SteveShannon

A node is simply a unique point that’s identifiable in some way. Applied to GMRS it’s a unique location on a network of some kind. The node identifier makes it possible to address the node individually. Because networking GMRS stations has been more strongly interpreted as prohibited by the FCC, nodes may no longer have usefulness.

It might just be the radio. Get the manufacturer to send you a replacement.

It’s possible that the OP is on one of the simplex channels. They share the receive frequencies with repeaters. Nobody on a repeater would ever hear him because he’s not transmitting with an offset. Or, it’s possible that the OP is on the correct repeater frequency but transmitting with the wrong tone or possibly no tone. Or it’s possible that he is simply out of range. A repeater has a much greater range than a mobile and the OP already said it’s “super far distances.”

Obviously it’s no longer short range, so it is contradictory to the express purpose of GMRS according the regulations. Good luck getting them to change the rules.

Very few of us with repeaters on mountains own the mountains they’re on. We have agreements whoever are the stewards of the mountains, usually US Forest Service, sometimes BLM, or possibly some state agency. For the most part they are very familiar with repeater sites and even have policies that enable us to use their facilities, such as old lookouts. Second, if it’s a building similar policies may be in your favor. The tallest buildings in cities often have a wide variety of antennas on them.

There are standard offsets. Many radios are programmed to automatically use them. Yaesu calls their Automatic Repeater Shift. For 2 meters the shift is 0.600 MHz. For 70 cm it’s 5.000 MHz. For 220 MHz it’s 1.25 MHz. For me anyway the question is whether the shift is positive or negative. I don’t know if there’s a convention that specifies that. But usually the information for a repeater will include either a plus or minus sign near the receiving frequency.

With those numbers I agree, go with the most durable cable that is easy to route. The difference in ERP is nearly undetectable. Plus, RG58 has a solid polyethylene dielectric rather than an easily damaged foam dielectric.

I don’t know the going rate. I would watch to see if your local ham club has a swap meet.

Maybe. You do the calculation and see whether it’s worth it to you. https://kv5r.com/ham-radio/coax-loss-calculator/

Look, that’s a great tool, but you can go broke buying tools to strip and prep hardline. Every manufacturer of connectors has its own selection of tools that are designed to make the installation of their connectors easier for a professional. Some are intended for a production environment where time is money. Stripping and prepping might require tools. Installing the connectors usually only requires a couple wrenches. It’s nice to have the hardline but if you don’t need a long length of cable it might not be worth the investment. How far do you have to span? I tried to include links to less expensive and home handyman methods of preparation in my previous posts. They should give you an idea of what’s involved. Tools like your link aren’t worth it to do one or two connectors.

This has nothing to do with privacy. When two FM signals are in proximity and use the same frequency, regardless of any tones, they can interfere with each other. FM also has what’s called a “capture effect”. Your radio will lock onto the stronger of the two signals. Again, “privacy tones” have nothing whatsoever to do with this.

Are you always parked in the same place when you use your radio? If so, try somewhere else.

If it’s there when your engine is off it’s impossible to be the alternator.

Yes, or simply transmit a constant signal from the antenna and move a field strength detector around it. Most antennas don’t have a complete null above and below. That’s characteristic of a high gain antenna. In fact, multiple lobes like you see in that chart are characteristic of high gain antennas. If you look at the charts for a low gain antenna, such as a vertical dipole you’ll see two graphs, one from the side and one from above. The graph from above (called azimuth in this image) looks like a fairly smooth circle, showing that the signal strength is approximately even in all directions. Taken from the side (elevation) the signal strength of a dipole looks like a squashed figure eight. The three dimensional colored image helps understand that the squashed figure eight is swept or rotated around the z axis. The vertical dipole forms the z axis. By the way, while looking for these images I found this description on how to understand antenna graphs. I haven’t read it yet, but it appears to explain a lot of different aspects. https://gristleking.com/all-about-antennas-radiation-patterns/comment-page-1/

I use a Samlex SEC-1235P-M: https://www.gigaparts.com/samlex-30-amp-switching-power-supply-sec-1235p-m.html?utm_term=sku-zsx-sec-1235p-m&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD_py5G3Q-Q2eOlI8fLnlgFs9AnfE&gclid=Cj0KCQjwgL-3BhDnARIsAL6KZ68TS4vz1CjA9wsIyptiCwjRbU8ypB2GThTm6P2B9wP3CRI0OUKR-d4aArG-EALw_wcB 13.8 volts at whatever current the radio plus other accessories plugged into a powerpole distribution panel require at the time (up to 30 A continuous). It’s small and lightweight. When my ham radio is set to 100 watts the power supply current meter shows 23 amps. It has a fan that comes on sometimes that is louder than I would like (any fan would be) but that’s a minor whine.

Does the whine still occur when the engine is shut off? If so then it isn’t the alternator. Does the whine change as the engine rpm is changed? If not, it might not be the alternator. Vehicles have other sources of RFI. Do you have LED or some kind of high energy lights, especially aftermarket ones? They have been known to cause interference. Ferrite chokes can be applied in a couple different ways. There are clamshell chokes that can be snapped around your power cable right where it enters the radio. Or a person can loop their power cable through a toroid.

