WRFP399

Comet GP6NC is listed for GMRS & MURS, but out of curiosity I swept it last night and it is pretty decent on the 2m ham band. On 70cm ham, its over 2.1 across the board. 3 of 4 isn't too bad. Below is the 2m sweep from 120MHz to 160MHz. 

I think first you need to register. When I did I just used my call sign as my username.

For what it is worth. I settled on this one and have had great reports from people that have heard me using it. I tried the N9TAX and had a higher than wanted SWR so am now using that one for my scanner. It works great as a scanner antenna! However using it as a base, people had problems hearing me. The one in the link solved that problem.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/134261005629?ViewItem=&item=134261005629
 
 I am very pleased however it only covers MURS and GMRS. That said, it covers it perfectly with a flat SWR on both for the most part. The MURS band does get up to a around 1.4 - 1.6 on the Blue DOT and Green Dot frequencies. However on all GMRS and the lower MURS frequencies the SWR is 1.0. It will not transmit on the 2 meter. I mean you can but the SWR is way up over 2.5 and higher. I have mine mounted up 35 feet in a not so friendly area, (Hilly and in woods), and located in Shipshewana about 20 miles from the Elkhart repeater. Using this antenna have no problem in spite of the terrain. This antenna is said to have 3.0 gain on VHF, 5.5 gain on GMRS.

I already had a roof mounted Comet CX-333 tri-bander from Ham usage that seems to work fine with GMRS and MURS (as little that I use MURS at home).
Its not 17 feet but its over 5 feet (the one on the left).

I tried this exact thing...I even added a small duplexer...none of it worked well. I too like to tinker and learn but what I learned was the handhelds desence too much and I went with an RT97 which was far superior.
 
They are low powered, weather resistant and with height I have used it out to 31.2 miles.
 

I tried this exact thing...I even added a small duplexer...none of it worked well. I too like to tinker and learn but what I learned was the handhelds desence too much and I went with an RT97 which was far superior.
 
They are low powered, weather resistant and with height I have used it out to 31.2 miles.
 

If you really needed the RT97 to ID you can get the RT97S which can be connected to a Raspberry Pi and the ID can be done through that.
 
If you don't want to do that or can't do that at the repeater location just use another radio to send the ID over the input frequency from a remote location. Done.
 
But in all honesty the GMRS repeaters I have run across don't ID...as do the cast majority of simplex GMRS users (Bubble Pack Users)
 
 

Getting permission is a matter of contacting whoever watches over that land.
 
I use the Retevis RT97 for this purpose. It and a solar controller are strapped to the back of a solar panel. I have a small amount of coax going from the RT97 to the Antenna which is mounted just above it. The battery is a sealed lead acid battery that is at the base of the tree everything is mounted on.  I get 25-30 miles of range on this set-up...but it is definitely not a commercial grade set-up. Given the same location if it was viable to put a "real" repeater up there it would blow the doors off the RT97. It has taken me about 2 years of trial and error to get this setup to work...winter is my worst problem (Alaska).

Getting permission is a matter of contacting whoever watches over that land.
 
I use the Retevis RT97 for this purpose. It and a solar controller are strapped to the back of a solar panel. I have a small amount of coax going from the RT97 to the Antenna which is mounted just above it. The battery is a sealed lead acid battery that is at the base of the tree everything is mounted on.  I get 25-30 miles of range on this set-up...but it is definitely not a commercial grade set-up. Given the same location if it was viable to put a "real" repeater up there it would blow the doors off the RT97. It has taken me about 2 years of trial and error to get this setup to work...winter is my worst problem (Alaska).

Getting permission is a matter of contacting whoever watches over that land.
 
I use the Retevis RT97 for this purpose. It and a solar controller are strapped to the back of a solar panel. I have a small amount of coax going from the RT97 to the Antenna which is mounted just above it. The battery is a sealed lead acid battery that is at the base of the tree everything is mounted on.  I get 25-30 miles of range on this set-up...but it is definitely not a commercial grade set-up. Given the same location if it was viable to put a "real" repeater up there it would blow the doors off the RT97. It has taken me about 2 years of trial and error to get this setup to work...winter is my worst problem (Alaska).

