New Wouxun KG-1000G Upgrade

[RoyalJayhawk]

Hey y'all, WRVI612 aka RoyalJayhawk here. I have stalked the forums for a while and finally signed up. 

I just ordered a wouxun kg-1000g and New Antenna is there any tip y'all might have? 

I have all my local repeaters and some Other state repeaters when I go on trips.

I'm going to retire my KG-XS20G to a home base station, I have a 50 foot mas and an decent antenna. 

Plus I have some Boafeng handhelds UV-9G, UV-9R Pro and GM-15 Pro Radios

Next is to get 2x KG-1000G for a repeater network in my area. North/West Kansas City area. 

[WRWE456]

Hello and welcome! About time you came out of the shadows. HaHa! Lots of helpful folks around here as you probably know by now.

The KG-1000G plus is a great radio. I just got one about three months ago that I use as my base radio with a Yagi directional antenna on a mast on the roof of the house. We use KG935G plus HT's with Mag mount antennas for mobile's at the moment. They work great to stay in touch with the 1000G base.

Tell us some more about your planned use and details of your vehicle install and range desired etc.

As for tips? One thing that comes to mind is to connect the radio direct to the battery. Do not use the cigarette lighter plug. The 1000G has too much power draw on 50 watts. Of course read and re read the manual. I'm sure others will have more ideas.

[nokones]

If you want a good working repeater package, get a true repeater and save the money and time. If you use/connect together the two KG1000G Plus radios as a repeater package, you will have a desense problem between the two radios. The shielding between the two radios is essentially non-existent and you not be able to communicate more than a mile from the repeater.

You will have to separate/isolate the receiving radio many yards or in a metal box/container to shield the receiving radio from the transmitting radio RF energy.

[OffRoaderX]

3 hours ago, nokones said:

The shielding between the two radios is essentially non-existent and you not be able to communicate more than a mile from the repeater.

Desense is an issue, but please explain to us all how i was able to communicate 20+ miles with my two KG1000G's setup as a repeater package. 

[nokones]

7 hours ago, OffRoaderX said:

Desense is an issue, but please explain to us all how i was able to communicate 20+ miles with my two KG1000G's setup as a repeater package. 

If my memory serves me right, I believe you isolated the receiving radio in a metal box and shield it from the RF energy so you can get those many farz?

[OffRoaderX]

I did eventually try to shield it to improve the signal but I could never really improve much.. From the beginning, with the two radios right next to each other with zero shielding, I was getting ~20 miles.

[marcspaz]

I have 2 different portable repeaters that are made from 2 radios per repeater.  One uplink and one downlink.  The pairs are literally bolted to each other.  I have been doing this with multiple radios for decades and never had desense issues due to the pair being too close to each other.  With quality coax and proper spacing between the receive and transmit antenna or a good mobile duplexer and your golden.  I've taken the repeater up to the mountains, dropped them on a high spot with solar, batteries and and the up/down antennas separated by about 100 feet.  At 20w I was getting 35-36 miles with 70%+ reliability coverage. 

 

The real benefit from shielding is in the cable.  If you have cheap coax with loose braided shielding, its going to be much more prone to desense and interference in general.  Especially compared to something like hardline.

[nokones]

7 hours ago, OffRoaderX said:

I did eventually try to shield it to improve the signal but I could never really improve much.. From the beginning, with the two radios right next to each other with zero shielding, I was getting ~20 miles.

With the two KGs, I was only able to get .7 mile distance. I was using a Laird FG4605 antenna with an EMR Corp 6 cavity duplexer tuned by EMR. I am on flat terrain with the antenna tip at 30 feet AGL. I did try different cables with no difference in performance.

My first thought it was the duplexer so I took the duplexer back to EMR Corp to have them recheck the tuning. It aas properly tuned. So, I thought maybe it's a defective radio so I swap the the programming on the two radios and there was no difference in the performance.

