marcspaz

It's been more than a year since I used mine. I do remember it gets hot, like I thought something was wrong. The guy I got it from swore it was normal. He has been a Fire/EMT truck builder, doing all the electronics. He said there is a temp sensor and if it gets too hot, you get a warning on the head display. I am going to be out for most of the day Saturday, but when I get home, I'll pull it out and run it full tilt for a few minutes. I'll take a few temp reading with the IR thermometer so you have something to compare yours to.

No doubt! The members have a lot of knowledge and great feedback. I'm thankful, for sure.

I sent this to the team. This may be the way we go. Thanks for the link.

So, I found this today and was thinking about trying this system. They state their device resolves a lot of that stuff. https://jps.com/products/qmt-1b/ I'm a little gun shy because I have heard what you stated above from basically everyone. I don't trust online reviews either. What are your thoughts on this? This is good to hear. I read about this today. I may go further down that rabbit hole before spending money, now that a second person is mentioning it. But, isn't a retimer essentially what the GPS clocking devices I read about would do? It's a stratum 1 device that syncs the signals to counter the network latency. I believe all the repeaters are Quantars. I used to think I had money until I started playing radio. Then I realized I am dumb and poor. LOL I thought about doing this myself... but I am not sure I trust them. I found that most of the time, you get an opinion instead of cited code or rules. I would love to go the RF linking route. But I am concerned about LOS as well as the tower space and extra hardware expenses.

So, unfortunately, it appears we can't legally RF link the repeaters outside of GMRS frequencies. Three of the people on the project are FCC licensed General Class commercial engineers with several decades of experience each, and they all agree that the rules significantly restrict open air relay, as we have to adhere to the GMRS frequencies and pairing requirements for any transmission to be legal. Short of using every pair (we have a receive site on every pair) and getting really creative on the voting, the closet we can do is wireless networking, but not every site has the LOS needed. That is what has brought us to the internet option. If we could RF link, I think we would be good to go. I appreciate all the feedback so far. This is good conversation that we can discuss.

Hey folks. I am trying to hammer out a problem with an internet voting system for repeaters. Hopefully you folks can point me in the right direction. I am helping build a receiver-node linked repeater system. We have a legal limit transmitter on a tall tower and the repeater can cover a vast area as far as where it can be heard. However, handheld radios and low power mobiles that are far out... maybe 40% plus out from the center of the coverage area... they can hear the repeater fine, however, they don't have enough power to get into the machine reliably, if at all. We have a bunch of repeaters around the region that we could use as a receiver voter system. We are trying to put it in place over public internet service (we would consider wireless P2P links like Aironet, etc., too) and we are having an issue with networking latency causing the wrong receiver to win. I have read a few places that there is a GPS time sync tool that causes a brief delay for the signals to sync at the voter and re-transmit the proper SNR source. However, I am not finding any device brands or models listed and my Google-Fu seems to be dramatically lacking. All I am finding is new systems well over $7K per system. Do any of you have this type of setup working successfully? Could you make recommendations on either the proper GPS time source model or a proper voting system that accounts for network latency, and won't cost me a kidney? Thanks in advance. Marc

Subbed.

I think you hit the nail square on the head with this statement.

I think you're correct. However, the local, state and federal government gets folks like ARES/RACES, REACT and CERT involved becuse they know that as robust as their system is, it's only reliable on a good day. That said, it's also cheaper for your civilian volunteers to bring their own gear, too. The responsibility of design, purchase and maintenance is covered by us (volunteers).

Just a point of interest, PIV/CAC cards for government employees and contractors cost more than $35 each and aren't valid as long as a GMRS license. If a government agency really wants to have a GMRS repeater for their staff to use, I'm 100% certain they would pony up the few bucks for the employees to have an individual license to use on the government owned radio. Just a thought.

Wow. I'm all for using the search feature and using existing info, but I am pretty sure reviving an 8 year old thread is a record for this forum. LOL I am pretty sure, those in the know actually prefer the legacy LMR stuff for the rock-solid performance and true full legal limit power. It's not for the faint of heart or technically challenged, though.

You have both renewed my faith in man. LOL

@Blaise... I don't know that the shield concept wouldn't work. The question would be, how much would it impact the receiver or the transmit SWR. I don't know if it would work well, even if the transmit loop is stopped. Something I think may happen is, the metal would act like a reflector and you would end up making a 2 element beam, instead. LoL Anyway, with two handheld radios, it wasn't worth the effort to try to remedy the issue. While building a quality repeater was significantly more expensive, I like it better for a bunch of reasons.

Didn't realize there are two threads... copied. I bought this exact unit from Amazon... I tried using it with two Baofeng handhelds. Even though they call it cross-band, the radios actually determine if its same band or cross-band. Bottom line... it ended up in the trash. It relies on the volume level of the radio, VOX operation, and if you try to use it on the same band, unless you have incredibly expensive radios with great filtering on the front-end, the transmitter wipes out the receiver and it gets stuck in a transmit loop until you turn off either one of the two radios. I am a geek by trade, so I ended up building a full-blown portable repeater. At this point, I would recommend you just buy a pre-programed Retevis.

