gman1971

I recall when my previous employer in the oil industry started to receive Motorola Trbo XPR8400 repeaters and XPR6550 handhelds. I used my Aeroflex 3550A test set to check for receive sensitivity (UHF), which was between 0.17-0.20 uV. My boss said "I don't believe you", so he walked down to the lab and grabbed a few handhelds and checked for himself. He was impressed, as previous radios (Motorola PR1500's) were no around  0.25-0.35 uV, everything else being the same. In spec for UHF, but not as good as the digital capable handhelds. The XPR8400's and Quantars were essentially the same, with the XPR series repeater having digital capability, it was a one for one swap infrastructure wise. Those surplus UHF Quantars ended up in many local Auxiliary Communication Service (ACS) roles ever since (this was around 2010 or so). Quantars are one of the best repeaters ever made, and will serve any person or organization well.

Beyond having a very sensitive (hot) front end, the Quantar was also very selective, a difficult combination to achieve. 
I'm surprised to hear that the Quantar transmitter at 50 watts greatly out-performed the Kenwood transmit at 50 watts. I'd have to think that the Kenwood was falling short in either Deviation or it was off frequency. Lesser radios do tend to have some frequency drift as they warm up. The good stuff will be rock steady on frequency center.  
The biggest thing I've noticed with Quantars (and their cousins the MTR2000) is that all the internal audio processing is done with PCM (pulse coded modulation) - so any noise or hum is filtered out, and only the audio is passed. That would effectively mean that the MTR's and Quantars were full quieting with a receive signal strength of less than .35uV (around -116 dBm)  - which is where many commercial radios are just beginning to break squelch. 

Congrats!!, it sounds like you've reached the same conclusion I've reached as well. Motorola is not hype as they would have you believe, that is for sure.
Totally agree, experience wins a lot of contests, for sure.
@gortex2The only reason the "do it cheap crowd" gets away with their cheap stuff because guys like @JB007Ruleshave spent 5 figures on their repeater setup, so the overpriced pieces of garbage trash CCR radios have any hopes of working: Simple as that.
Well, I think depends on what 30 dollar radio you are talking about, but in general most cheap radios mated to a 1k antenna will desense really bad, so you'll end up with a deaf radio. You'll need to add several hundreds of dollars of filtering to the 30$ radio front end (or lack thereof) just to make it work.
I am certain the ISOtee on that Quantar is off-the-charts good... and all Kenwood radios I've ISOteed were not that great. Even the Vertex Standard radios were only marginally better, but there was a jump going from everything else to Motorola, even the 6550 receiver beats every Kenwood radio I've tested to date.
Tuning goes a very very long way (understatement here). as I've found that tuning the radios correctly can make the difference between 3 miles and 30 miles with ease!!
Given the cost of used Motorola gear, IMO, once your eyes are opened, there is no reason to ever go back to inferior equipment.
G.
EDIT: Forgot to say this (again), but there is a reason why the longest running, furthest reaching radios ever made by humanity are made by Motorola. Yes, the Voyager probes have Motorola radios...  been running non-stop since the 70s, and they are past the Heliosphere, or about 14.4 billion miles from Earth (as of 11/2021)... so, if you want range, think only Motorola (except the R7 turd... ) How far does your light shine?
 

Congrats!!, it sounds like you've reached the same conclusion I've reached as well. Motorola is not hype as they would have you believe, that is for sure.
Totally agree, experience wins a lot of contests, for sure.
@gortex2The only reason the "do it cheap crowd" gets away with their cheap stuff because guys like @JB007Ruleshave spent 5 figures on their repeater setup, so the overpriced pieces of garbage trash CCR radios have any hopes of working: Simple as that.
Well, I think depends on what 30 dollar radio you are talking about, but in general most cheap radios mated to a 1k antenna will desense really bad, so you'll end up with a deaf radio. You'll need to add several hundreds of dollars of filtering to the 30$ radio front end (or lack thereof) just to make it work.
I am certain the ISOtee on that Quantar is off-the-charts good... and all Kenwood radios I've ISOteed were not that great. Even the Vertex Standard radios were only marginally better, but there was a jump going from everything else to Motorola, even the 6550 receiver beats every Kenwood radio I've tested to date.
Tuning goes a very very long way (understatement here). as I've found that tuning the radios correctly can make the difference between 3 miles and 30 miles with ease!!
Given the cost of used Motorola gear, IMO, once your eyes are opened, there is no reason to ever go back to inferior equipment.
G.
EDIT: Forgot to say this (again), but there is a reason why the longest running, furthest reaching radios ever made by humanity are made by Motorola. Yes, the Voyager probes have Motorola radios...  been running non-stop since the 70s, and they are past the Heliosphere, or about 14.4 billion miles from Earth (as of 11/2021)... so, if you want range, think only Motorola (except the R7 turd... ) How far does your light shine?
 

