WRTC928

You do you, boo. The repeater I use most often doesn't have any sort of signal to let you know when it's available and it's not unusual to walk on each other. If everyone had the beep enabled, it would work just as well, but getting 50+ frequent users all on the same page about that seems unlikely. I don't own a repeater, so it's just hypothetical, a thought exercise, if you will.

I think if I were setting up a repeater, I'd incorporate a courtesy tone and ask people not to use the roger beep. What I really want to know is when the repeater is available for transmission and with the tone incorporated into the repeater, everyone knows regardless of whether the sender has a roger beep or not. But with your repeater, do whatever you like.

The "book answer" is that moisture and precipitation have little effect on VHF and UHF signals, but I've definitely observed that it can happen sometimes. A few days ago, we had very heavy fog and drizzling rain and I couldn't get through to my usual repeater 20 miles away with a HT. Even with the base unit, I had to punch it up from 12 watts to 20 to be understood clearly. That's the first time I've had that happen, but it wasn't the first time we've had fog and rain around here, so there must be some "perfect storm" of conditions to make VHF/UHF noticeably attenuate due to precipitation. The problem with "book answers" is that my radios didn't read the book.

I just received mine yesterday. The first thing I did was download the factory configuration file. Then, I tested power output at all three levels on different parts of both bands and recorded the results. I then uploaded a CHIRP file using the BF-F8HP profile and retested the power. It remained the same after programming as before, so whatever the problem is, apparently I didn't get one that has it. I was a little disappointed that power maxed out at 6-7 watts, but it's not all that big a deal, I guess. I'll probably never notice the difference, but if I buy a 10 watt radio, I'd like for it to actually output 10 watts.

Okay...not trying to hurt your feelings by asking something obvious...but are you sure you have the transmit power turned all the way up? Either you're not reaching it or it's not hearing you. The most likely reason for the first is not enough power (assuming you're using it from the same location you used your other radios), and the most likely reason for the second is tones either not set or set incorrectly.

The owner's manual shows a programming cable as an optional accessory, so it has a port. The cable looks like the type that plugs into the two jacks for a speaker/mic, which is the most common type. On page 7 of the manual, there's a picture showing the parts of the radio. It's labeled "13. Accessory jack".

I was once in a little village in the interior of Alaska when an earthquake took out telephone communication for 4 days. It wasn't local damage -- the stations somewhere south of us that relayed the telephone signals went down. I didn't pay any attention at the time, but I'm guessing they used microwave or something to "squirt" the signals to a series of towers. Anyway, some of them that served that village went out. This was about 15 years ago and cell service didn't exist in Alaska outside the few cities. The village had no road -- all contact with the outside world was by telephone and airplane. Fortunately, quite a few of the villagers had radios with which they could talk to the various aircraft overflying the affected areas. I didn't know much about radios back then, but I think they were mostly marine radios. The Natives in the interior villages are pretty casual about things like getting a license and using approved radios, and by "casual" I mean they don't give it even one thought. Anyway, the guys/gals with radios were able to keep planes coming in. The time schedule was a bit disrupted, but we still got one plane a day in and out. It's surprising how much more isolated I felt when the phones were down, even though I wasn't really calling anyone anyway. Some of the interior villages have cell phone service now, but it's only available in the immediate area of the village. I assume they still use radios a lot to stay in touch while out hunting or fishing. I think the main reason they mostly use marine radios is simply that they're readily available. When the next village is 300 miles away, nobody is going to hear you breaking the rules. One or two of the larger villages in the interior actually had an amateur radio repeater which everyone in the village used without concern for niceties like call signs. Heck, the repeaters probably weren't even licensed, but again, who's going to check? Come to think of it, I wonder if they could have been marine radio repeaters? A quick internet search tells me such things exist.

TBH, I can actually think of a couple of use cases for a radio that works on cell phone towers. For example, dispatching a fleet of vehicles a radio system would be much easier to use than a bunch of cell phones. The preppers who buy them are going to be pretty disappointed if they ever need them, though.

Hmm... That's an interesting question. Does it need to be something other than a handheld? There are a couple of 20 watt HTs here and here. I wouldn't be too enthustiastic about holding a 20 watt radio up to my temple, but with an extension mic, it should be fine. You could put it in a bag or box to take when you leave. You could even have a pretty long antenna attached to the bicycle.

Why does it have to be a repeater? Rapid Radio says their radios will reach someone 1,416 miles away.

Don't pay any attention to the haters. That radio is just fine for ordinary GMRS stuff. The guys who rant about "cheap Chinese junk" probably have a money tree or something.

Well, I may have found the lower limit. This afternoon, I tried to work that repeater 20 miles away with1 watt and a 2.5" antenna. I could key the repeater, but nobody responded to my call, which usually means nobody can hear/understand you because there's always someone listening to that repeater. I have done it with 5 watts and a 2.5" antenna, but for 1 watt, a 701 seems to be as low as I can go. It's been a fun experiment, though. Just now, I got into the 70cm repeater 20 miles away and the signal report was "almost full quieting" using a 2 watt Arcshell AR-5 with its stock rubber duck antenna. The Arcshell is practically disposable, so if you spend $300,000 in the right location, you too can work a 20 mile repeater with a $10 radio.

As far as I can determine, in the history of the FCC, nobody has ever been cited solely for transmitting on a radio which was not type-accepted for that frequency. Of course, if you were being an ass and causing problems, they'd probably throw that charge in as well "just because". That said, the power and bandwidth restrictions exist largely to keep someone on that frequency from interfering with other users. If you decide to use the 5RM on GMRS, please be a decent human and set the bandwidth (wide/narrow) and power to the "legal" GMRS limits. The 5RM won't go below about 2-3 watts, so you should probably block transmission on channels 8-14, which are restricted to 0.5 watt. You can program them in and then set duplex to "off", then if there's some urgent need to use one of them, you can turn duplex back on fairly quickly from the keyboard on the front.

This morning, I checked into the daily net on a 2 meter repeater 20 miles away using 1 watt and an HYS NA-701 antenna on a Retevis RT85 HT. I was told that I was "a little noisy but not hard to understand". Tomorrow I'm going to try 1 watt and a stubby antenna. If that works, I'm going to just shout. This demonstrates pretty well, IMO, that height is might, elevation is propagation, and power is not as important as a lot of people think. I knew the "book answer" but it really reinforces it when you do the experiment yourself. There's a 70cm repeater in the same location and I was able to hear myself on another radio using that repeater. There's hardly ever anyone on that one, so I had to settle for saying "testing" and listening to myself. I know this is a GMRS forum, not ham, but the principles are exactly the same. Unfortunately, I don't have a GMRS repeater I can reach from my home. I used to have one about 25 miles away which I could easily use with a 5 watt HT, but it went offline a few months ago. There's one in Oklahoma City about 35 miles away, but I can't reach it with 50 watts -- I've tried. There are a couple of ham repeaters I can use in Oklahoma City, so I assume the GMRS repeater is in a less advantageous location. There are (I think) 11 amateur radio repeaters in Oklahoma City, of which I can hear 4 and actually use 2. Again, the difference is probably location.

I've said that myself, but I yield to your real-world experience. I may try it sometime to get a feel for how much difference it makes. Of course, no two heavily wooded areas are identical, but there's no substitute for experiencing it yourself.