gortex2

Being you dont list a location its hard to recommend a local shop.

ICOM, Yasue and Kenwood all make quality amateur gear. I have a Kenwood TM D700 that has been beat to hell. In my new JT I picked up the FTM-400 and its also a nice clean mobile. I know a few who use them as a base now and really enjoy it. I'd look at one of the name brands before I'd spend money on a CCR. Many are not much more than those. My FTM was picked up at HRO on sale for $499 during a xmas sale.

I have had the pleasure in the past to work with the FCC. Mostly public safety related but did have one come check my GMRS repeater site. More out of curiosity of his. As said funds today are hard. Whats harder is the same as every field. Finding folks who want to do the job. They are still out there but the chance of a guy knocking on your door to check your radio is slim to none.

Rich good job on the website changes. Appreciate all you do for the community.

Definately a Cell Phone antenna. Converted many in the past to VHF and UHF. There were 2 models. One had a 6/32 thread on the whip/stud and the other was 1/4-20. It would allow a standard ASP stud to screw on and then an ASP whip. By the time you replace the TNC and find the whip and stud its probably cheaper to buy a new NMO Mag mount.

Just got home from a 2000 mile vacation. Lots of interstate and back roads (Despise interstates). Had my APX on the "original" GMRS list. Dead silence. Did have my HT scanning 1-7 and heard alot of chatter on and off on CH1 depending on location. Most of it sounded to be family traveling. Down in some of the "historical" areas we stopped alot of chatter on 1-4. As reference my CB was pretty busy on 95 thru SC as it was dead stop for an hour at one point. Even out on the beach rides CB still had chatter.

I wouldn't put a Rt97 on that much cable. Thats close to 2 DB of cable loss. On a Low Power repeater about half of your power will be gone on 75' of LMR. I wouldn't run much more than 25' of cable for a RT97. YMMV but the shorter the cable the better for low power.

What do you think is strange ? Some have DCS and not CTCSS. Without looking up the repeaters its not uncommon.

Not all repeaters are linked and if they are doesnt mean they go all over. This isn't HAM radio although many try to make it that way. There are all sort of reasons why a repeater may or may not be linked.

To find out what it really is you can pick up a cheap SDR receiver and try to decode some of it. If its encrypted you wont be able to hear audio but the data should say if its DRM or what. On the DMR topic the other issue is the CCR market. I had a guy hand me his radio when he couldn't talk to others on the jeep ride. It was a Baofeng DMR radio. After a few minutes realized he had all his channels set for digital. Many folks dont know how to program a radio so thats adding to the issue. I told him to throw out the radios and handed him a new set of motorola talkabouts. Worked great all weekend.

Id grab the Laird GF4500 antenna and a 3' or so LMR style jumper. Heck 1/2" harline would be ideal. Think you;ll be happy with the FG4500. I run it on my Motorhome with the RT97 and it works great. I run about 12' of RG142.

So lets move this discussion to the ham forum.

The DB404 and 408 is a rock solid repeater antenna or home antenna. If this is a true repeater site that's the only antenna I'd use. I run the DB404 and 408 on all my repeaters except on my Motorhome. With the proper hardline to the antenna you will see a noticeable difference.

So first where is your antenna for the 275 ? I run the midland in both my JT and JK and have no issues. Do you have after market LED lights (headlights) by chance. on my JK ii bought ebay LED lights and it killed the 2 mtr band completely.

Norwich also has a 2 way radio shop. Ham store isn't going to be super use full for GMRS gear.

I never said I was confused by REV vs TA. My old Alinco had the REV button. I thought it was stupid. It came from Hams who thought that was a better way. Ive never subscribed to that mentality. Apparently many still do. To each there own. I run commercial gear on all my bands. I like quality. JMHO.

RG58 made by beldon is 6.5 db loss at 100' on UHF..... If you got cheap cable you could have 4-5db of loss just before the antenna. Thats over half your power.

Was there a cut chart with the antenna ? I am guessing the whip needs cut for the GMRS band.

Make sure the center pin of the antenna is really touching the center of the NMO mount. You can test from the whip to the center pin on the coax. to me it appears either a short or open.

Well if I want to go to simplex, I push TA on my mobile or portable (Actually labeled DIR in the APX series.) Being I only have one ham radio that I actually use (FTM400) it sits on APRS and 520 all the time. I dont think I have ever used it to talk on a repeater. The APX-8500 does much better for that.

As stated talk around is the repeater output. This is true in the LMR world and every public safety radio I have touched in 30 years of RF work. The idea is if your on the fringe of a repeater or the repeater goes off line you can still talk and users hear you. In SAR we use this all the time for training that way we are not typing up an entire county, or counties. If someone calls on the repeater we hear and can switch to repeat and talk. The whole reverse frequency thing is something from the HAM world and while I somewhat see the point it confuses folks pretty quick. IF i need to get off a HAM repeater onto simplex I just switch to simplex and call.

^^^^^^ What he said. My first repeater was on 462.675 in 1990 for REACT....

Personally I find a standard NMO quarter wave to the best of all worlds. Its small and can't be seen that well and performs very well in city and country areas. If I need gain I can swap the whip but 99% of the time the 1/4 wave is on the roof. Also dont need to pull it for a car wash.

100' of LMR 400 is not helping in UHF. At 450mhz its roughly 2.7db at 100'. That about takes half your power away (3db is half.) At 5 watts out of the transmitter (if the duplexer is tuned correct, you are at 2.5 watts before you hit the antenna. Add in any adapters you may have and your even less. If you have your watt meter I'd test power leaving the repeater and also if possible hitting the antenna. I would verify your duplexer is tuned for the channel you are testing and attempt to get the antenna way closer to the antenna if you want this to perform well. https://www.pasternack.com/images/ProductPDF/LMR-400.pdf

Being GMRS channels are outside the amatuer band and the FTM is not certified for use I'd just use a dedicated GMRS radio . I dont seem to have that issue on RX only in my JT but YMMV.