I bought this exact unit from Amazon... I tried using it with two Baofeng handhelds. Even though they call it cross-band, the radios actually determine if its same band or cross-band. Bottom line... it ended up in the trash. It relies on the volume level of the radio, VOX operation, and if you try to use it on the same band, unless you have incredibly expensive radios with great filtering on the front-end, the transmitter wipes out the receiver and it gets stuck in a transmit loop until you turn off either one of the two radios. I am a geek by trade, so I ended up building a full-blown portable repeater. At this point, I would recommend you just buy a pre-programed Retevis.

The government agencies I work with usually ask volunteer civilians to partner with them, provide the hardware and human capital. I'm not aware of any of them doing it on their own, but my experience is obviously anecdotal. My team is in process of putting an amateur repeater on the county dispatch tower at the EOC. We are already approved for the antenna and radio install. I am going to see if we can put up a dual band antenna and see if we can co-locate the amateur and GMRS systems there.

I know a lot of people hate the licensing process and think there should not be any, but the FCC keeps big business and people with more money than Joe Q. User from bullying their way into radio spectrum that individual private users access. The only way the FCC can track exactly how popular the bands are and how many users are actually using it, is via the licensing process. If there isn't enough traceable activity, the FCC will sell the space to commercial users and we will lose our allocations. I only mention this because, I think if we run into people that are unlicensed in a services that they should have one, we should explain this situation to them in encourage them to spend the little bit of effort and funds so we can all continue to enjoy the services over the coming years. One is a CCR, the other is an ECR. LOL

That's greoffloading. My car club uses them for cruises, too. A lot of people use them for off-roading. I've been pleased with my Baofeng radios as well as the Cobra and Uniden blister pack radios.

80 years in prison and a $1,000,000,000 fine, or possibly a no-no letter, maybe. Most likely nothing. Depends on who you're asking.

Nevermind...

eh... this is a tricky subject because people see a huge difference in numbers of watts, but lose sight of the fact that those numbers have minimal impact on the real range and intelligibility of your signal. Bottom line is more power is not the answer. So we just deal with it... accept it... and try to get than antenna as high as possible. I ran a real world test with a radio that has 46w actual output and LMR400 cable (one of the more common in GMRS base installs). At the end of a 100 foot run, I measured 24 watts. My range was about 8.5 miles. At 8 miles away, my son said he heard me fine and he had a 4 s-unit reading on the mobile radio. In that half mile to 8.5, I disappeared. I put my amp on and ran 350 watts out. which netted me 182 watts at the input of the antenna. That was an increase in power of over 700%. At the 8 mile mark, my son said I was at 5 s-units (measurable, but not significant), but he still completely lost me about 1,000 feet further away than with 46 watts... not eve a 1/4 mile increase. On an offroad trip, I was on top of a 4,400'+ plateau, using the same 46w radio, and was able to talk to someone 168 miles away. I could hear the other station about 7 s-units. And of course there is satellite communications, were the repeaters have about 1/4 watt and sound fantastic here on earth, 200+ miles away.

Yes, Sir. Same style for grounding and insulation. One of the things I am partial to with the XRDS is that the center lead gets soldered at the bottom of the pin. So there is no splatter in the collar threads and you don't have to worry about being sure there is no excess solder on the lip or outside edge of the tip, causing potential fitment issues. Makes life a lot easier.

Sure do. They are from XRDS -RF, on Amazon. This is the one that is $25. per pack. They also make SO-239 and N connectors, but I haven't tried them yet. https://www.amazon.com/Connectors-5-Pack-PL-259-Connector-LMR400/dp/B08PKG7XB2/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1MJEAXDHXWD02&keywords=clamp+pl-259&qid=1664290461&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIyLjAyIiwicXNhIjoiMC4wMCIsInFzcCI6IjAuMDAifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=clamp+pl-259%2Caps%2C135&sr=8-3

@Sshannon Don't laugh too hard, but I messed up a connection on my VHF/UHF cable to the point where, when it was bent a certain way, while connected to the radio, it didn't work well at all. I think there was a stray ground stand or two floating around. When I took the cable off the radio and put my meter inline, the cable bent another way, alleviated the partial short and tested out perfectly. I chased it for 2 days before I just happened to have the radio keyed, looking at the meter and moved the meter out of the way to look at my personal data sheet I had been building, to compare numbers from earlier. The SWR jumped to 19:1 for a flash. I ended up cutting the end off and installing a new clamp style PL259. I just my insertion loss in half and the radio started working like a rock star. BTW, I think the clamp style UHF connectors work pretty well for an affordable alliterative to an N type, for use on the 400-500 MHz range. Not sure if you have tried them. The US made connectors are about $100 each, but I found some really good quality Chinese units on Amazon for about $25 each.

Based on what you said on Sunday at 08:42 PM, about the receiver being excellent when the centered of the coax is hooked but, but get bad when you screw the ground collar on, I'm thinking you have a bad coax or bad mount, regardless of how good your SWR is. It indicates a possible partial short.