I found zero difference  between a 1/4 wave and a 5/8 over 5/8 collinear antenna where I am when talking to a repeater. We have mountains as well as wide open flat area. I go with a 1/4 wave because there is no reason to have a larger antenna if it doesn't do anything better.

I am going to throw some knockoff LMR400 (KMR400) I have laying around on my RT97. This will be an outdoors installation. Just to see what happens.  There are all these posts saying not to use it for theoretical reasons but I have yet to find a post where one did use it and came back with real world results. I have been using RG400...and that has been fine but I wanna try the LMR for the heck of it.

It depends on your climate and how much use it will see. 

The RT97 draws about 2 amps on high power and .09 amps when in stand-by.

I am running an RT97 on solar power here in Alaska. During the summer when we have lots of sun a 9 amp hour battery and 30 watt panel do just fine. Everytime I checked on it the battery was at 100% capacity. During the winter we have a few issues that make it more difficult. During winter solstice there is only around 4 hours of sunlight.  We also have cold weather to deal with. Drop a lead acid battery to around 0 degrees F and you are down to around 80% of its capacity. Last winter I had it running on a 30 watt panel and a 14 amp hour battery. It wasn't enough. By November the battery was already being run down to the cut off voltage of 11.2 volts. 75% of last November the repeater was down. We didn't have enough snow to prevent me from getting to the site so I was able to get to it and swap it battery out for a 9 amp hour one I had. Yes it is smaller but I wanted to save the larger, more expensive, battery from damage. It lasted for about a week before going down again. I would come back up after a week or two for a few days and then go down again. From there it only got worse. The solar controller shut down the repeater for the majority of winter. Low voltage and cold temperatures resulted in a frozen battery sometime between December and February. Once frozen the voltage dropped to near zero and the solar controller shut down completely. My repeater site is inaccessible once winter sets in due to snow level and steep grades.

This spring I changed a few things. Keep in mind all my components need to be hiked up to about 2400 feet by hand. The components had to fit in or attach to a backpack or two.

POWER GENERATION:
This spring I added a 50 watt panel. This brought up the solar power to 80 watts total. The 80 watts of panels should generate enough solar energy on a 4 hour cloudy day to replace the 2.2-ish amps that the RT97 uses while in stand-by for 24 hours. I based this on monitoring the output of the panels on an overcast day this summer. I waited until the sun's elevation (as informed by a smartphone app) matched that it in the winter and saw the battery being charged at a rate of about 800 milliamps.  4 hours at 800 is 3.2 amps.  That is 1 extra amp...in theory. 
POWER STORAGE:
I upgraded to a 35 amp hour battery and put it underground by over a foot. Just being a foot underground shields the battery from the extreme highs and lows. At that depth theory says it should be at the avg daily temperature. If this setup works through the winter I am relocating the repeater to an even more remote location and will try to get the battery further down. Being underground also has the benefit of keeping the battery cool in the summer, which in theory, should prolong it's life. This 35 amp hour battery chould, in theory, keep the repeater running in stand-by mode for about 13 days or it could support about 14 hours of non-stop transmission in the winter with ZERO solar input. This factors in a 20% reduction in capacity due to cold temperatures.

With these two upgrades the battery should really never be run low unless we have significant activity on the repeater without any days of decent solar generation. The larger battery helps store "extra" power from the sunny days and/or the additional hours of overcast days before/after winter solstice. This keeps the battery at a higher level of charge. Being kept at high charger levels and buried underground protect it through the colds snaps. 

Since I implemented the changes the repeater has been running 24/7. The past several weeks have been COLD here. The avg daily temperature as been between -5 and 5 degrees fahrenheit. Lows have been down below -20 degrees. For the past two weeks I have connected into the myGMRS national net for about 4 hours on Sundays. This has resulted in about 3 to 4 hours worth of transmission time each Sunday on the repeater as people talk across the nation. So far the battery appears to be doing fine as the repeater has not gone down. Hours of sunlight will continue to decrease through December at which point it will start picking up again. The skies will also start to be clear of clouds more often as we push past mid winter. 

