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jhouse

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Everything posted by jhouse

  1. Appears to be simple enough, but a couple of questions - 1) What does the jumper do between the radios? 2) I've read some about duty cycle and would be curious about how that impact with two radios. Would I still need to be worried about duty cycle even with moderate use? 3) What type of specific duplexer should I be looking for?
  2. Fair point about the antenna...still new to this and hadn't considered tuning. There's no way I see to tune that two piece fiberglass antenna that the RT97 came with. So I'll need to get a new one for sure. Do you have a specific antenna recommendation? On putting the repeater in the attic - I'd worry about operating temps in the summer. The ambient temps can get to 110 degrees in July/August and I'd worry about attic temps getting much much higher inside the attic. I could relocate the repeater and shorten the run maybe 10 feet and still keep it inside the house. Does 10 feet make that big of a difference if I converted the feeder to LMR400?
  3. I couldn't get it any higher outside without some sort of mast system that would need to be tethered/anchored. I have a two story that's probably as high as any of the two-story homes around me. The top of the antenna is probably 6 to 8 inches below the absolute peak of the roof and I don't have any foil backed decking/insulation to interfere. just simple pine decking and a typical ashpalt shingle. The antenna is the Retevis MAO2 FRP fiberglass antenna that came with the RT97 bundle. Retevis MA02 FRP antenna 144/430MHz | retevis.com The advertised gain is 4.5/7.2Bi
  4. A very timely post! I just connected a Retevis RT97 with an attic antenna about 25' high at the base of the antenna and am getting 1.2 SWR using 50' of LMR240. Some of the line of site calculators show I should be getting 6 miles +/- but I'm not even getting a mile reliably. This is an urban area with lots of two-story houses and mature trees (for my area) right at the same height of all the surrounding two-story houses. An exterior mount is not an option. My minimum goal was to get 2 miles reliably and guess that with the loss from the duplexer and loss from the feed line that I'm getting out 2 watts or less. Retevis says the RT 97 is rated for 10 watts, but some of the reviews explicitly state you can cut that in half due to the loss from the duplexer. My 8 watt HT with a longer whip can open the repeater at just under a mile but I can't receive back. I may try a LMR 400 feed line but am not sure that's totally going to help me get my two-mile min goal. So this morning, I was poking around the forum and found this thread. I'd appreciate links to reliable videos and/or posts providing guidance on how to build a two-radio set up to help improve my coverage. My goal for this set up is again min 2 miles and would be thrilled to get to the far end of the LOS range. Or, I would appreciate thoughts as to how to improve the Retevis RT97 but think going to LRM400 might be the only other option. Appreciate comments on that too.
  5. I recently purchased a Retevis RT97 bundle that came with a MA02 Antenna. For a variety of reasons, I could not mount the antenna on the exterior of my house and have it in the attic with the tip of the antenna probably 8 inches from touching the peak of the roof. I'm guessing the base of the antenna is about 25-30 feet or so the ground. I used 50 feet of LM240 and have at least 7 feet of slack or more. The roof decking is pine and I have a traditional asphalt based shingle with no metal foil back decking material to interfere with transmissions. I realize I'm losing efficiency with the attic mount, but I have no other option at the moment. My immediate goal is to provide coverage of 1 to 2 miles around my home. I have the coax directly connected to the antenna with no balun or coax loop and am getting a SWR of about 1.2. Questions: 1) Do I need to worry about grounding the antenna being that it's an attic mount? 2) I have slack to make several loops of the coax at the base of the antenna. However, I've read conflicting advice as to whether this is necessary or even all that effective. looking for advice and comments on adding a coax loop and if so, how many loops? Does the size of the loop matter? 3) Balun - I have read enough to generally understand what a balun does, but everything I've read seems to be related to a use of a balun for a true resonant dipole. several of the videos I watched had true dipole set ups and in looking at online sources for buying baluns all of the options I've seen seem to have the coax connections and then two terminals for connecting the dipole elements. Do I need a balun for my set up and if so, what kind and how would it be attached to my particular antenna?
  6. I received a response from Retevis support with this link https://www.retevis.com/rt97-portable-gmrs-repeater-mobile-repeater-us At that link, under the support tab there is a link to a Universal USB driver and a Win11 USB driver. Neither worked for me and the port the repeater is plugged into reflects the device as "CH340". Does anyone have any more ideas?
  7. I am having significant difficulty with the USB driver. My PC is recognizing the port but is labeling the port "CH340". I've tried all of the instructions in this thread and elsewhere and can't get the programming software to read from the repeater. Any more ideas from anyone?
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