gortex2

Most of the amateur's bridge devises need to talk thru a server on the ham network. these can't be used on GMRS. If your interested in linking jsut go t othe site and order the box. Its mostly plug and play and does what youd want.

Im sure there are various radios but you will see a ton of ICOM LMR radios in Canada. When I did LMR work for a shop in NY we got asked to help ICOM program a ton of radios that were going North of the boarder. They sent us a codeplug and just told us to program and box. I think most were going to a logging company. I wish I had saved the code plug.

Check gorund wire

OK. Is there a repeater in range of that channel ? Your listing 2 sets of repeater frequencies. Unless there is an open repeater in your area they will never talk to each other on those channels.

Rich sells a kit to hook to a repeater. Do a search on here. https://shop.mygmrs.com/collections/repeaters-and-accessories/products/repeater-linking-bundle

As others said the radio doesn't work well with split tones. I still have them in both my jeeps. There are many repeaters that do not use split toners and other than one location I have not had an issue.

Licenses are based on TX Frequency mostly. If you have a repeater on 462.700 that's what you would search on. Sometimes location may be Nationwide if its licensed by a big box store.

Before we completely train wreck this thread maybe start one in technical and we can share some more.

If your going to use the crank up antenna I used the laird as I do now on my 5th wheel. I mounted it with the brackets that come in the kit but had to add an extension to get around the AM/FM antenna. I followed the same "entry" as the TV antenna but spent way too much time trying to fish it down the wall. In the end it looked nice, let me crank up antenna and was on air, but had to use RG58 and had about 30'. It also knocked out the TV apparently only when the wife was watching . I had it on the repeater first then ended up moving it to my midland radio as a "base" in the unit. When we got the MH I didn't want to deal with all of the wire stuff which is why i got the FG4500. Mounted on the motorhome with the cable run down the ladder along frame rail to the compartment made it simple and effective. Its about an 1" taller than my vent covers and most of the time have left it in place even while traveling. I did remove it originally thinking it would get hit but so far its been fine. In reality if it gets hit I already hit my vents and other stuff on the roof. But again its a 2 minute job to remove it. Inside the MH I have the Midland 275 on the dash hooked to a NMO mount in the center of the MH. I removed the factory AM/FM antenna and put a thick mount NMO with a 12" stainless disk under it. It works perfect. 99% of the time its just talking to the repeater anyway but when I'm traveling down the highway its nice. Depending on your camper your roof will be rubber coated or fiberglass. Neither will give you any ground plane so you will need to add it. Also its a sandwiched roof inside layer, foam, outside so trying to mount an antenna on it is challenging. You could just screw a piece of steel on over the rubber and use a mag mount but that leads to other issues. Getting a cheap base antenna is probably the best bet without alot of work. IF you have solar the other option may be to use a L style mount on the Solar mounts. I did this on my fathers MH but he only uses it to talk to me when we are traveling.

For your house the DB404 is an excellent antenna and will serve you for quite some time if installed and cabled correctly. Get decent RF cable. Try to stay away from LMR400. Depending on how long of a cable short runs of LDF can be found reasonable online. I'll be honest I'm not a fan of the home brew antenna's from Ebay regardless if it the Ed Fong or others. They are all good to get started i suppose, but i never had good luck with them. Some swear by them. For me for the $20 difference in price there are decent commercial antennas out there even on ebay. As said earlier for cable go with the RG213 version and not LMR for mobile use. The GR1225 is high and low power. Without the proper equipment and tuning your not going to get it below 10 watts. Your going to have loss in the duplexer anyway so just use low power and be happy. They are good repeaters for what you want to do. If it has the battery revert module installed you can run a new power cable directly to your house DC system and it will switch from AC to DC all by itself.

Not sure on "open" repeater. If you have discussed details with said repeater owner program TX/RX frequencies and PL into your radio and they will work. You need to contact the repeater owner for details.

This is why many of us with good repeaters tend to no longer list them online.

So i have mine with 2 channels programmed. One on high power (25 watts) and one on low power (10 watts). When I have a 50 amp hookup its on CH1 HP when im dry camping its on CH 2 LP.

There are some online programs to show you range. As said above height and antenna gain is everything. You can put 50 watts out on your garage roof and not talk as far as 5 watts on a 2500' mountain top.