So for me, it looks like 80 watts of solar power and a 35 amp hour battery are needed but again that is due to cold winter conditions with low sun levels. I don't know where you are but if you are in the lower 48 I would say the system could be more like my first attempt, 30 watts solar and a 9 amp hour battery and I would bet a 50 watt solar and 14 amp hour battery would give some extra head room.

I have a few other posts up detailing my experiences with the RT97. If you register you can browse them.

Solar Panel:  
https://www.amazon.com/Renogy-Monocrystalline-Efficiency-Charging-Applications/dp/B07GTH79JP/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2OBPM6JH5RIF2&keywords=50%2Bwatt%2Bsolar%2Bpanel%2Brenogy&qid=1637621917&sprefix=50%2Bwatts%2Bsolar%2Bpanel%2Breno%2Caps%2C318&sr=8-4&th=1

Solar Controller:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q79TC2L?ref=nb_sb_ss_w_as-ypp-ro-model_ypp_ro_model_k0_1_10&crid=LSOHLRTW8QW2&sprefix=10+amp+sol
 
Battery:
https://www.batteriesplus.com/productdetails/slaa12=35c


Battery-S-12330.pdf

Eh, I had/have an RT97 that I use with a roll up J-Pole from N9TAX. Ideal? No, but it does work well with height.

Eh, I had/have an RT97 that I use with a roll up J-Pole from N9TAX. Ideal? No, but it does work well with height.

Well....so here is where I got with this. Size and Weight constraints left me with a 60 watt, 24 volt panel. The system has been running for 4 months so far. The months of July and August have been basically nothing but rain and overcast. Today we had a sunny morning and a rainy afternoon. I hiked up and took some reading on the solar controller. Even with all the clouds it was still making more power than the RT97 was using. 
 
I will try and get backup there just prior to the first snow and see how the readings are.
 

Well....so here is where I got with this. Size and Weight constraints left me with a 60 watt, 24 volt panel. The system has been running for 4 months so far. The months of July and August have been basically nothing but rain and overcast. Today we had a sunny morning and a rainy afternoon. I hiked up and took some reading on the solar controller. Even with all the clouds it was still making more power than the RT97 was using. 
 
I will try and get backup there just prior to the first snow and see how the readings are.
 

If it is worth anything I try to connect into the national net on Sundays from around 4PM to 9PM Alaska Time. If you drive into the coverage of the ER repeater you could participate.

It doesnt matter, and only the hall-monitors care - as you can see very clearly in this and other online forums..

Same tones as it was. I went up and "replaced" it in late May. I used a higher voltage panel and a better MPPT charge controller. The controller is rated for colder temperatures and I was able to program it to cut off the load at 12.0 volts instead of 11.2.  It is also running a Laird 5/8 over 5/8 collinear antenna vs the roll up J-Pole. I saw no improvement in reception or transmission with the Laird but I have not done any extensive testing.
 
When I removed the battery and power line from the "old" repeater a month or two later, when the ground was thawed. I found that the battery was at 12 volts still. I examined the power line and found it was broken internally. Corroded and failed.  It is very likely the system failed in December due to that and not due to a frozen battery. Winter will be here in a few months and we shall see what happens this time.
 
Feel free to use the repeater. It has seen very light use this summer.

I have not programmed the 5400s but I have programmed the EVX-531 and 534. They appear to use the same software.

If you want wideband software I would highly recommend that you download the international version. That is what I did.  That software allows both wide and narrow without any funky date setting. If the radio was programmed in the US already it might be "locked" to narrow band. I have found two ways to get around this. First is the wide band recovery tool from vertex.  The second is to just upload a factory profile that comes with the CPS International Software.  Open up one of default code plugs for that radio, turn it on, hook it up and write to it. Don't read the radio first.
 
