Repeater Setup Question on KG-905G

[WRTN860]

Greetings!!

Ok, got my GMRS license. Purchased two KG-905G’s, watched a bunch of videos, etc. 

But for the life of me I can’t get the radio setup to talk to a Repeater. It seems like the  Rx and Tx frequencies need to be reversed.  The KG-905G comes already setup with repeater channels. I know the input and output tones for the repeater but nothing works. 

Do I really need to swap frequencies with the programming software?

Anything else I’m possibly missing?

Thanks in advance for any help on this subject.

-David

WRTN860

 

[KAF6045]

Which repeater? Are you close enough to the repeater to hit it on high power?

For GMRS repeaters, you send on the 467MHz frequency, the repeater -- repeats -- on the 462MHz matching frequency. If you've been trying to hear yourself on the second unit when transmitting on the first, that will only work if you successfully go through a repeater.

To go from HT to HT without a repeater, both will have to be set for the same simplex frequency (which will be in the 462MHz range -- except for the FRS 0.5W max NFM interstitials [unified numbering scheme: 8-14]).

 

[WRTN860]

I am definitely close enough as I was able to ping the repeater with a previous HH unit.

Here's the repeater of interest:

Is 462.625MHz the Repeater Tx or Rx frequency?

Thanks.

 

[BoxCar]

The repeater transmits on 462.625 and listens on 467.625. Your radio should transmit on 467.625 and listen on 462.625. Set your transmit to also send the 179.9 Hz tone. I'd leave the receive tone out until you verify the repeater is actually using the tone. You can check this by creating two settings in your radio, one without the receive tone and one with the tone. if you do hear the repeater using the receive tone, then use it to block out any other station that may be sharing the frequency.

[WRTN860]

Thanks for confirming my understanding.  I will try resetting the radios to factory defaults and try again.  I will also try the experiment you suggested.

The KG-905G has Repeater channels already programming as RPTR16 ~ 22 and it does show the Rx / Tx frequencies as being 5MHz apart, as they should be.  So I am thinking/expecting to just find the RPRTxx channel that matches the Repeater I want to talk with, add the appropriate CTCSS tone codes and I should be all set.  Seems like I'm still missing something.

I'll mess around with it this weekend and check back.

Many Thanks!

[KAF6045]

For the repeater shown previously, the channel would be RPT-18 (G4-4 in that unit's "group" scheme).

Since you can't add additional channels* the experiment will need to start with Menu 13 Rx-DTC set to OFF, and Menu 14 Tx-DTC set to the listed tone. Once you start hearing traffic on the repeater, you can try setting Menu 13 to the same tone. If the repeater IS sending tones you should still hear the traffic from it (a fault in the Midland MXT-115 -- one can only enable or disable tone; no independent Tx/Rx setting).

 

* the BTech GMRS-V2 (not the V1) allows one to create additional "channels" which duplicate existing frequency sets, but can have individually set tones -- and can be named for the repeater they are configured to handle; no need to change fiddly memory tones on a single channel when travelling between areas with repeaters on the same frequency but using different tones... just dial up the relevant channel configuration needed.

[WRTN860]

Update:

I tried the suggested experiments using the Repeater of interest, Gray625.  Nothing worked.  Tried another Repeater, still nothing.  Then I tried a 3rd Repeater that was within range and it remarked that it is one of the oldest repeaters on-line.  I setup RPT-20 with the correct tones and Voila, I got an acknowledgment from the Repeater, then setup the other radio and can get both to Tx, Rx.  I kept it on the channel and listened to a conversation between a couple of radio aficionados. So my setup and understanding works. Thanks  

I reached out to the tower owner of the other Repeaters that are closer to me that I can’t communicate with. He says he just communicated to that Repeater a day ago.  Hmmm…

Q) Could there be a set issue on his end that he’s not aware of and incorrectly published in the myGMRS.com repeater page?

Q) Could the Tx/Rx frequencies be swapped and only his radios are setup to work?

I will order the programming s/w and cable and create a channel where my Tx/Rx frequencies are swapped just to test my theory.

Any other thoughts, ideas?

Thanks for all the help and guidance. 
 

[SteveShannon]

Regarding your two questions: 

1. Possible, but improbable for any period of time.  If there is a configuration issue that doesn’t match the published value it’s probably related to the tones.  When you communicated to the tower owner did you ask to confirm the published tones?  

2. Highly unlikely because it would require not only mistuning the repeater but also the duplexer. It wouldn’t be accidental in any case.

It’s more likely that the repeater just doesn’t hear or respond to your signal for some reason, but at least you now know that you are on the right track. Since you have two radios you could set one of them to listen on the repeater receive frequency with no receive tone and just leave it on to detect when someone is transmitting to the repeater.  Then, if the other radio is set to receive on the repeater transmitting frequency you can possibly verify the right tones. Some radios can be set to scan for tones on a particular frequency; if yours supports this it could be useful.