Bridge-com BDR 50U UHF repeater

[WSBP556]

Does anyone have any experience with the BridgeCom BDR 50U UHF repeater? I just purchased one. Reviews are great, but I wanted to see if anyone in the group had any experience with it?

 

thanks

[Socalgmrs]

I do not personally have one but a know a few Red Cross members that have them for official use and they work great. 

[WRYZ926]

That is what my local club is using for our GMRS repeater. It works fine and has handled everything we have thrown at it. We tested it for about two months before opening it up to the public. The duty cycle is fine for a lot of traffic. 

[WSEH489]

I just received mine the other day and it really solid and weighs about 20lbs. It will be installed once I settle on a site. However from the user manual, it seems there is no remote repeater on/off (kill switch)? Or am I missing something?

Dom

WSEH489

[WRYZ926]

You will have to setup a SYS-OP user and use DTMF tones for remote control. The SYS-OP user is only used for remote control of the repeater. I found the manual somewhat lacking in areas.

Here is a good video that helped me out. How to Program the BCR Repeater

And another good video: How to Program a BCR Repeater System. This video gives more details about installing the program and getting ports configured.

[WSEH489]

Thanks however it’s a BDR 50U which from the owner manual, seems to be very different from the BCR  line and since the thread title is Bridge-com BDR 50U UHF repeater  That’s what caught my attention  

 

Maybe their manual is really lacking

[WRYZ926]

Sorry about that, too much blood in the caffeine system today.

 

1 hour ago, WSEH489 said:

Maybe their manual is really lacking

And so are their videos for setting up the BDR50. Setting up the BDR50 for analog use should be the same as the BCR-40. The only decent video I could find for the BDR-50 is this one: DMR MADE EASY! | The Fastest Way to Get on the Air | Step-by-Step Digital Radio Workshop

Be warned, that video is an hour long.

[BoxCar]

That Bridgecom video is extremely basic. You need 4 things for a DMR radio, a radio ID, a contact, a frequency, and a zone or grouping of contacts/frequencies. Remember, EACH contact must have a frequency assigned which is not brought in that basic video.

[WRYZ926]

On 9/1/2024 at 9:07 PM, BoxCar said:

That Bridgecom video is extremely basic. 

Yes it is. I searched  for a bit looking for videos on programming the BDR50 but didn't find much. 

And the manual for the BCR40 isn't all that good either.

[linx]

That is what I use, the repeater works great with 1 exception. They advertise that you can use multiple tones CTCSS and DCS. If you choose to use DCS as the input tone, you are only allowed 1 user slot, and you can't even have an operator slot for repeater control. If you want to use multiple tones or have a non repeated operator tone, you are limited to CTCSS only.

I don't know if they have updated their documentation to reflect that now, but when I was purchasing mine about 9 months ago, it did not say anything about only being able to use 1 DCS input tone.

EDIT: I own the 40U. I saw this in the GMRS equipment section of the forum and didn't read the replies, I assumed this was for analog use.

Edited September 3 by linx
Clarification