As a former Zetron/JVC/Kenwood Group engineer, I'll second the, "I'll spend my money on Motorola first" epiphany, due to real world experience. Great write up on the details and advice given here. Currently, I am sitting on about 100 corporate Quantar repeaters, 800 MHz units that served the company well for a decade, only to be replaced with GTR8000's as a planned replacement/upgrade. They sit in storage until a new site needs to be stood up, as they just work. I mentioned how they were the "cockroach" of the radio world when corporate wanted me to surplus them, as they would probably still work throughout the next ice age, doing their job until something physically breaks. Sadly, 800 MHz spectrum is becoming hard to come by, and I wish they had been UHF 450-470 MHz Quantars, as they would be more useful to me now in 2022. Like the OP, I will not be getting rid of any of my Kenwood gear either, but look at the use case and decide from that what to spend. (Often being Motorola, but I did buy a Radioddity GM-30/DB20-G package and an Anytone AT-878DUV II Plus a while back as well.) 
Also a +1 on SunnyComm, has worked with them for many years as well. Out of several hundred radios, only two were ever received in non-working order, both due to damage in shipment. However, they made good on them, and have a great repair policy as well. Will continue to work with them as much as possible. Great people, and business there. (I have made purchases on behalf of my employer and my own hobby use with Used-Radios.com/SunnyComm.)

Preface:  This thread isn’t to start a war against 2 different manufactures…  you do you!  I’m sharing the FACTS of what I’ve done here and the experiences that me and my users have had!  You can leave the arguments off this thread!  Kayyyyyy, thanks, bye!
 
I have to share this success story because it’s worth everyone reading IMO.  I will start by stating that I’m well over 5 figures in on the Rugged 575 repeater in Naperville, IL on a commercial tower which has the receive antenna at the top at 300’ and the transmit 50’ further down at 250’ (Which I paid to install).  It’s been quite a learning experience and I don’t care how much money you may have; experience wins here!  You can check the repeater listing for the back-story and read from the bottom up:  https://mygmrs.com/repeater/3838
 
I’ve had this repeater on air since 8/17/2020.  As a whole, it’s worked VERY well for what I need for my family and for the hobby in the suburbs of Chicago.  While it doesn’t have near the traffic as other local repeaters (Joliet 550 which is another local only repeater (Not linked) which is also taller), it’s stayed on the air 24/7/365 with zero down time.  The repeater was the VERY CHEAPEST component in this ENTIRE build with the antenna, feed line, and tower climbers costing FARRRRRRRRRR MORE of course.  In the words of Corey, a $1,000 radio with a $30 antenna is a $30 radio and a $30 radio with a $1,000 antenna is a $1,000 radio.  This is and always will remain true and he is correct 100%.
 
With this theory, off I was with a cheap $365 Kenwood TKR-850 which was also aligned by Corey up in Wisconsin (Thanks again for your help here sir!) with a massive antenna and feed line system.  It worked VERY well for the last year and a half and is still a working backup system at this point.  I was also lucky to finally tie into the sites master UHF receive antenna at the top through a 1-8 split multi-coupler (so no duplexer as I’m using 2 different antennas) which made ALL the difference in the world VS using 1 antenna with a duplexer.
 
