Still kind of new to GMRS and have one stupid question that a friend and I can not understand. We are 15 miles away and we can hit each other 20w simplex. He has a repeater that he can hook up to the exact same antenna he is using for his base. The repeater is 40w after the duplexer. When he hooks up the repeater I can not hit his repeater, even me on 50w. Again we can hit each other just fine simplex on 20w zero issues clear as can be as if we are right next to each other talking, but he hooks up the repeater I can not hit it. The repeater works just fine zero issues. He can chunk the repeater with 20w 1 mile closer to his repeater and hit the repeater clear 8 miles from my place. The only variable when we test is him swapping his base for the repeater. Is there something we are missing or not understanding?
