WRFP399

I didn't read the whole post, sorry if this had been covered but my kids, 3 and 5, get Retevis RT22 radios. 1/2 watt on low, 2 watts on high. Battery lasts a long time. They get limited buttons to mess with (basically on/off, volume and channel up or down). They come in pairs and six packs. A pair is about 30 bucks. They charge via USB which is nice for extended hikes if you need to charge them off a battery pack or solar charger. The built in antenna isnt horrid, yes a 5 watt radio with a better antenna goes further but I found these are impressive. These radios are small enough you can attach them right to the shoulder strap of a backpack and there is no need for a shoulder mic. This places the radio near the ear so they can hear and also places it close to their mouth so they can key it and talk. The radio programs with Chirp. I was using one today on a solo hike.

There is something to be said for the massive battery. I use an XTS5000 at work for 10-12 hour shifts. It doesn't matter if I forget the charge it prior to the next shift as I have never gotten the low battery warning. The XTS2500s would give me 2 shifts and then would be beeping at me. Personally, I am using Vertex VX-231s and EVX-534s for GMRS. They are much smaller. An extended battery lasts 36-48 hours on standby. The EVX can do encryption and digital if you wanted that as well. Definitely isn't an XTS5000 though.

I see you have it all worked out but as far as wide band goes I have another option. You can use the International version of the programming software to allow you to program in wideband channels. That is what I do. Granted I have only used it on EVX-530 and VX230/260 series radios. I also found that communication errors between the radio and computer were vastly reduced when I bought the OEM FIF-12 programming cable.

If this is for a repeater RG393 would be a better fit from a technical standpoint. RG400 is the same as RG393 but just RG58 sized.

The RT97 does have a low power setting. I have no idea what it's output is at that setting but it does exist and it does seem to reduce the power output. I note that the RT97 goes from consuming about 30 watts of power to 20 watts of power when you switch from high to low power. I am hoping someone can test the power output on a functioning one, after the duplexer, to see what it is to satisfy my curiosity. RETEVIS is really good about sending out replacement units. Email them and let them know what is going on. Show them the poor output power of 700 milliwatts with your image.

I think if you came to GMRS to rag chew with randos you probably feel underwhelmed. That is definitely ham territory. GMRS is really just an expanded FRS and seems to be focused on family and friend tactical (meaning local) communication.

I think my question was not phrased correctly....

Side bar question: Do you think your family would benefit from a HAM license? What can do you on HAM that a basic user of UHF/VHF can't do with GMRS/MURS? This could be my misconception but I see HAM as a band for people who like to experiment and more "advanced" radio work besides simple voice communication. Personally my family isn't going to get any benefits from HAM at this point in time. In our situation the GMRS license works well, for us. Its purpose was back up communication here in the local area. Our telecommunication network has gone down in earthquakes, mostly due to overloading. Based on where we live and work a single low powered GMRS repeater connects it all together. That made selling a GMRS radio to them easy. A simple HT that they can just turn on to monitor and talk with a simple PTT. Simple, easy, affordable. No need for them each to apply for a license. Call signs are simple. When needed you just call it out and from there just use your first names. And quite frankly, no one is going to jump down the throat of a user if my wife or kid doesn't ID every 15 minutes or the end of the convo like happens on HAM. This user friendly experience has morphed it into more than just a backup plan and it get used recreationally. Mostly for backcountry communication here. I am not saying GMRS is the greatest thing ever. It's just another radio service band that has an intended purpose. Same as HAM.

The RT97 tuned at 550 RX/TXing on 625 out to around 20 miles to using a dual-band GMRS/MURS roll up hastily thrown in a tree while my 625 repeater was down due to lack of solar.

I have used my RT97s on all of the GMRS freq pairs and while the testing was not extensive I found them to work on all pairs between 550-725. One RT97 says it is tuned for 625 while the other is 550. Or so it is written on the duplexers.

Your RT97 is more than capable of working on that tower.

I have two of these units. The both worked fine out of the box. First thing I would check is that you are not testing it by trying to talk between two radios in close proximity to each other. When you do this the radios overpower the repeater. If you attempted to test this way move the radios further apart and try it again. With that out of the way you have a few other things being talked about. Make sure your antenna on the RT97 is at least close to being tuned for GMRS. If it was marketed as such when bought it should be good enough to work. Further tuning would just tweak the performance a bit better. The next would be coax leading to the antenna. The RT97 is a low power machine, 5-10 watts. You can lose that real fast with low quality coax. LMR400 would be a much better upgrade to RG58. You, in theory, may run into noise issues with LMR400. Long story short and vastly over simplified, as a radio tranmitts it puts power into the coax, the dissimilar materials in the LMR400s shielding can cause "sparks and arcs". Those "sparks and arcs" make RF noise. Those normally don't cause issues on a regular radio because it is not receiving at the same time. A repeater is receiving at the same time it is transmitting and those noise gets repeated. If you want to run coax look for something like RG393. It's all silver plated and doesn't suffer this issue. If you want to do it "right" get hardline. I run RG400 on my RT97s as I only run about 6 feet to the Antenna from the RT97. RG400 is thinner RG393. But this is all theory and I have heard people use LMR400 without issue. The UHF connector, while not ideal in theory, made zero functional difference when I swapped it out to a type N. Granted the biggest advantage the type N affords me is it's weather resistance which is better. Your RT97 is weather resistant and uses very little power. You can leverage this by mounting the RT97 to the tower and powering it by solar. This keeps your coax run short and keeps that RT97 running for "free" and off grid if the power fails. I don't know where you are and how much you time want to spend transmitting but a simple 30 watt panel, small solar controller and 12 volt battery can be plenty.