Fast forward a year and a half later we come to the Motorola Quantar which I finally had the time to take on and install and has been installed for about 2 weeks now with ZERO changes since I left the tower site!  This Motorola Quantar repeater *IS*, up until now 2/26/2022, the best repeater you can get according to the people I’m surrounded by that know more than I do about it – You all know who you are!  They are *ALL* right (again, I never said they were wrong!).  I never doubted them or thought they were wrong, but I wasn’t “in tune” with the whole, IMO, “overhyped” Motorola game to say the least.  (Can you blame me?!)  Here it is in plain text:  I WAS WRONG ABOUT MOTOROLA.  In particular the receive is INSANE, which always has been the selling point of this particular repeater and it’s one of the main reasons why this repeater excels over Kenwood (and others I’m sure but I cannot comment as I have no personal experience) ...  It’s hard to fully explain in writing but the Quantar has *ALL* the things that “normal” repeaters (any brand other than Motorola) simply don’t have and simply put, it runs C-I-R-C-L-E-S around the Kenwood TKR-850.  Without getting too complicated, a pre-selector being the most important part is key here combined with a receiver that makes a Kenwood look like a children’s play toy.  The experts that know more about it can explain better but it’s more of a “system” than “just a repeater”.  This is why it takes up 3 times more rack space and sucks down electricity like Darjeeling even at standby…
 
Anyways, getting on 2 separate antennas with 50’ of vertical separation was the first BIG step basically doubling the usable coverage especially for hand held radios which was done last year.  The 2nd step was the Quantar which doubled everything yet again.  Many of you see Quantars on Ebay for $800 or $1,000 bucks and its hit or miss… I can assure you that by the time you’re done getting it CORRECTLY tuned and shipping it to and back, you can simply DOUBLE that number.  I’ll put the numbers below so you can actually see but it’s NOT cheap.  Sunny Communications out of Cali has done me right numerous times and they are the one that provided this Quantar this time too!
 
Now for the tuning:  A big shout out to Mark Dannon at Northcomm in Plano, TX.  This man deserves a gold medal and is a FORCE to reckon with.  His intelligence, experience, and overall willingness to not only help and DO IT RIGHT from beginning to end is just the start in addition to his post-sales support.  He has equipment that your normal “radio shop” simply doesn’t have, and he *DOES* do it better.  I’d even challenge ANY radio shop to tune a Qunatar, then send it to him and he’d make it even better.  I’m LITERALLY not a spokes person for this guy or his company and I am *NOT* being paid to put this review here but what he has *IS BETTER* than any other “radio shop” and he specializes in Motorola Quantars too.  I have to iterate this loud and clear that your repeater is only as good as the equipment that tuned it and this guy has it all dialed in and WILL run circles around others even with “$40,000 worth of equipment” (measly) … Trust me here as he has far more than that…
 
In closing, I want to state some insane improvements which the numbers show in plain text proving its worth.  I’m redacting names and call signs but if you read this and recognize the scenario then you know who you are!!
 
1) A gentleman in the SAME TOWN only 6 miles east, in a VERY, VERY hard to service area in low elevation next to several high rises blocking the signal couldn’t even get in on an HT 6 miles away, had to stand on his balcony to BARELY SCRAPE IN now get in now gets in FULL QUIETING on a 5W HT anywhere in his apartment.
2) A gentleman 59 miles away who could barely scrape in 2/10 quality on his 50W mobile and couldn’t even hear the repeater on his HT now gets in 9/10 almost full quieting on his mobile and can hear a conversation loud and clear in his living room on an HT 59 miles away with the same 50W of power going back out.  Even better, he can get in 4-5/10 quality on his 5W HT but he has to be OUTSIDE to do so…  Literally how is this possible… The curvature of the earth alone is in the way.  No this isn’t a band opening; this is EVERY DAY….
3) Personally, I could scrape in with a 1/10 quality (literally all static) on the first level of my sister’s house in Downers Grove, IL which is only a measly 11.15 miles away from the tower is now 8/10 almost full quieting on the first level on a 5W HT (Tree city, trust me here).  Was 6/10 on house level 2 is now 10/10 loud & booming full quieting from the 2nd level of her house on the same 5W HT.
4) Another gentleman hasn’t EVER even been able to even key the repeater from his work on a 5W HT can now get in with a 7/10 in quality.  More perfection…
5) And for me personally… I’m only 9.5 miles from the repeater at my house…. Not far, right?  Except when I wiggled/moved around just a bit people couldn’t tell I was moving around…. Now I can be crazy with my 5W HT and hold it sideways like you see in the movies (DUMB), walk around while talking and literally no one even notices…  Literally no picket – fencing…  Like some magical sorcery…
 
Literally I’m not making this up…  Upon talking to others, we’ve noted that the Kenwood TKR-850 was a $1200 - $1600 repeater when new VS the Quantar being $20,000 - $25,000 new…. Well, it shows…  Damn does it show…
 
