WRUE951

I would recomend playing around with the Baofeng Handheld UVB9R to get an idea for your needs.. You can pick these up on Amazon for about $25-$40. They are not necessary legal for GMRS use but everyone and their uncle use them..

i had a KG1000 repeater set up and was getting roughly 45 miles talking into 9 Mile Canyon, however i could not reach a friend in Lone Pine. Last Dec i switched the KG1000's out with a pair of Maxon 8402A Radios and have no problem hitting a friend in Long Pine, 85 miles north of me.. The Maxon's are 40W radios but for some reason they talk a lot better than the KG1000.. I'm using a Hustler G6-450-3 Antenna with LMR400 45' run antenna to duplexer. BTW, The Maxon's are comparable in cost than the KG1000 and seem to be a lot better radio

the jumper between radios allow the two radios to 'handshake' with each other when used as a repeater. The two radios need this handshake communication to allow both radios to work together. the jumpers come with the KG1000 Duty cycle is basically how long a radio can transmit before damage or a shut down happens.. When i had my KG1000 repeater set up, i never experienced issues with duty cycle. I had my KG1000's in a cabinet with a temperature controlled fan set up.. The KG1000 and the Maxons have protective circuits which shuts down the radios if they overheat.. I'v never had that happen. I started out with an XLT duplexer tuned for the GMRS band, cost was around $150. Later on i went with a Sinclair that was close to $800.. The loss between the two as barely .1 DB... The XLT Duplexer works great and i recomend just going that route... The XLT is available on Ebay or Amazon and at a better price than buytwowayradios. One area you dont want to fudge on is your coax cable.. Use a good LMR 200 or 400 coax and get some decent connectors. I use crimp-ons with the proper tool for installing them.. .

I really didn't have any operating issues when i had my KG1000 radios set up for repeater.. Never had a duty cycle issue with them, they would talk pretty much all day with no issues. I was getting 45 mies with KG1000.. The cat 5 jumper you refer to comes with the radio's and your duplexer is going to be required no mater what radios you use, although some one box repeaters have them built into their box and some require additional money to incoprate them.. Either way, you are still paying for the duplexer. I'm not against specific built repeaters, i went that route too and for the most part ended up with Ebay junk.. Programing some of them, if not most of them can be a time consuming adventure and re-turning the duplexers seemed to be needed on every radio.. For most people getting started with GMRS, i think the KG1000 would satisfy them. I agree there are other options and cheaper... The Maxon's i just set up are pretty much the same cost as the KG1000 but a much better radio. I would recomend anyone to go with the Maxon vs. KG1000 as the cost is pretty much the same... The point with the used radio path, most of them require a much broader knowledge base to set them up and get them running, that can be frustrating for the new guy trying to get a repeater going.. I think it's funny here, some of the experts here cleary started out with Wuuxun radios, talked them up like they were the best thing on the planet. Well, they are defiantly not the best, they're just o.k.

To my knowledge, the easiest radios to build a repeater (in terms of programing them) are the Wouxun KG1000 and the Maxon 8200A's. Using either radio is relatively straight forward.. You would place a jumper between the two radios, take the high side antenna coax output into the high side input of the duplexer, the low side antenna coax output into the low side input of the duplexer and the duplexer to the antenna. That's it.. attached is a quick diagram showing the connection concept.. Programing wold be based on the radio.. The Wouxun can be programed via the hand mic, the Maxon via simple software. Typical Repeater config.pdf

There are 4 GMRS repeaters (one of them mine) here in the Mojave desert i reside. Two of these repeaters (not mine) are on a 4500' peak that has awesome line of site in all directions. I've conversed one those two repeaters 85-90 miles away. Not Bad... My repeater has good coverage at 240 degrees and i'v had conversation at 65 miles north... I keep my repeater open (no pl's) so it seems to get more traffic than the other 3.. I think the key, if you want traffic on your repeater, leave it open.. (no pl's).

i have a very good friend in Torrance, he is a retired Motorola Engineer.. All of their 'one' package repeater radios are two radios bundled into a single chassis. Now they don't physically shove two radios into the chassis but rather the boards themself's. Based on his professional knowledge, he says all repeater manufactures do the same.. He is the one that advised me to go with two Maxon 8200A's.... And i really did save $1,000 doing so over the Bridgecomm. The Maxon's are 10 watts shy of the Wouxun KG1000, (which i had) but they actually get better coverage. I'm getting about 65-70 miles here in the Mojave desert vs. the roughly 40 miles with the Wouxun. And by the way, programing the two Maxons is pretty much identical to the Bridgecomm.... I'm thinking they use the same programing software with a few minor changes for Bridgecomm As far as technical knowledge to get the one chassis vs two radios fired up, there really is no difference other than the need to have a separate Power Supply and a jumper to tie the two radios togethe with the two radio scenario. Programming is gong to be required either way you go and will pretty much be the same steps. The Wouxun KG1000 doesn't need software, they can be programmed from the Mic and done in less than 1 minute...

