Currently up in the mountains of western NC for vacation. I'm in an AirBNB at the top of a fairly high mountain. I have a repeater programmed in my Baofang UV-5G Plus with a Nagoya 771G antenna. The repeater is in Waynesville, NC roughly 35 miles to the east of us!! When transmitting to the repeater, I get a kerchunk with some random beeping tones, indicating I'm "hitting" the repeater. I have an additional Baofang UV-5G Plus with a Nagoya UT-72 that I also have tuned to the repeater (have the antenna grounded on a baking dish placed on top of some cabinets by the window). The second radio can hear the same kerchunk and beeping sounds but not the voice/test message transmitted.
To trouble shoot, we tested the radios on simplex on various channels and are able to hear each other just fine. When we've tried talking to the repeater, we've done so with the radios roughly 50 feet apart (not sure if this has an affect). Do I just not have enough power or a good enough antenna on either radio to be able to hear the test message being transmitted by the other radio? I figured if power or the antenna were a problem, I wouldn't be able to hit the repeater all together. I've heard a few transmissions on the repeater, but it's the same kerchunk with the beeping sounds and no voice message (not sure if they just keyed up or actually transmitted a message though). Anyone have any insights as to what could be going on?