I’d encourage ANY wide area repeater owner to upgrade whatever system you have to a Motorola Quantar (With the right tuning!!!) and TRUST me, you and your users will be glad you did.  I’m not knocking Kenwood (Well I am for their repeaters) but literally the Quantar has it beat hand over fist!  Sorry, this might sting to some but for others it’s a “Duh, I told you so” situation!  I still have THOUSANDS of dollars’ worth of GOOD Kenwood radios…  (NX300’s, NX800 Mobiles, TK8360’s, etc etc etc) and I’m *NOT* going to go and replace them all…. I’m still going to use them; but I’ll be DAMNED if I don’t think twice…. THREE times before considering another radio purchase and trust me, I have a LOT of radios lol!
 
They say Motorola invented the 2-way radio and now I see how & why.
 
Thanks for your time and feel free to comment and leave questions below.  I’ll do my best to answer them between work and life.

Thanks for the real world experience from a repeater owner. When some folks talk about spending good funds on doing it right it gets over shadowed by the do it cheap crowd. I ran very similar equipment for SAR up until last year more because we can only afford what we can afford. 2 sites had the Kenwood TKR850 (VHF). All sites got replaced with Quantars and also went simulcast. Granted its night and day with simulcast but the biggest advantage is the sound quality in my book. It sounds like a radio. Good luck with your site. 

Congrats!!, it sounds like you've reached the same conclusion I've reached as well. Motorola is not hype as they would have you believe, that is for sure.
Totally agree, experience wins a lot of contests, for sure.
@gortex2The only reason the "do it cheap crowd" gets away with their cheap stuff because guys like @JB007Ruleshave spent 5 figures on their repeater setup, so the overpriced pieces of garbage trash CCR radios have any hopes of working: Simple as that.
Well, I think depends on what 30 dollar radio you are talking about, but in general most cheap radios mated to a 1k antenna will desense really bad, so you'll end up with a deaf radio. You'll need to add several hundreds of dollars of filtering to the 30$ radio front end (or lack thereof) just to make it work.
I am certain the ISOtee on that Quantar is off-the-charts good... and all Kenwood radios I've ISOteed were not that great. Even the Vertex Standard radios were only marginally better, but there was a jump going from everything else to Motorola, even the 6550 receiver beats every Kenwood radio I've tested to date.
Tuning goes a very very long way (understatement here). as I've found that tuning the radios correctly can make the difference between 3 miles and 30 miles with ease!!
Given the cost of used Motorola gear, IMO, once your eyes are opened, there is no reason to ever go back to inferior equipment.
G.
EDIT: Forgot to say this (again), but there is a reason why the longest running, furthest reaching radios ever made by humanity are made by Motorola. Yes, the Voyager probes have Motorola radios...  been running non-stop since the 70s, and they are past the Heliosphere, or about 14.4 billion miles from Earth (as of 11/2021)... so, if you want range, think only Motorola (except the R7 turd... ) How far does your light shine?
 

I still use the Bird 43 at home and most of my hobby stuff. for work we use the R&S®NRT-Z Power Sensors. Its slick but not cheap. 

I would do a 2-bay or 4-bay side by side folded dipole in the attic.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/134023808353?epid=1941709490&hash=item1f34710561:g:yowAAOSwIytgUyhQ
G.

Ah perfecto, perfecto, aqui tambien se habla Español... un saludo.
G.

Muchos hablamos español pero no en el forum ?

Yeah, a nice cleaned used Bird wattmeter is next on my list of toys to get.  Then I start saving up for that spectrum analyzer…..

Maybe you need the one I just sent back.. like someone said, it will boost your ego LOL......
 
G.

I really don't think it will be a problem, even without preselectors or cavities...
Currently using two CF-4160N on the same heliax run to multiplex two radios. Which works quite nicely and saves you from having to use multiple cables. No issues with desense.
G.
 

I hear you, and the whole point of my post.

