I hit a repeater, but only one person on the net could hear me.

[WSGL997]

Hello,

I'm new to GMRS. I recently purchased a UV5G plus and obtained my GMRS license.

I'm also awaiting a club membership approval to access the private repeaters here locally.
There is 1 public repeater within potential range of my house.

This repeater has an input tone, but no output tone.
I programmed the input tone into the t-ctcss settings of my radio and am able to get a "kerchunk" back from the repeater.

There was a net taking place on this repeater the other day and I transmitted a check in. The host asked me to repeat my check in and replied that I was barely able to make it in, however he copied. (i presume because of the distance, terrain, etc.)

I was happy to hear I could make the tx, albeit weak.

However, the other users on the net then chimed in and commented that they were not able to hear my transmission.
One user speculated that TX must've been simplex.

My question is: What would be the cause of something like this? I can reach a repeater however my tx is not repeated. would this be a lack of power issue on my end?
Perhaps my tx was so weak it was blocked by the other users squelch settings?

I should note that i have tried listening in to my own radio check tx's on another gmrs handheld of mine on the correct frequency and cannot hear my own voice, although both of my radios receive the "kerchunk"

Thank you in advance!!!
 

[OffRoaderX]

5 minutes ago, WSGL997 said:

What would be the cause of something like this?

If you are barely hitting the repeater, then those that could not hear you whilst the host could hear you probably just did not have the ability to discern you voice from the static as well as the host.  Because you were on a repeater, other users squelch setting would not affect anything as the repeater is presumably hitting them with a good signal, it was just repeating a weak signal. Also - if you have a weak signal and your radio happens to be transmitting in NARROWband instead of WIDEBand, it would be even harder to make out your voice.. Also, always be sure you are speaking loudly and clearly with the mic no more than 1-2 inches from your noise-hole.

More power might help, but a better/bigger/higher antenna WILL help - upgrade antenna first, power second.

As for not hearing your own voice, try getting your test-radios at least 50 feet away and trying again.

 

[WSGL997]

Hey thanks!

I have just received and installed a Nagoya NA-771G and attempted a series of unsuccessful radio checks on the same repeater.
However, I will try again from a higher location nearby soon. 
Will also try to hear my own transmission by placing my radios further away from one another.
Thanks for the tips. 
subscribed to and love your videos btw.

[WRYZ926]

The biggest improvement you can make to your hand held is to use a mobile or base antenna with it. Either way you want to get the antenna as high up as you can.  A mobile antenna with a magnet mount stuck onto a pizza pan or 9x13 baking sheet will work well, again get the antenna up in the air.

A mobile or base antenna up high will make a big improvement over the best hand held antenna.

[WSGL997]

WRYZ926 Thank you, My house is a 2-story, surrounded closely on all sides by other 2-stories, so I'm going to try a few transmissions from atop the roof as i understand height is might.

Should my location require a much larger antenna then so it shall be.

Appreciate it.


 

[SteveShannon]

@WSGL997 - I’ve had similar results where I have used a repeater and some people could hear me and others couldn’t. It didn’t seem logical to me because if the repeater was retransmitting my transmission shouldn’t everyone who hears other things on the repeater be able to hear mine? Or was I maybe transmitting on the wrong frequency?

But it definitely happened. 

Radio isn’t always understandable. 

[Davichko5650]

10 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

 

Radio isn’t always understandable. 

Wizardry, magic, smoke & mirrors!

or is that Wizardry, magic smoke and mirrors?

[marcspaz]

Something that is commonly overlooked is many repeaters can use several different tones to open the repeater, and can transmit different tones based on what tone was received. 

 

For example, on one of my repeaters, there are two tones that can open the receive.  Either 141.3 or 156.7.  If 141.3 is heard on the input, the transmitter will encode the 141.3 tone.  If 156.7 is heard on the input, the transmitter will encode the 156.7 tone.  The 141.3 tone is for everybody to use, but if I want to chat with someone and not hear 141.3 traffic, me and the person I am chatting with will switch to the 156.7 tone (which isn't advertised for use).

 

Some GMRS radios don't have the ability to only transmit a tone.  So they are limited to a tone squelch that is both transmitting a tone AND requiring a tone to be heard before it opens the audio for the receiver.  Still other people will program their radios with a tone squelch.