I guess I don’t understand why OFFSET doesn’t say 5.00000. 467.70000 MHz is your transmit frequency which is calculated when the offset frequency is added to the frequency in the first column. Under duplex it should have a plus sign ‘+’. The line for Bothell is a good example. The way you had it in the earlier configuration (with cross mode) as suggested by wrxp381 really should have worked. Switching to Tone rather than CROSS simply disables Tone Squelch on your radio so you hear everything on 462.700 MHz. It’s a way to troubleshoot, but it does leave you subject to receiving transmissions from other radios. Once you’re certain you have the repeater input tone correct you might want to go back to Cross mode and add the correct Squelch tone. If you still don’t receive anything, try going closer. If that doesn’t work then try changing your tone to 114.8 Hz in case the owner put the input tone into the output field on the repeater info page.

Sure! And trust me on this, I’m no expert on reading this either! You’re exactly right, this shows gain, (no relationship to the distance the signal might carry!) with the outermost ring being the reference based on the maximum signal strength. That’s all it means. We all look at these and wonder what they have to do with distance, but that the way to torture yourself. Just so I can look at it easily while talking about it: Those lobes are actually what has either been simulated or measured. Whoever put this together found the direction of max gain and measured the strength of the signal in that direction. Then, in other directions they measure the signal strength and compare the max against the strength in that direction to determine how many dB down the signal is in any other direction. The blue lines showing the lobes simply indicates the loss of signal strength with the smallest lobes showing greater loss. So, for instance, there’s a lobe nearly centered on the 60° angle. The intersection of the outermost extreme of the lobe falls between the -10 dB and -20 dB circles, but I would estimate between -16 and -17 dB. So that simply tells us that at that angle, the measurement of signal strength was about 16 or 17 dB weaker than the maximum signal. Note that directly above and below (0° and 180°) there is no blue. That means there’s a point above and below where there was no signal, a null reading on the field strength meter. That null actually appears to subtend an angle about 10° right and left of vertical. That’s why placing a repeater on your roof and trying to hit it with another radio that happens to be within that “cone of silence” could be really frustrating. You’re within eyesight of the antenna, looking straight up at it, but you’re in a dead spot. Jist as a comment, the lobes are not symmetrical with respect to the horizontal axis. That’s probably because of the proximity to the ground. As you move the antenna up, the lobes below the horizontal axis will become more and more like the upper ones. Sometimes, whe people want to have their signals go skyward, they actually lower their antennas. I’ve got to go to bed, but I’ll check in the morning to see if I made things worse.

Set tone mode to Tone. Don’t worry about the repeater output tone (which is your radio’s input tone. In Tone mode it doesn’t matter; all transmissions are reproduced. So then all you need to set is the tone you send to the repeater, 218.1 Hz (not MHz!!!!) Put that in the Tone column. Here’s something else: For a repeater be sure you have a 5.000 MHz offset and that a plus sign appears in the Duplex column. Repeaters are duplex. I only mention it because the highlighted line above isn’t set that way.

Playing devils advocate here, why should there be an exception to talk to the opposite side of the mountain? That’s usually no longer local. Of course the real solution is to put a single repeater on top of the mountain.

I think you missed what he was asking. He wanted another level of alerting so that his radio doesn’t simply break squelch whenever the repeater is active, but so his radio will be silent until two things occur: The repeater sends the correct “privacy” tone, and Whoever is trying to reach him embeds a pattern of tones (DTMF, or 2-tone or 5-tone) that matches his specific alert tone.

On the porch roof? Is it sloped down away from the repeater by any chance? Is there a higher elevation roof?

Be sure to check the boxes to display repeaters which are either outdated or offline. If a repeater owner doesn’t log in and touch the data annually (I think) it’s marked as outdated.

Yeah, those are heavy duty tig welded aluminum and capable of withstanding a lot. The one on our 2 meter repeater is a Comprod? https://store.trustclarity.com/Comprod-874F-70HDWTM-Heavy-Duty-4-Dipole-Array-for-138-174-MHz-Top-Mount/dp/pId=422212465103940?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAACbFVBrehveY9E-VtwdZkWeYVUs95&gclid=CjwKCAjwl6-3BhBWEiwApN6_kqakg3AdIOXY28uYJNwcnVCETlz3y9MNX0vw8leXnzZJTJfkw1CYthoC4fsQAvD_BwE

Well, we know for a fact that the pagers were triggered remotely and simultaneously in a group. Many of the Hezbollah affected were looking at the display when the explosives were detonated. I would assume that then the order went out to get rid of any unexploded pagers and use the walkie-talkies they bought five months ago. Then, while the people were at the funerals of the people killed by pagers the previous day, the walkie-talkies were detonated. It's a radio. It has an alert circuit and the capability of being upgraded to an addressable digital radio, so it's not a difficult leap, whereas a simple timer has one too many downsides: it cannot be stopped once it has been started.