73


Michael
WRHS965
KE8PLM

The Model 43 is still the tried & true standard - but Bird did make the Model 4391 Digital Wattmeter - along with the newer Model 4421 with Digital display. Both are more of a benchtop model, not the bulletproof field tech design of the Model 43.
Another group I monitor - someone had posted a picture of a supposed Model 44 - which looked like the 43, but had a digital display, and was supposed to handle DMR/TDMA digital.  Googling that doesn't show me any current digital offering by Bird. Could have been last year's April Fool's joke??  It does appear that someone makes an aftermarket digital display that swaps into a standard model 43.
Our normal setup is to plug in a common Analog "test" channel into our mobile radios, and do our SWR and install tests based off the analog side - using a model 43.

Most ham diplexers I've tested were about 50-60 dB isolation. For most cheap radio stuff that could be a problem, since the receivers have no front end filtering, even when tuned to VHF, anything coming in the UHF could degrade performance.
For commercial grade radios, the 50-60 dB isolation U/V + the radio front end filtering should probably be good enough to get you by. Now, you can always use those diplexers with a preselector or a cavity, which will further reduce the signal so there should be no issues at all.
G.

bummer... looks like in the end I'll have to shell the cash for a service monitor...
 
@wayoverthereYep, nowadays Amazon is also a crapshoot like fleabay... especially with these devices. you might get a good batch, you might not... I'll probably wait until this thing is returned and the money refunded... then we'll see...
Thanks!
G.

Probably right about that being so far off... 
BTW, the seller accepted the return, so back it goes. Any recommendation for a decent digital Bird watt meter?
Thanks.
G.
 

I've always used a trusty old needle power meter to measure radio power... and its been pretty accurate so far, but I wanted something digital, etc.
So, I picked one of those just to see what the fuss was all about, at the time it seemed like a nice device, had digital readout, etc. I also keep seeing everyone in this board using one to measure stuff, so wanted to see first hand how accurate they really are, and potentially keep it.
Anyhow, first radio to be tested is one of my XPR5550e, placed it on the SW-102 meter, using a 50ohm dummy load, press PTT and... boom, my 5550e is now pumping 79W... hahaha.... I know the Motorola is calibrated to put 50W. Put a CDM1550LS? boom, this one is pumping 85W holy cow... I didn't know Motorolas were that good LOLOL.  I then connect it to a Vertex EVX-5300? and same deal: 78w, another EVX-5300? same thing, 80W. Then take one of my XPR6550 with SMA, low power is supposed to be 1W, not for the Surecom, it reads 1.85W, another 6550, same deal, 1.79W. high power? 6.98W... its a 4W radio... 
So I fire up the Antyone AT-578U/V just to see what is going on, the turbo mode yields 82W... Get the TM-V71a out mothballs? same deal, 79W. Basically, all my 50W mobiles read around 80W on this Surecom trash... that is super accurate. 
Then the SWR readings are also off, it reads a WHOLE lot lower than the real deal. I have several VNA analyzers and all of them agree within a small return loss percentage... even my old trusty needle meter is more accurate than this POS. 
Maybe its measuring using Cheap China waaatts, or waeetts, or maybe China Lumens like those 50000 lumen flashlights, maybe to make radios look better?... who knows, right? my advice after trying this turd is to dump it like a hot potato and get a Bird meter... or something else that is actually calibrated using standard Watts.
So, there you have it: buy cheap trash, expect piss poor outcomes.
Returning it as I type.
G.

Yes, +1 on that one being a dud. I have used about a dozen of them myself, and they work very well. Leave them in line with many mobile Motorola radios. When I first started using them, I was paranoid and checked with Bird 43 and similar slugless Thruline wattmeters. They all get calibrated when new, and then left in place. Some for several years now. Attached is a picture of one that I used recently with a Motorola XPR4550 mobile. Great little units, even though made in China. I buy these through Amazon, so if I get a dud, it can be sent back easily.

I would try exchanging it first.  You definitely have a bad unit, but I think it's just bad luck. Also, the device is capable of being calibrated by the user. Once I calibrated mine, it's as accurate as my Bird 43, which is a benchmark product at more than 8x the cost of the SureCom SW102.

Good radio choice, just make sure you get decent cable (heliax 1/2). Use N connectors if possible. I personally would chose a 2-bay or 4-bay dipole over anything Diamond made.... 
There are places like radiomobile.com that will do a crude site analysis for you. You punch the gain, the location, etc, and you get a coverage map. 25 miles in UHF is hard to achieve, especially in rough terrain.
G.

There's no such thing as a good quality RG58 cable no matter how short it is. RG400 with N connectors at a minimum.