So for the 5th wheel I would use a standard base style antenna. I run the Laird omni. Its only 20" tall and I use the provided brackets on my ladder on the back of the MH when i get on site. I have also used it on my fiberglass flagpole but found I didn't gain much range even going up 15'. Its the FG4500 below is one place that stocks them. https://www.theantennafarm.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1096&products_id=1057 I have a 25' piece of RG213 that is N Male on both ends. I connect it to the antenna and drop it down behind the ladder. I run it to my compartment that has a GR1225 currently. It works really good at campgrounds and the NASCAR tracks I frequent. I used it at JJ2020 but other than me on it I never heard another jeeper. https://www.theantennafarm.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=342_343_1438_1411&products_id=6843 I really want to swap out to the RT97 mainly because I dry camp at the NASCAR tracks and the GR is a power hog. I pull the fan power when I am not on AC but still at 10 watts it uses more power than I want. My hope is to swap to the RT97 also so I can jsut wire it to a switch and power on, vs swapping from power supply to battery every time I use it. You could probably use the same antenna with a 3' jumper if you can carry it to a high place and strap the antenna to something to keep it up. An old camera tripod may be perfect for that combo. Not sure how much battery you would need. Remember the more you talk the more battery needed.

I don't know of a part 90 dual band DMR radio other than maybe a high end Kenwood (can't recall the model). Its in the thousands of dollar range. Sorry although they may print stickers for the CCR stuff I don't classify any as real part 90 radios... JMHO. Good luck on your journey.

There is a nice GR1225 ready to go for $300 on this forum from a member...Id spend that before buy 2 baofengs, a vox repeater controller and a amplifier... https://forums.mygmrs.com/topic/2372-motorola-gr1225-for-sale/

What you are trying to do will not work. Repeaters are only on GMRS. Purchase a GMRS capable radio and you can install your own small repeater. It will not be cheap endeavor to do it correct. Plan to spend a few hundred dollars at bare minimum.

It will work fine, however you need to remove the raptor on the top under the mount also. Most NMO mounts are desighned for thin metal and adding a "thicker" surface may cause some issues with install. It really depends how thick you sprayed it. On my JK its pretty thin on the exterior parts and my antenna mount if fine.

462.675 / 141.3 has been the unofficial designated channel for some time. 25 years ago our React team had a repeater on that channel and monitored it on the interstate. They have since folded up as most REACT teams in the late 90s'. There is alot of comments on this and FRS 1 if you do some searching. If your looking for this to call for help, find another means as not all recognize nor monitor this. I know our SAR teams have it in our radios but rarely scan it.

OK. You need to explain this one. There are 8 GMRS frequencies only. Repeaters always transmit LOW and is how many of the GMRS radios sold on the market support. I dont understand why you would not use defined frequency plan. I mean do you mean different TX and RX pairs ? IF so not sure why again. Please explain your question.

I think the idea of this topic was to explain that a cheap repeater is not going to do what you want. To do it right costs money. Its really no different than the ham world. How many guys have a 440 repeater in their garage at home vs on a mountaintop ? Not many. Those that do did it to cover a small area. I look at GMRS the same. You can take 2 mobiles and strap them together with a cheap duplexer and cover 5-10 miles in your village/town with a decent antenna. I have one at home on my barn just for my 10 acres and local around the farm. Its not meant to get to town or cover a large area. But 2 Baofeng portables back to back with mag mount antenna's is not going to do what you want. The issue is daily someone joins the forum and says they need a repeater but they are using junk equipment to begin with and dont want to spend the money to do it right. As for your other comment about commercial repeaters on towers being illegal please share where in the rules it says i can't have my repeater on a combiner with a RX antenna on the top of the tower in a multi-coupler ? As long as I meet the power requirements and TX antenna height I am good to go. A well designed commercial setup will outperform most expectations.

IF others have there radio set with CTCSS/DPL they are not going to hear you regardless of what you do. If your in CSQ mode you will hear them but they will never hear you. Just as you have experienced with your RT76P. You need to determine what PL/DPL/Code the others are using. I ran into this at JJ last fall with a user that bought a radio online, didn't know how to program it and had no idea what PL/DPL he was on. After an hour of trying each tone i finally found what he had programmed and made him write it down with the channel so if others asked he could share. I have found this to be quite common with 4x4 folks cause they just buy a radio and use with no license or understanding of the radio.

Make sure you not only add channels to the scan list but set the timer to scan. If the stop timer is zero it will never scan. You should see SCAN on the display or another indicator if in scan on an ICOM

Did you look at the repeater list on mygmrs.com ?