Socalgmrs

Can they talk to each other (simplex) 100yards away with stock antennas? 200yards? 1/4 mile? Did you put the stock antenna back on it and see if it works like the other one? If they work simplex they work for the repeater. The h3 seams to be one of the worst radios made and the ghost salt shaker isn’t much better. Also where is the antenna mounted? As high as possible in the center of the roof? Or down on a fender with the cab obstructing it?

You didn’t say what radio/watts your base is but if everything else is working correctly and you really do have line of sight then it’s the junk pole antenna. Line of sight with a 5w hand held at 30miles should come in very clear so with a base and a good antenna like a comet 712efc and even a 15w base station with lmr400 cable 30mile should be a drop in the bucket.

Totally agree and the answer is NO they don’t neeeed that many repeaters. It’s turning into a macho thing. “I have more and bigger repeaters then ….” It’s causing many problems and upsetting other repeater owners. Some court cases have even come up about it. It’s getting crazy for something that should be used for family and friends while doing an activity.

With how horrible lithium is for the environment both when mining and later and how dangerous they are I won’t have them any place near my home or cars. Even at work we will not carry them in our trucks. We work with 48v lithium and we let ups deal with that. We have had many trucks and vans burn to the ground with lithium. Especially bad while driving on The freeway. you can get some very nice, however heavy, agm battery’s for much less money. One of my radios in the house runs off a 100amh agm and a trickle charger and in the truck I have a hard mounted 80amh agm mounted under the hood that is isolated from the truck batteries but charges off the alternator.

Just another example. For the money paid you could have gotten 3-4 better radios and had wide band all along.

I’d go with one of the 4’ “off road antennas”. Midland and others make them. They are no ground plane. Clamp on and light weight. Also just about indestructible for storing, and putting up and down. Also a great gain at around 6.6db.

Sounds like you have already made your decision. I only know of one group in that area that has a “membership fee” like that. I’d say you would have to join to find out if it’s right for you. I’m pretty sure you could get your money back if it didn’t work out.

I don’t see an “N” connector in the picture. That’s an sma to pl259. AND you should never connect a pl259 connector/big cable like that. You should have e a small light flexible pig tail with an sma to 259 adaptor. The way you have it it’s going to ruin the radio pretty quickly. It’s just much weight for the sma in the radio

Yea the internet has millions of hours of reading and videos for those that can’t or won’t read. If you or your friend is already familiar with chirp is super easy to ad an off set frequency and digital squelch tone.

This is how this works some times. You have a repeater or even another base station up high with a good antenna coax and 50w radio that can be heard from 50-60-100 miles away but not every one in those areas that can hear it are going to be able to hit it. It might be height, line of sight, antenna, coax, radio… the list goes on but this is totally normal. Some people can hit everything and some can’t.

Omg you mean for a weekend you couldn’t talk to random strangers on the radio? Did your foot fall off? Did your head explode? Did you have an emergency and no one would stand by? Didn’t you have anything else in your life you couldn’t have done instead of hanging out in the radio room all weekend getting upset?

Why?

Well if you read what was written I said USED so no they will NOT be affected at all Not one penny. I’ve never paid more than $150 for a 50w professional radio.

So define “big”. A 25% teriff on a $20 radio is $5. Not big in my book but ok. Now if your one of those guys that loves to spend $450 on a ccr then yea an extra $112 could be considered “big”. now. If your one of those guys that runs used Motorola/kenwood radios it won’t affect you at all.

Well first it does not matter repeater or simplex. The radio is going to transmit the same to a repeater or simplex. Second it’s line of sight. You can’t see Hawaii from the west coast. The earth is round. But a 5w hand held has talked to the space station. My $20 5?w hts do 50miles simplex each and every day. And 100miles or so to the local repeater (only more miles because it is up 2000’ higher and on a mountain. so how far a 5w ht can go is limited by line of site long before miles.

It’s just an antenna yes go do it.

get upset all you want people. BUT another example of radiotitty radios not working right! This should come as no surprise for any one that listens to me. I know no one likes to hear it buuut it’s happening AGAIN! I’m sure I’m wrong.

To accomplish this with out the internet the second repeater would have to be on different frequencies then the normal “pairs”. Not gonna happen under gmrs rules. However this can be done with ham. How far are you trying to get? Most of the repeaters in my area are getting 100-200 mile radius. That means 2 radios can be up to 400miles apart and talk no problem. I’d concentrate on getting 50 watts to the coax, (many/most duplexers take 1/2 the wattage before the coax) and a good antenna up high before spending money on a whole new repeater set up.

Very nice. Good antennas would certainly help your situation even more but at 120 miles your getting about 10xs the distances others get. Most guys on here call me a lier when I tell them I do well over 200miles every day with a 20w base radio and 60-100 with hand helds. It’s all about line of sight.

The fcc does not prohibited data on gmrs. It’s about amount of data, If it did the gps gmrs radios would not be legit.

Wait wait from the title of the post “If I program 2 radios identically to hit a repeater, why can't they talk to each other?” if your programmed on a repeater channel the radios never talk to each other. Radio A talks to the repeater and radio B listens to the repeater. If your not hitting the repeater with radio A then radio be will never hear radio A on radio B

I have never in over 30 years of having soft top jeeps and all manner of old and new cars ever had a radio stollen from a vehicle and I grew up in a Los Angeles ghetto. Now I live in the country and don’t even lock the doors of roll up the windows. No one wants a gmrs radio. You can’t even sell a $450 woxoun for $50 in the used market. If it’s that big of a deal just put a towel over it. Out of site out of mind.

If you have never used a good radio for less then 1/2 the price and get your info from gimmicky advertising then it guess it’s ok. Especially if you like wasting money.

Sure a 6.5” 12g wire with a ring terminal inter the antenna will help but I never found it helps enough. I just use 771 antennas and have no issues with tx distance. With a short and stubby antenna they do help somewhat.

TOTALLY wrong. Completely depends on the repeater owner and what they set. Many of our local repeaters have a dcs tone for in and a ctcss for out. Some of the others use digital only. So I wouldnt say most Maybe most of the ones you know of In your area.