gman1971 Posted March 8, 2022 Report Posted March 8, 2022 Just remember the keyword "hacked". The moment something is not built to the specifications that it was built for, be it for extended coverage, be it a different band, etc, then its no longer certified for anything. At that point its not a Motorola radio anymore, its "Happy Joe's Ham science experiment" radio. This was another reason why all the non Motorola stuff was dumped, one gets tired of having to hack, tune, fiddle with crap to just get it to work the way it should work. In a nutshell: If someone plans to use a 70 year old piece of gear (any brand) radio that has been "hacked" for a Ham repeater, on a modern commercial tower then I am sorry, but they are doing something wrong; much the same way as me driving a horse on the highway... while horse is perfectly fine as transportation means, however, its really not the right choice for highway transportation. G. WROZ250 1 Quote
Lscott Posted March 8, 2022 Report Posted March 8, 2022 34 minutes ago, gman1971 said: Just remember the keyword "hacked". The moment something is not built to the specifications that it was built for, be it for extended coverage, be it a different band, etc, then its no longer certified for anything. At that point its not a Motorola radio anymore, its "Happy Joe's Ham science experiment" radio. This was another reason why all the non Motorola stuff was dumped, one gets tired of having to hack, tune, fiddle with crap to just get it to work the way it should work. In a nutshell: If someone plans to use a 70 year old piece of gear (any brand) radio that has been "hacked" for a Ham repeater, on a modern commercial tower then I am sorry, but they are doing something wrong; much the same way as me driving a horse on the highway... while horse is perfectly fine as transportation means, however, its really not the right choice for highway transportation. G. Yup. All valid points. The old stuff gets used because it was cheap, like saved from the e-waste guys for free, and recycled. Hams are cheap. I guess that's why many own a Baofeng too. Oh well. Quote
gman1971 Posted March 9, 2022 Report Posted March 9, 2022 I guess its all perspective, right? No issue with owning legacy stuff, just use it accordingly, same deal with the horse... just don't ride on the highway and you'll be fine. G. Quote
gortex2 Posted March 9, 2022 Report Posted March 9, 2022 10 hours ago, gman1971 said: I guess its all perspective, right? No issue with owning legacy stuff, just use it accordingly, same deal with the horse... just don't ride on the highway and you'll be fine. G. Bad analogy around me ! I live in the middle of Amish community. Its horse and buggies all day long around my house tweiss3, Lscott and gman1971 3 Quote
Lscott Posted March 9, 2022 Report Posted March 9, 2022 16 minutes ago, gortex2 said: Bad analogy around me ! I live in the middle of Amish community. Its horse and buggies all day long around my house And the best part they manufacture themselves, no chip shortages or high gas prices to worry about. The waste products are naturally recyclable. When the bombs fly and the big EMP event they will still keep working too. gman1971 and gortex2 2 Quote
gman1971 Posted March 9, 2022 Report Posted March 9, 2022 Alright, holy batman thread derailment with horses... The point is, don't use hacked anything in a commercial, or LEO tower/setting, as it might cause other problems that can (and will) quickly go over the money it was "cheaped out" by cutting corners. G. gortex2 1 Quote
DONE Posted March 10, 2022 Report Posted March 10, 2022 Not gonna get into manufacture bashing. I will tell you that quantars and MTR repeaters will at full rated output will act as a control channel on a trunked system. This means that they WILL transmit at full power for months at a time. I have PMed more than one of them that the log showed they had been keyed up for more than a year. I have never seen a Kenwood that would do that. Not saying they will not, just saying I have not ever seen it first hand. That being said, EVERYTHING pretty much has a place. I personally would NOT put a Kenwood repeater up on a tall tower on a busy channel, but I would have no issue with putting one in for a small system for a large family to use on GMRS. And I even see the applications of the two mobiles in a box. I sold and serviced countless XPR 8300 and 8400 repeaters and a number of Kenwoods that were pretty much two mobiles in a box as well. And in the right application they work well. But again, real world testing I have never seen the Kenwood that would hear like a Quantar,,, and the MTR3000 and 8400's will hear better than a Quantar from what i have seen in real world testing. gortex2 and gman1971 2 Quote
JB007Rules Posted March 14, 2022 Author Report Posted March 14, 2022 On 3/8/2022 at 9:32 AM, tweiss3 said: 1-5/8" is nice. Did you pay by the foot, or did you end up buying that whole spool? I'm glad you have a cool tower owner/crew. Is yours the 100W version? Set right at 50W, that thing could key up for days. I paid by the foot from Primus in Morris, IL. It's $4.74/foot and I bought 280' of it for the transmitter antenna I had installed. I borrowed my dads car trailer to get it (See the aforementioned website, it has a pic of the feedline in the pictures section). Yes, this is a 110W repeater tuned down to 50W. Days... You mean years. This repeater *could* do 110W for years on end with zero issues based on the experts that know more about them than myself. Not sure what assumptions were being made (if any), but I want to iterate that I *DO PAY MONTHLY RENT* for this tower. It's FAR from free. I also had to sign a lease agreement and carry a 2 million dollar insurance policy. This isn't some rinky-dink old abandoned tower which I'm getting for free. I'm a paying customer to the tower owner just like anyone else. As such there is no way I can just be "booted" from the site like others have mentioned. Yes, I'm aware of those things happening but will not happen here as a paying customer lol. As far as the site, there is a guy that checks the site on a yearly basis for issues/clean up and maintenance. I can assure you that if this repeater was causing problems for others there, or if another repeater there was causing issues for me that matter, that won't last too long. The offending machine would have to be repaired/replaced/fixed because that would never fly lol. To take that a step further, it's *NOT* easy to get onto a site like this either. It took nearly a year of back and forth to make this happen and a site survey was done prior to me going on the site to make sure what I was putting in wouldn't cause issues. You can check the history of everything here as well. You can read from the bottom up to see the time-line starting on 4/30/2020: https://mygmrs.com/repeater/3838 I hope this helps add some clarification. gortex2 and SteveShannon 2 Quote
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