A pair of brand new Maxon's 8402's radio's, programing cable, software and tether cable can be had for about $800 bucks.. Same radio used in the Bridgecomm for half the cost. Maxon's are very nice commercial radios falling right with Motorola as far as quality ad operation goes.. Maxons are extremely easy to program. Multec Communications has some great deals on commercial radios.

Good possibility you'll see another GMRS Repeater site pop up... “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

if you have any experience from the GIS world, you get spoiled and tend to appreciate the tools that work so much better,,, Especially when most of the best GIS tools are Open Source (Free to use) Like i said, the map tool here is rude and crude and defiantly has much room for improvements and so easily.. Just sayin... “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

Crude and rude and amazingly slow. I’m taking like open source street map or better yet, Google Earth. I have my own version, but I can’t share it ‘Yet’. Working on that.maybe soon

I agree the a U.S. Map reflecting the repeater sites with appropriate data would be a great tool but this site does not have that as of yet.. Maybe they are working on it?

you have close to 150 GMRS Repeaters in the state of Texas.. You can narrow down what is near you using the Query Tools on this web site..

you nailed it....

Just saying, many of the repeaters you listed consist of two radios bundled into one package and at over twice the cost of building a repeater from basically same parts. As said the Bridegroom Repeaters are two Maxons 8200A's. Motorola and Kenwood do the same using their line of radios.. As far as programing goes, it is still needed regardless if you package them together in one box or use them as two radios. One box repeaters are nice for simplicity but you pay the premium for that benefit. I almost bought a Bridgecom repeater then after research i learned what radios they used and went with the Maxons. My Maxon investment was about $800 which saved a a gloruius $,1000 bucks over the one box Bridgcomm.. I like saving money. ?

You left out the Wouxon KG-1000 and better yet the Maxon TM8000 series radios, which is basically the Bridgecomm repeater for half the cost.

I have a friend living in a retirement community. He took a 70CM base antenna, stashed it inside the top of his fiberglass flag mast and burried the coax about 10’ to his garage. He has been running his repeater for over a year and works great.

i found it interesting yesterday when i was in a conversation with someone and the conversation was somewhat political about the recent classified document scandals. A person whom i know to be a Ham suddenly pings in and tells us the radio waves is not the place to discuss politics.. Well,, I guess this Ham forgot about freedom of speech and the fact that there are basically no GMRS equitecy rules you commonly find on Ham bands,. We didn't budge and continued on with conversation only to listen to an idiot trying to 'Jam' the repeater.. Hmmmm,, I wonder if this malicious 'jammer' was the Hammer. Pretty sure it was - LMAO

Wouldn’t it be cool, to view all the GMRS repeaters on Google Earth by State that also included much of the info such as Call Signs, frequency, squelch tones, repeater type etc…..

I hear garbage all the time, amazing how one or two clicks on the channel and the problems are gone.

Thats flat out BS... Was the guys first name 'Joe' by any chance?

i have no problems hitting repeaters 20 miles line of sight with HT's. I've hit my repeater from Whitney Portals with my mobile and that was about a 55 mile line of sight shot. Like OffRoader says, obstructions will pretty much void out line-of-sight communications, which UHF relies on..

FYI If you look at the Maxon DMR UHF repeater you find they advertise it as a 100% duty cycle.. Their DMR repeater is two Maxon's 8402A radios.. Additionally, the Maxon 8402A is a wide/narrow band radio.. The Bridgecom repeaters also use the Maxon 8402 Radios, they too also spec their repeater as 100% duty cycle. I currently use the Wouxuns KG-1000 radios and i can attest, these radios get extremely hot after 15 minutes of continuous use.. I have a friend who has t Maxon repeater and, i use it all the time and perforce is much better than the Wouuxun repeater... His radios get warm on continuous use but not HOT.. Just giving real world experience...

i have the KG-1000's set up for a repeater and pretty happy with their performance, I'm making contacts with mobile's 60 miles out.. I'm, setting on a hillside about 500' overlooking the Indian Wells Valley using a Tram 1182 on 30' mast. I also cleaned up my mobile Duplexer with my Nano, the factory tune wasn't very good. i am concerned about the duty cycle on these KG-1000G radios, they get very hot after about 15 mins of continuous use. I plan to use these as mobile's so I actually have two Maxon 8402A radios on order, they create a repeater much like the KG-1000 but better because they are commercial radios and have a 100% duty cycle. They are also a little cheaper then the KG-1000 radios. If you decide to go with the Maxon's be prepared to wait about 60 days, they are on back order. I'm also using EchoStaton with a RIGblasger for my ID Controller. IMO, this is the best way to go for creating an I'D controller on your repeater. I have mine set up for Voice I.D. with a time and temp stamp. EchoStation has a lot of flexibility and the software is very cheap, only $19 bucks. RIGblaster ties it into the radios via the Mic ports. Very easy to set up.