 

What is likely happening is, if the GMRS repeater you are trying to use is setup the same way as my repeater, the one person who could hear you was probably operating in monitor mode (only transmitting a tone) and can hear everything, while everyone else was using tone squelch on a different tone.  So, that one person hear everyone, but is the only person that can hear you. 

[SteveShannon]

21 minutes ago, marcspaz said:

Something that is commonly overlooked is many repeaters can use several different tones to open the repeater, and can transmit different tones based on what tone was received. 

 

For example, on one of my repeaters, there are two tones that can open the receive.  Either 141.3 or 156.7.  If 141.3 is heard on the input, the transmitter will encode the 141.3 tone.  If 156.7 is heard on the input, the transmitter will encode the 156.7 tone.  The 141.3 tone is for everybody to use, but if I want to chat with someone and not hear 141.3 traffic, me and the person I am chatting with will switch to the 156.7 tone (which isn't advertised for use).

 

Some GMRS radios don't have the ability to only transmit a tone.  So they are limited to a tone squelch that is both transmitting a tone AND requiring a tone to be heard before it opens the audio for the receiver.  Still other people will program their radios with a tone squelch.

 

What is likely happening is, if the GMRS repeater you are trying to use is setup the same way as my repeater, the one person who could hear you was probably operating in monitor mode (only transmitting a tone) and can hear everything, while everyone else was using tone squelch on a different tone.  So, that one person hear everyone, but is the only person that can hear you. 

That would certainly make sense. Unfortunately it’s not what I experienced on our repeater. I wish it were because I could understand that. 

[AdmiralCochrane]

In the fringes, antenna polarization is critical.  The HT antenna must be in the same plane as the receiving antenna.  Do not hold the HT sideways. Hold it straight up so the antenna is oriented the same way as the repeater's antenna.

[WSGL997]

1 hour ago, marcspaz said:

Something that is commonly overlooked is many repeaters can use several different tones to open the repeater, and can transmit different tones based on what tone was received. 

Interesting. So if I understand correctly, what you are postulating is that while I was using the input tone for said repeater that is listed here on mygmrs.com.
It is likely that the net members were simultaneously using a separate tone/set of tones for their communication, and because of this the operator was able to hear all tones (net members & myself), while the other members were only being fed or receiving their respective tone?

[marcspaz]

6 minutes ago, WSGL997 said:

Interesting. So if I understand correctly, what you are postulating is that while I was using the input tone for said repeater that is listed here on mygmrs.com.
It is likely that the net members were simultaneously using a separate tone/set of tones for their communication, and because of this the operator was able to hear all tones (net members & myself), while the other members were only being fed or receiving their respective tone?

 

 

Yes, that is correct. That is a distinct possibility that is what is happening.

 

It happens on some repeaters here fairly often. Many of our gmrs repeaters are set up with 141.3 as the secondary tone for emergencies and then another tone that's used for local daily communications. The repeater owners around here coordinated that on purpose because there's so much overlap with multiple repeaters on the same frequency. This way in an emergency everybody can go to 141.3, but for day to day use neighboring repeaters on the same frequency are not interfering with each other. Sometimes that causes confusion with the users. Especially new folks that don't quite understand how tone works compared to tone squelch.

[WRCR724]

17 hours ago, WSGL997 said:

Hello,

I'm new to GMRS. I recently purchased a UV5G plus and obtained my GMRS license.

I'm also awaiting a club membership approval to access the private repeaters here locally.
There is 1 public repeater within potential range of my house.

This repeater has an input tone, but no output tone.
I programmed the input tone into the t-ctcss settings of my radio and am able to get a "kerchunk" back from the repeater.

There was a net taking place on this repeater the other day and I transmitted a check in. The host asked me to repeat my check in and replied that I was barely able to make it in, however he copied. (i presume because of the distance, terrain, etc.)

I was happy to hear I could make the tx, albeit weak.

However, the other users on the net then chimed in and commented that they were not able to hear my transmission.
One user speculated that TX must've been simplex.

My question is: What would be the cause of something like this? I can reach a repeater however my tx is not repeated. would this be a lack of power issue on my end?
Perhaps my tx was so weak it was blocked by the other users squelch settings?

I should note that i have tried listening in to my own radio check tx's on another gmrs handheld of mine on the correct frequency and cannot hear my own voice, although both of my radios receive the "kerchunk"

Thank you in advance!!!
 

Which repeater is the one in question? If we can all look at it, we can first make sure you have everything correctly programmed into your radio.