I had a friend bring over a couple of Maxon mobiles configured for repeater operation and it made a significant difference. We experienced about 10 miles out and did not check any further. Obviously, the two KGs were the problem.

Just for giggles, I did a distance check without the two radios in the auto repeat mode by removing the cable between the two radios to see if it would make any difference with the duplexer inline and I was able to get at least 5 miles and I didn't check any further. I even swapped the TX and Rx operation and there was no difference. It worked fine.

At that point, I arrived at an opinion that the two KGs must be interfering with each other since the two Maxon radios worked great, and the KG radios were not the right setup for a repeater operation.

So, I ended up buying a brand new Vertex Standard EVX R70 G7 which is essentially a Motorola XPR8400 and I was really surprised with the performance and the clarity of the audio at great distances (many farz) with a portable XTS5000 radio.

I ended up selling the two KGs.

[OffRoaderX]

So i think what we have learned here today is that just because you experienced something does not mean everyone else will experience the exact same thing in the exact same way, especially when there are many variables at play such as coax type and length, electrical cable quality and lengths, terrain, different antennas, differently tuned duplexers, etc..  

However, most importantly, today we learned that decreeing a fact based upon ones personal experience can make a person look like an "internet expert", aka "some people".

 

[RoyalJayhawk]

On 7/7/2023 at 9:58 PM, WRWE456 said:

Hello and welcome! About time you came out of the shadows. HaHa! Lots of helpful folks around here as you probably know by now.

The KG-1000G plus is a great radio. I just got one about three months ago that I use as my base radio with a Yagi directional antenna on a mast on the roof of the house. We use KG935G plus HT's with Mag mount antennas for mobile's at the moment. They work great to stay in touch with the 1000G base.

Tell us some more about your planned use and details of your vehicle install and range desired etc.

As for tips? One thing that comes to mind is to connect the radio direct to the battery. Do not use the cigarette lighter plug. The 1000G has too much power draw on 50 watts. Of course read and re read the manual. I'm sure others will have more ideas.

Just basic Truck setup nothing special. 

Midland MXTA25 Antenna, outer shell cracked due to overlanding. with a Wouxun KG-XS20G Mobile radio. 

Keeping the Antenna Coax in place, just upgraded radio (KG-1000G) and Antenna (Tram 1173 NMO UHF Antenna) 

My Home Base station is a ICOM F6011 radio with a 50Foot Tower/Mast with 2x Comet GP-3 Antennas. About to add 2 more to it. 

Also have a BTech GMRS 50V2 to play with. And a few 20/25 Watt radios. My mobile overland repeater rig is 2xRadioddity DB25-G. Running a custom firmware my buddy and I compiled based on the radioddity firmware. Using a Raspberrypi as the interface controller. 

 

I'm a ex automotive Electrical engineer. So I like to play around with stuff trying to mod it or break it.

[Lscott]

4 hours ago, RoyalJayhawk said:

I'm a ex automotive Electrical engineer. So I like to play around with stuff trying to mod it or break it.

Yeah, based on the what I do at work, it’s not hard to do. The last exciting time blew several Silicon Carbide MOSFET’s. They exploded like M-80’s. My boss, who was standing in front of the equipment said his ears were ringing for a while afterwards. I was standing on the back side a few feet away from the power assembly watching the scope and got the full effect. R and D work has its moments.

[RoyalJayhawk]

20 minutes ago, Lscott said:

Yeah, based on the what I do at work, it’s not hard to do. The last exciting time blew several Silicon Carbide MOSFET’s. They exploded like M-80’s. My boss, who was standing in front of the equipment said his ears were ringing for a while afterwards. I was standing on the back side a few feet away from the power assembly watching the scope and got the full effect. R and D work has its moments.

I can't tell you how many MOSFETs I have blown. 

My wife will tell you I mess more stuff up then I fix at times.. I think I'm more at 60%fix and 40%broke. 

[SteveShannon]

2 hours ago, WRXE944 said:

Get healthy soon! 

Yes, @marcspaz, speedy recovery and friendly nurses!!!