gortex2

That's exactly the issue. I have one site that I pay for power at as well as tower space. No one mails me a check to say here ya go. Many folks dont understand the monthly cost for a good repeater location. That's why I closed mine after some time. If you want to help fund it I'm all for others using it but its my hard earned cash I use to build, maintain it.

Yup been having issues since last Friday. When you get to payment section it does not allow you to pick and FRN and pay. Been trying to fix a fellow hams license. I log in daily to do payments.

Sorry posted another thread. Forgot this one was there. The Midland and TR97 is 10 watts. Although I dont have one to open and look at it appears the same unit. Most likely the same unit. Software looks very similar to the RT97 software.

As I'm sure it will be asked the bundle does not list specification other than 10db antenna (7') and 50' of cable (Appears to be a LMR variant). I'm not convinced the antenna is actually 10db but who knows in all reality. A laird 7db gain antenna is 9' tall and runs around $200 so I think the bundle is probably a good deal. I'm sure all will say buy the RT97 and while I agree its the same box Midland will sells tons of the "bundles" cause 90% of the folks using GMRS want simple. Sadly I see tons of repeaters out there on CH1....

Just hit the site with a cost of $459 or Bundled for $659 for Repeater, Cable and Antenna https://midlandusa.com/collections/mxr10-midland-repeater/products/mxr10vp-midland-repeater-bundle

The main issue with HHCH in the hobby world is price. People complain about the cost of Midland over and over. A LMR radio cost 10 times that cost. Granted used stuff is out there. The second issue is what the mic lets you do. the CCR/Ham world think every option on the radio should be controlled by the mic/head unit. For years as a ham I never had a "true" ham radio and used alot of LMR gear which required me to program stuff ahead of time. Rarely did I run into an issue where it didn't work. Since then as said I have the FTM400 in my jeep. I programmed the SD card 3 years ago and have not touched programming since. I guess if your all worried about 2000 repeaters and changing PL etc on the fly its an issue. For me last summer I took a 6000 mile trip around the US for vacation. My APX8500, FTM400 and a CM760 CB were all I had mounted in the truck. CB sat on 19 for most of the trip, FTM on 146.520 as well as APRS and APX scanning GMRS. Not once could I not talk to who i needed to. Guess there is always an exception but I never ran into it.

Roger Beeps are for CB and some ham radio. I'd tell you the same. No need for it in GMRS. This was just discussed 6 months ago.

Correct. Or they all license GMRS. Its pretty simple.

To be honest AES, ADP/RC4 and DES is available in most of the 3 large LMR worlds. I know Harris, MSI, Kenwood,EFJ all support AES encryption. All my radios support all forms of encryption but the most used is AES across all my systems. ADP is used alot in small agencies as it was free in alot of MSI subscribers for a long time. DES was used by military and picked up by some departments long ago. DES is slippin away in favor of AES. Thats the standard I would imagine. I know all our grants state AES on them along with P25.

They can but they need to license a business channel. Otehrwise everyone needs a license. No way around it.

I use the kit. #m tape around cable and connectors, then Buytel Tape then 3M on the outside of this. I try to use 2" on final wrap but have used 3/4 3m when i ran out of 2"

Even if they have 2 antenna's they can desense each other. I had 2 GR1225 at the site I have SAR stuff at. Both were on UHF antenna with a flatpack style duplexer (Sinclair) and I still have almost 20db desnese when RPT 1 would key up testing RTP2 desense test. The antenna's were almost 10' apart. This is when I changed out to a receive multicoupler and TX combiner (and Quantars) using the same 2 antenna's. I can't imagine the RT97 is better than that.

You can put 2 repeaters at a site with proper combining and filtering. Its done every day in the LMR/Public Safety world. We have 3 UHF SAR repeaters at one tower site. Receive goes thru a Receive Multi coupler and TX thru a Transmit Combiner. None of it was cheap. I know another person on this forum has 2 or 3 at his site on GMRS with combiners. Theoretically you could use 2 RT97 and 2 Antenna's on top and bottom frequencies but I suspect some desence would happen just with RF that close. Guess it depends on how much separation on antenna's you could do.

