Cracked

I've had 3 different repeaters over the last two years:
DIY 2 KG-1000Gs Retevis RT97 Vertex VXR-7000 All using the same ~$120 Tram 1486 base antenna and 75 feet of LMR400 coax
The two KG-1000Gs was the most expensive (~$875) and had the most power - but it was also the most unwieldy and issue-prone The RT97 was a much more compact package, and was the least expensive (~$400), but only output about 4-5watts after the duplexer and has a limited duty-cycle The  Vertex VXR-7000 (what I currently use) is by far the best solution. I paid $500 for mine (used), it puts out ~25 watts after the duplexer and it can be used 24/7 (100% duty cycle) - But because of its age its a bit of a pain to program/get set up.   My recommendation, based on my experience, would be to try and get a good used commercial repeater (like the VXR-7000) OR an RT97.   Next month another company will be releasing a new GMRS repeater very similar to the RT97 but easier to configure -  but i'm not allowed to talk about that yet.. So you might want to wait and see if that one works better for your needs.

for the cost i bought both a BB4503 and a BB4505cr. i keep the 4505 on the truck. i cut the whole though on the roof.  CB is behind it. 
 

Sounds fairly straight forward as long as the radio isn’t bricked.

The Puck antenna is ok for repeaters and LMR systems. It is about useless for any simplex operations. If you have and use a good repeater system they can e ok but thats about it. A good quality 1/4 wave will be fine in car washes and other places.

I have no complaints. No it not tunable but typical BW is 20Mc and perform like a unity whip IMO. If you're going to put them on a roof make sure it fits between the "ribs" first. have had a few problems in the PS arena where they wanted those and they don't fit b/c of the roof design.
JE

Based on what has been written here I’ve done a lot of research and understand the calculations required for dB. Thank you for all that. Here is a website that does an excellent job of describing when high gain antennas are needed and when they are not. I have seen similar information in the sailing world.
https://www.daywireless.com/blog/2019/03/30/to-gain-or-not-to-gainthat-is-the-antenna-question/

Not that difficult the help files are in alphabetical order so as you use the software (or browse around in it)  you can open the help file and see what the abbreviations really mean, that is a big help. Not everything is logical to me for example using wide band versus narrow band does some weird things on my radio. An example is using GMRS 6 and experimenting with the two bands the narrow band works fine but if I change it to wide band then GMRS 6 goes into squelch mode and stays there (very annoying). I am most likely missing something or the Kenwood 8180 only works in NF except on repeater channels. It is a good quality radio and it does work!! Enjoy it but as stated in other posts get the Kenwood software on eBay as Chirp does not have all of the radio functions available. Hope this helps Mike

Good to hear. I am getting ready to purchase one of these used.
 
How easy was the programming?