I have also found the factory cable works 10 times better and allows you to upload current firmware where as the clone cables do not.  I did this all on a Windows 10 and Windows 11 machine.

3rd.  I know I have posted this around before...but this is my "throw down" repeater.  It was originally a "proof of concept" for my solar repeater, so it's not the prettiest of construction. 
 
Hike this up a mountain in a backpack..."throw it down"...walk away. Coverage for 15,20, 30 miles depending on height.

Sounds like a solar recharged RT97 w/ a simple N9TAX rollup antenna might work for you. Simple, small, portable, and little to no environment impact.

If you want a complete setup that can be carried in a large backpack:

A 30 watt solar panel can fit in a large backpack. A 30 watt panel and a 14 amp hour SLA battery seems to work well here in Alaska during the Spring/Summer/Fall Season but can't keep up during the cold winters with little sun. If you are not in an area that suffered from greatly reduced solar in the winter it would be a solid place to start.

Use some alum angle riveted to the back to mount the RT97 and a small solar controller directly to the back of the panel. You can attach the panel directly to a tree, place the SLA battery at the base, and hang the N9TAX in the tree itself.   I have posts in this forum about my setup and it might stir some ideas for you.

Is this some 100% Duty Cycle Commercial Grade Setup? Nope. But I get 20-30 miles out of mine to 5 watt handhelds and it works for us.
 

 

RT97 “Duty Cycle”
 
I had a replacement RT97 come in today as a replacement for one that failed. The prior failed as it would not longer talk to a computer for programming. The TX/RX worked fine. I decided to test this new units “duty cycle” and heat displacement abilities.
 
The first thing I did was open it up and see what it has internally to bridge the transmitter to the aluminum outer housing. The bottom of the RX/TX unit has large fins cast into its aluminum body. It appears to be bedded in thermal paste to make a conductive path the aluminum outer housing.
 
I took a food thermometer and put it into the thermal paste. The unit was at 70 degrees.
 
The “Test”:
 
Stage One: I had it transmitting on high power. The transmission was broken up into three 1 minute sections with 10 seconds between each followed by a whole 2 minutes of TX. The transmitter rose from 70 degrees to 82 degrees. Hardly warm to the touch. (12 degree rise for 5 min Total TX w/ 40 seconds rest)  
Stage Two: I gave it about 2 minutes of rest and hit it with two more sessions of 2 minutes transmissions, separated by 20 seconds. It had fallen to just below 80 prior to and rose to 89 after.(9 degree rise for 4 min Total TX, w/ 2 min 20 seconds rest)  
Stage Three: I finally let it sit for 1 minute and did five more sessions of 2 minutes transmissions, separated by 20 seconds. The temp started at 88 and rose to 102 (14 degree rise for 10 Min Total TX w/ 2 min 20 seconds rest)  
End total of 19 min of TX w/ 3 min 20 seconds of rest. The temp rose from 70 degrees to 102 degrees.
 
What I find interesting is that after the radio “warmed up” it took significantly more time to heat up further. I expected the 10 min spent TX'ing in Stage 3 to raise it more than it did. At the end after only about 60 seconds of rest it already had dropped to 94 degrees from a high of 102. I did not repeat this test on low power but I can only assume it would take longer to heat up.
 
Being as my use with these repeaters are outdoors here in Alaska it doesn’t appear that heat will be an issue for me. During the winter our avg daily temp is around 20 degrees and we only get to an avg daily temp of 60-65 in the summer. This leaves a lot of head room. The cooler ambient temperatures should further increase the rate of heat dissipation as my home was 70 degrees to start with. Anyone see any flaws with my logic?

3rd.  I know I have posted this around before...but this is my "throw down" repeater.  It was originally a "proof of concept" for my solar repeater, so it's not the prettiest of construction. 
 
Hike this up a mountain in a backpack..."throw it down"...walk away. Coverage for 15,20, 30 miles depending on height.