This is why repeaters are linked via ethernet. Normally a UHF repeater would use a "link" frequency in another band to link them together via RF. In Ham radio its pretty simple and used a lot (more for VHF repeaters with UHF links) but with GMRS we have basically 8 channels. Using RF to link will most likely interfere with each other. To make it work well you would need a lot of filtering. And with the narrow scope of frequencies its really not possible. If you need to link them you need to do via another means than RF. When I was in NY I had a "poor mans" voter system. 2 Repeaters could be heard in most locations but portables had trouble getting back to both. Solution was same repeater frequency with different RX PL at each site and same on TX. Basically RPT 1 was on PL B Receive and PL A Transmit. Repeater 2 was on PL C Receive and PL A Transmit. Hand Held had RPT 1 and RPT 2 with those settings. When units on RPT 1 would talk folks with RPT 2 would normally here them and could answer on RPT 2. Its not perfect but works well for portable use. We did multiple public safety systems like this in the past also. Its common in the VHF repeater world in rural America.

Guessing same issue as this post...

They have not been sold to public yet. The folks with one were shipped it to test and trial ahead of time.

Close by he could as he explains. More RF less desense. Thats normal. But now get in fringe area and no workie. With no test equipment its hard to say. I have tested repeaters for desense and seen 0 to 40 db desense. All depends on frequencies, duplexers, tuning and equipment. @WRMN374 If your antenna and repeater are both inside your not going to talk much further than you will on a single radio. What is your expectation that you want to accomplish ? You need to determine what you want to accomplish then design it to cover that. Take all the repeater stuff apart and use simplex to an antenna to your friends. Until you can reach them with a single antenna and single radio a repeater isn't going to work. I would venture to guess a mile is a good shot from inside the house with a handheld in the field. There are tons of threads on this site to search for information.

I disagree. First point is if I spend all the money to put up a repeater that covers 100 square miles I can limit who is using it. Nothing is free. I removed my repeaters from the site for this reason. They are closed and I spend alot of money to keep them up and running. A repeater that has coverage like that isnt' cheap. As @Lscott pointed out people can use different PL/DPL tones on same frequencies alot of times and not bother each other. Every where is different also. In my dirt I have 2 repeaters on the air. Its almost 100+ miles to the next closest one and it covers all of about 10 miles around it. In another state where I have 3 we are the only repeaters in a 100 sm. So usage may vary.

Our UHF radios are 4 watts. Our SAR TAC channels are 2 watts (per license) so same as MURS and still performs better. YMMV

FCC never banned them and they are still used today. Motorola has the DVRS and other manufacturers use Pyramid or Vertex vehicle repeaters. In my truck as soon as I remove the APX from one of my charger the repeater turns on and I am able to use the HT. What most likely happened in your case was when narrow banding happened many did not want to pay the money to replace piece for piece. I installed many radios in ambulances and fire trucks that were basically junk because no one wanted to spend money on the proper stuff. Many complained that the issue with narrowband when in reality 75% were equipment differences. For instance we had one EMS agency that had 110 watt VHF syntors with the PacRT in the them. Owner had us install 25 watt VHF radios and they bought the bottom of the barrel VHF portables. For years they complained about coverage until they went on the TLMR system. That was only one of 100 customers I dealt with that had those issues.

No they cannot. Farmer A can talk to his radio and when that conversation is done Farmer B can talk to his units. Regardless of PL/DPL used. Thats how community repeaters in the LMR world used to work. We would use BCL so they could not talk over each other. The only way 2 farmers can use same repeater is by going to a DMR business system and all DMR gear.

VHF will work very well in the woods. That's why SAR teams all across the US have standardized on a VHF frequency. We carry both VHF and UHF public Safety adios on missions. UHF is normally on the TLMR system but once in a while we will use simplex on UHF also. Never can talk as far as VHF but we have both options.

A 10' cable means the antenna is 10' from a CCR radio. Most likely that tx power is desencing the RX radio already before you even worry about a signal coming from a weak location. Depending on how the duplexer is tuned it may be even worse. I guess if the radio are in a steel box to eliminate any local decense maybe a TX antenna 10' away would be fine but I'm guessing thats most of the issue. I guess a test the OP could do is key up and test on the TX radio and make sure the RX radio see's no activity or ground level come up on the meter. I suspect he will see RF on it at that distance.

Done all the time. Most good commercial ham radio offer cross band mode. Mine is always on the 2M repeater and a UHF simlplex channel on Low Power. Use it alot that way in the parks while camping.