LeoG

I've already done that and they know of the issue and I doubt they plan on fixing the limitation.

Pretty good radio for $25 each.

Mine's been going for a while. Received it Fri, Sep 6, 2024 and it was in operation shortly after that replacing my RT97S repeater. I didn't really have a problem with the duplexer but I had asked the service team quite a few questions when all of a sudden they said they were sending out a duplexer. I didn't think I needed one but after I replaced it the reception was much better than it had been even from the 1st transmission. That was Sept 20th. Before that they said you couldn't bring the voltage above 12.5v. After the new duplexer they said the limit was 13.8v It's been working well for me on 600 with a Retevis 7.2dBi antenna. I have plans to get it way above the 40' it's currently at along with replacing it with a Comet CA-712EFC.

With a built in duplexer and have all 8 channels available at your choosing.

Yup, depends on what radio you run. Some antennas work better with some radios. Some radios work best with the stock antenna. I have the TD-H3 and the Nagoya 771G works best for receive and transmit. The Smiley Rubber Duck works better than the stock by a bit and it's shorter. It's also the same price as the HT.

Mine does 38-42 watts. I have the power supply at 13.2v I think. I don't like the way the DCS tone functions. You need to run an update to get the DCS tone to work at all. I've kept mine on CTCSS because of it.

Yup, sometime inches can make a difference let alone feet.

I heard you've got the tones back. Can I ask what your ID# is?

You have a 5 watt HT connected to it's antenna and you can hit the repeater from your driveway. But when you use an adapter to connect your HT to the antenna system on the car you are introducing a good deal of loss through the adapter and the thin RG-58A/U that comes with the UT72. The antenna itself says it's 3.5dBi which is 1.35dBd, which isn't very much. Loss of 13' of cable is .85dB which leaves you with a .5dB gain. Not enough to make up for cable losses.

Yep, I already contacted him and got the new tone and my ID#, 461 if you ever want to try to call out. But for the most part I hang out on Holyoke and my own repeater.

Another slight anomaly. Now when it freezes instead of the SWR being 1.13-1.15 it's 1.07-1.08. It seems that me heating that area did something. Not much, but noticeable.

They changed the incoming tone because someone gave it out and the repeater was taken over by people in Hartford who only spoke Spanish. They overwhelmed the repeater and the owner decided the only way to have it stop was to change the input tone. If you go to the repeater facebook page and private message him he should respond and you can get the tone once again. He is also implementing an ID # to users like the Holyoke 575 has. So when you get the tone code you will also get an ID #.

Sorry to hear about your issue with water. Sucks. That's the plan for me. But replace the antenna and the cable from the lightning arrester up to the antenna.

We have a guy who comes to our nets on the Holyoke 575 and in order for him to reach he gets up in his cupola in his barn. Richmond Vt to Holyoke Ma

Slight anomaly. Usually when it's above freezing my SWR is 2.08, it's pretty consistent. Now it's 1.99-2.00. Not much of a difference but noteworthy because I have been taking notes.

I did all the work on the ground. Not sure where the water could have gotten in. It's wrapped with 3M 2155 Rubber Splice Tape and then electrical tape. It's covered with that aluminum tube on top of that. No idea how water could have penetrated. Other possibility is the antenna itself.

Well I did my experiment. It was about 28º out and the SWR was sitting at about 1.13. I took my wife's blow dryer and zip tied it to a stick and went on my shed dormer and heated up the lightning arrester and surrounding areas for a while and had my wife test the SWR and no change. Did this several times heating the arrestor for a few minutes before keying up again. More than certain it got way above freezing and no change. So that leaves the antenna or connection. Either way that means I have to wait for the weather to warm up before I can borrow the bucket truck to get up there. Not even going to do any testing. Replacing the antenna and the cable. Since it's just 25' I'll put 1/2" hardline there and make sure the new antenna is an N connector instead of thr SO239 UHF connector. Nice warm weather coming up so that means poor radio response til I get this all taken care of.

2 hours at best for battery. Some have smaller generators but fuel is the limiting factor. Maybe get a day.

I would consider a 25% loss of towers in a hurricane pretty reliable. Definitely depends if you are in that cell area that went down or not though. I have a pole type tower near me and they were adding more antennas during a very windy period. I've never seen it sway so much. Felt bad for the guy up there working. It was probably 20ish winds with bigger gusts. I was surprised it was moving that much. I thought that movement would be at about 40mph.

Kinda surprised one needs a multiband transceiver on a bicycle in the first place. I was thinking an HT on a backpack with a handheld mic or vox setup.

https://fcc.report/FCC-ID/2A4FBTD831 1ST Line shows BQIBL80NZ7zIyx9L0Xv7hw== 350.0-470.0MHz 2023-12-05 Approved

Well, if you are afraid the eff sea sea is going to come pounding on your door because you have a non compliant radio that you are operating properly then by all means go ahead. Myself I'm not worrying about it at all. Not sure if their IDs are different between the radios. The one on the left is the GMRS version and the one on the right is the Ham version. They don't differentiate between the two.

Yes. All of mine but 2 are Ham versions switched to GMRS. The main difference between the 2 is the antenna they send you. While in GMRS mode you can only transmit on true GMRS channels

It's there somewhere. I believe it has 4 modes. I think they call it THEME