't expect them to connect from inside my house. Next test was to connect to the repeater 21 miles away. Even my 771G antenna can't connect from inside my house. So I took a walk outside and did a radio check. Got a response and was told I was making the repeater. I explained I was testing a new antenna while I was walking about and he said I was going in and out of the repeater. So I stood still and repeated my message. So at 21 miles away using a 4 watt H3 I could connect although it didn't seem to be a great connection. But never the less I was able to communicate although maybe no what you would consider reliably. But this was never the intention of me getting this antenna. I never thought it would do distance like it has. Next, try to connect to my own RT97S repeater. This is already tough to do because my repeater antenna is below the tree line and doesn't really get to the vicinity of my house. I walked up to the top of the hill because I live half way down. I tried with the 805S and it did not connect. Again I tried with no such luck. I used the Smiley Rubber Duck and that one didn't connect. I tried with the Nagoya 771G and was able to connect. I walked one block over and this is more a direct line of sight, but still with a hill in the way. I was able to only connect with the 771G. I did the same thing later that night and was able to connect with the Smiley and the 771G but not the stubby antenna. So my conclusion is the antenna has limited range although I was able to connect to all 3 repeaters in my area. Even though I didn't do any voice tests on two of them I am confident it would be satisfactory for both since I was able to connect to the farther repeater with voice. I need to buy a 2nd one and do some simplex testing. I expect to be able to connect to about 1/2 mile clearly and maybe up to a mile without much quieting. Still kind of impressed with the stubby antenna. It's only 2" tall and I didn't expect it to do well at all. For close in communications this makes a tiny H3 even more because you don't need an antenna sticking up. With the antenna on the radio from bottom to tip of antenna is only 5.75". I did not do an SWR test because I don't have the adapters, so that's something that needs to be looked into.

I get over 48 hours on time with a good amount of receiving and light transmitting in the wake hours. I think it's great to get a full day out of them no matter what you do.

I have an interesting situation where I can take advantage of stratospheric ducting when it aligns correctly. I'm in the upper section of CT and when the ducting happens I can communicate with a repeater on LI NY but I have a 700+ foot mountain in the way. I can hit the repeater using 25 watts and 5 watts. The repeater by way of crow is 67 miles away. I have no idea what path the signal actually takes but I'm sure it's longer than 67 miles line of site. So power really doesn't matter when you have a clear path. It's only when you have to punch through obstacles that you might need more power.

They all sound crappy on my analog FM receiver....

Seems late night is a better time to connect. I was able to connect on low power, 5W out of the radio with an effective power out of 10-11W off the antenna Apparently this just mesmerizes me.

Got it this morning also. But right at the bottom. Had to put my squelch on 1 for it to break through. Thought I put this up already.