wayoverthere

Not sure about that 45 watt mobile radio offhand...with the lack of feedback and delays, I wonder if it's fairly new hardware. The one in the 25 watt kit looks very similar to the retevis rb86 (which is also water resistant and on sale for $111). The handheld looks like a radioddity gm30 (which run around $40). The cable with nmo is usually $30ish for name brand, and rugged actually has a laird 1/2 wave on sale for $24, which is a good price. On the mount, it looks nicely made...the mounting location in some of the pics (and proximity to adjacent metal parts gives me pause, but I'll let those with experience speak to if that's actually an issue (as I don't have a jeep and haven't used their mount). Overall, probably not bad gear, but they're charging a premium for name and the convenience of a kit. Whether it's justified is up to the buyer.

Neither I can think of are base station antennas, but the comet 2x4sr is one of not many wideband antennas covering all 4. Can't speak to MURS for transmit (though it lists covering 140-170), but the tram 1181 is another low key and wide band mobile. Like @gortex2i tend to either stay band specific (uhf only on the beater) or split up ham and gmrs due to type acceptance of the radios (2 antennas on the truck, ham and gmrs separate).

One other good one for line of sight is http://heywhatsthat.com/

It's hard to beat a 1/4 wave "hatpin" for stealth. Even with the whip (all 6" of it) above the roofline, it'd be hard to notice, especially sitting by the vent. Alternately, for stealth, I might go with one of laird's "phantom" (about the only brand I'd give that type a chance) antennas, since they have some no ground plane needed options. A black one mounted at the top of a vent pipe (on a bracket painted black to match the pipe) add a tee and a 90 degree bend up inside the attic to bring the cable out, but keep water out, and go. https://theantennafarm.com/shop-by-categories/shop-all/mobile-antennas/300-512-mhz-uhf/no-ground-plane-antennas/11431-laird-connectivity-trab4500n-detail (I'd paint/sharpie/peel the logos off too, to help it blend with the pipe)

That makes more sense, to be honest...thanks for the explanation. I was mostly taking the info from the RR thread with a grain of salt. That said, I'm a little surprised to see bf offering something like that, but maybe it's an admission of how bad some of them are on spurious emissions, or so badly shielded, not just when transmitting.

Haven't found anything on 'jumpcode'...I was able to turn up something on 'beat shift', which is apparently a rudimentary scrambler option. https://forums.radioreference.com/threads/baofeng-beat-shift-scrambler.308120/

https://web.psrg.org/psrg-voting-system/ Here is something I stumbled across on the ham side of the table, that seems to provide a good description of what's going on behind the scenes and the gear they're using..don't know if it's any help

I wonder if the difference between the antennas is in signal pattern. I have a vague memory of a post mentioning the Commscope antennas mostly being designed for tower use, and with a tendency to focus the pattern downward somewhat. Where my line of thinking is going: Combining the 0 degree downtilt, 27 degree beamwidth, and this illustration, has me thinking of the possibility that the DB404 is just putting the signal below those other stations you're aiming for...the coax/hardline lengths also makes me think they aren't up all that high. A bit of searching didn't find me a spec for beam width or tilt for the Comet, but i'd expect it to little more balanced above and below horizontal compared to the Commscope. Then again, I may be assuming too much and way off base.

did some additional searching, but of the few sites i checked, none of them mentioned the 'wave' on that one..that said, half educated guess given the size, and the coil in the middle, that it'd likely be a 5/8 over 5/8 wave. i've had good results with a similar 5/8 over 5/8 browning.

i'll second this as well..having jumped into LMR gear with some Vertex EVXs...the most basic frequency setup wasn't too bad, but SO many menus. i'll say their context based help is pretty good at explaining things though. went to a VX mobile next, which was a bit simpler, and i learned some things there i was able to go back and apply to the EVXs. still here and there poking at getting one of the other EVXs (i have two 450-512 split, and one 400-470) working on DMR.

If it's more a matter of you're hearing the same on rpt1 and rpt2, it'll come down to double checking what frequecies are programmed in the radio. If they're the same,then 100% expected. If they're different, there may be more than one repeater within receive range that are linked together. No linked gmrs machines where I am, but there's 3 ham repeaters on a network, 2 70cm and 1 2m...kind of funny when the dual scan in my truck hits 2 repeaters at different sites, and hearing the delay between them.

Well, that would explain why none of us were seeing the alamo575 then? I even tried poking around San Antonio in the map with stale and offline included, to no avail

It's been a bit, but I seem to remember the 8"x12" piece of sheet metal I have a mag mount stuck on being pretty inexpensive...drill a couple holes and you're set.

Yeah, like @KAF6045 i don't really use the search, as it seems to give me a pretty limited radius, miss some within that radius, and there's definitely some within range that fall outside that. You may try toggling the "show stale repeaters" to ON (also under the advanced search); some repeaters, when they're working well, don't need updates but drop to stale as a result. Alternately, I tend to use the map more when searching for a repeater in my vicinity (or other areas as well).

For what its worth...I've done a little mucking around with some handhelds...baofeng, wouxun, yaesu, midland, and a vertex evx..even half a watt was enough to deafen the baofeng and midland i was testing with from across the room. i forget the wattage used when testing tx/rx to repeater (want to say 5 watts, using the wouxun)...but even at the +5mhz, the midland and baofeng were basically deaf. the vertex and yaesu were still receiving audio, even at the 5 watts. as much as i like to tinker, it just sounds like a recipe for frustration, unless you're using too little power to be much use, or spending enough on the handhelds that it ends up a wash with just having bought the retevis to begin with.

sponsorship/marketing? my gxt1000's sure desense like a uv5r, though.

It's hands down win over a mxt115. The only thing it can't quite match the 275 on is the remote head form factor (though btech has something similar there). I liked the anytone enough to buy 2.

I mean...it's not out of the realm of possibility that they were from 2 separate batches, one set had the gps antennas, and the other didn't (due to shortages) and btech just didn't bother mentioning it till being called on it.

? Misunderstanding? That seems more like false advertising, imo. The implication of that page of the manual is that the radio can receive gps on it's own, which per their information, isnt true. You wouldn't use a gps antenna to get the coordinates from the phone, that's just Bluetooth.

No rush ? glad to help, and to hear all is well.

Hoping his family is safe as well...if I'm remembering right, the Florida side is some of his family members, while he's up in New Jersey

Beat me to it ? I remember an older post about not posting tone information in public sections (though I forget which sections that is again)...was immediately thinking message, but see it's already covered. I trust Rich will get the account issue sorted, too.

The logins don't necessarily always carry over between the forum and the main page, unfortunately. They're a bit more connected than they used to be (the prior forum software, they were completely separate), but it's closer now...my avatars are still completely different between the two, though. If you hit the three lines in the upper left, you should be able to sign in with the same password as the forum...then try accessing (or refreshing) the repeater page again.

? Thanks for the correction...reading too fast I guess, and read that as an "or" rather than "and"

That would seem to say as long as the users are ID'ing as they should, the repeater doesn't need to ? or am I misinterpreting that?