I finally received my shiny new RT97 portable repeater yesterday. I chose to have them program it in the ham portion of the UHF band, since they don't charge extra for it, nor for tuning the duplexer. I do have the service equipment here in case I ever need to retune the duplexer.
So far I'm very pleased with it's performance even though currently it's connected to a tri-band NMO mag mount antenna on a 14' diameter pie pan. I was able to hit the repeater full quieting about 3 miles from my 40 watt mobile even with the antenna in my office on top of a file cabinet.
I've read elsewhere that many have had problems getting the programming software configured properly. After several attempts, I finally discovered that Retevis only allows COM1 through COM20 in their software. On my development computer all COM ports 1 through 22 (except COM2) are already in use, so the system assigned COM23 to the Prolific programming cable!
I noted that COM2 was not already in use, so I had to use the Advanced option to re-assign COM23 to COM2. Bingo! Now the darn thing will connect and will allow for read/write operations to take place.
I note that the RT97 has 16 channels that may be programmed. Evidently the duplexer they are using will allow +/- 500kHz to pass through adequate signal, so they have pre-programmed the other 15 channels accordingly! This has proved to be a blessing since my primary channel (#1) is 442.975/447.975. The closest repeater on that pair is in Attica, Indiana, nearly 120 air miles from me so I thought that was clearly enough separation to cause no problems, especially since I chose to use 141.3 CTCSS for the input/output tone. Unfortunately, Attica is a DMR repeater and the analog 'machine gun sound' has been coming in loud and clear! So I've moved up 12.5kHz (channel #2) to eliminate the nasty sound...
I am intending this portable repeater to be used primarily as part of our ARES group here in NW Indiana, and am anxious to get this outdoors for some range testing!
So far I'm very pleased with it's performance even though currently it's connected to a tri-band NMO mag mount antenna on a 14' diameter pie pan. I was able to hit the repeater full quieting about 3 miles from my 40 watt mobile even with the antenna in my office on top of a file cabinet.
I've read elsewhere that many have had problems getting the programming software configured properly. After several attempts, I finally discovered that Retevis only allows COM1 through COM20 in their software. On my development computer all COM ports 1 through 22 (except COM2) are already in use, so the system assigned COM23 to the Prolific programming cable!
I noted that COM2 was not already in use, so I had to use the Advanced option to re-assign COM23 to COM2. Bingo! Now the darn thing will connect and will allow for read/write operations to take place.
I note that the RT97 has 16 channels that may be programmed. Evidently the duplexer they are using will allow +/- 500kHz to pass through adequate signal, so they have pre-programmed the other 15 channels accordingly! This has proved to be a blessing since my primary channel (#1) is 442.975/447.975. The closest repeater on that pair is in Attica, Indiana, nearly 120 air miles from me so I thought that was clearly enough separation to cause no problems, especially since I chose to use 141.3 CTCSS for the input/output tone. Unfortunately, Attica is a DMR repeater and the analog 'machine gun sound' has been coming in loud and clear! So I've moved up 12.5kHz (channel #2) to eliminate the nasty sound...
I am intending this portable repeater to be used primarily as part of our ARES group here in NW Indiana, and am anxious to get this outdoors for some range testing!