My node seems to have stopped working. I can still connect to the network and transmit to the network through the node but the node does not seem to be sending audio back to my radio. I noted the yellow "HB" led is no longer illuminating. Any thoughts or ideas? I did reach out to N3XCC for his input. Here is a link to the video of the RIM-Maxtrax board. https://drive.google.com/file/d/114iSiAqRuKGnFIBIf-R0Zz4nZt-Acb7e/view?usp=sharing EDIT: I see the RIM will disable PTT when a 'heartbeat'/'pulse' is missing from the computer. It makes sense to me that the yellow LED on the RIM labeled "HB" is Heart Beat. Now I need to figure out why that has gone missing. When I look back at the Raspberry Pii itself I can see it is getting power as the red LED is stable. The green activity led weakly flashes about once every second. 2nd EDIT: After spending hours today I went to clean the USB port with some alcohol and noted the heartbeat returned. It went away a few minutes later. I thought it was the USB connection but that tested good. I found that heart beat returns if alcohol is applied to the chip in the center of the board. It appears to be a hardware issue at this point.

Here are a few common ones I use to get into some of the "menus" sudo nano /etc/asterisk/simpleusb.conf sudo simpleusb-tune-menu sudo nano /etc/asterisk/rpt.conf sudo shutdown -r now

I have a few of the basic commands I saved I can send you when I get home. As far as not connecting when shown on the map give it 10 minutes or so after you have the node powered on and "connected". The myGMRS Network takes some time to see your node and allow it to connect to with other nodes/hubs. It has something to do with a refresh rate or similar.

I have found that this forum is great for GMRS and radio related questions but Solar questions are answered in more depth on a solar forum. I like https://forum.solar-electric.com/. Quite frankly for just a little bit of power to keep small electronics running a 50-100 watt panel, a charge controller and a 35 amp hour battery will go a very long way. a If you are only trying to keep your HT, a cell phone, etc charged up you should shrink that down to even smaller and still work out. A pair of 9 amp hour batteries in a plastic ammo box from Wal-Mart, a $20 dollar charge controller and 30 watt panel from Amazon will suffice. Just an Example, https://www.batteriesplus.com/productdetails/battery/sla-sealed-lead-acid/sla12=9f2 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q79TC2L?ref=nb_sb_ss_w_as-ypp-ro-model_ypp_ro_model_k2_1_19&amp&crid=30KEJC3OJBOHW&amp&sprefix=solar+controller+hu https://www.amazon.com/Newpowa-Watts-Solar-Module-Marine/dp/B00W81BZTO/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1OGUTO3Y8MBT8&keywords=30%2Bwatt%2Bsolar%2Bpanel&qid=1647879813&sprefix=30%2Bwatt%2B%2Caps%2C215&sr=8-3&th=1 Man and I see the prices are starting to climb on most of this stuff. A few years ago the panel was around 35 bucks and is now 45. The batteries were also about 30 bucks and are now around $45. Anyway, this is just a quick example. That PWM controller does work fairly well but for long term a operation where you can't get to it to reset it a different one might be better. I have had two of them "fail" in the dead of winter (Think below -15 degrees F) now and need to be reset but powering them down.

RT97S

If you get the one they sell here you can add in the Raspberry Pii myGMRS noise which appears to have the function of adding voice or Morse ID. I have thought about using a "remote base" radio to ID to my RT97 every 15 minutes when in use but I just have not bothered with it.

I don't know how it works in Canada but my basic understand of US law goes along the lines of "If it isn't expressly forbidden, it is allowed".

Picked up a 20 foot length "cheap" KMR-400. LMR400 knockoff. Had decent reviews. Hooked it up to the comet and the RT97. Set the RT97 to low power and took a drive while connected into the myGMRS mountain hub. Used a 1 watt HT to talk back. Talked with a Justin from TX who reported it sounded good. It was by no means a great test but it was working much much better vs the other night. I might use this Comet installed in the attic of my house where it is protected.

Any one still have a copy of the instruction sheet that comes with the Linking Bundle Kit. RIM-MaxTrac.

You can't really get any more simple than a 4 or 16 channel part 90 radio. Something like a Motorola CP200 or Vertex VX-231/261. "Mom, turn the radio on, select channel X, press PTT, Talk, Release"

Thanks for the suggestion. I decided to go with a Liard FG4603. Still want to figure out what the deal with th Comet is.

Welp. I threw it out real quick. Attached it to the corner of my wood deck rail on the end of 10 feet of RG58. Tried it on a spare RT97, didn't work well. Hooked it to a Motorola CM300 set at 5 watts still not working worth a damn. Very low reception and transmission signals. A N9TAX slim Jim in the same spot works well with 16 foot of RG58. I dunno. Guess I need to try one of those meters that tests the antenna with power running through it? Do you have any recommendations for a similar sized antenna? Trying to keep it around 3 foot in length.