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?'s on mobile repeater

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I have need advice on making a mobile repeater in a police car. I'm very radio-friendly, but I just haven't dealt with mobile-repeaters. Basically, if I had, say, a CDM1250 or PM400, what would be required in a second radio in order to make this happen? I do have another CDM1250 that I could use. However, I would still want to use the initial mobile as an in-car mobile (with a mic). Thanks a lot.
 

ndejohn

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I would like to know a little more information about your needs. I have built in-vehicle repeaters before. They are not that bad, especially with Motorola. I would like to know if you are looking for an in-band vehicle repeater or a cross band, what are the bands you are working with and what the purpose of the vehicle repeater is for whether it is for extended portable coverage or what.

Thanks,
Nick
 

RodStrong

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Yes. What are you trying to accomplish or what would be the goal of having a repeater in the car? That will help.
 

TampaTyron

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Look up Pyramid Vehicular repeaters on the web. They have a bunch of tech detail on their site that will help you. You really want a repeater that uses a different frequency band than the mobile radio. The filtering can be troublesome if you go in-band and use a bunch of frequencies on either the mobile or portable (many close frequencies= makes it difficult to filer if in same band). TT
 
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Thanks guys. TampaTyron, I ran across Pyramid products after I initially posted the topic, and that is exactly what I'm looking for. I was initally thinking I would need two mobiles, but I think a Pyramid repeater is what I'm trying to do. To the other guys, basically, my scenario is that our mobiles work great throughout the county (mountains, etc.), but our portables don't always hit the towers when inside residences, etc. I just want to transmit to the car, then from the car to the mountaintop repeater. I'm thinking the SVR-200 would be just right for my application.
 

ndejohn

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The Pyramids are nice repeaters. They can be expensive. The other issue your gonna run into is doing in-band repeating. When you call a Pyramid dealer, they are going to tell you your gonna need some filtering to do it. The filter is expensive. If memory serves me correctly, your gonna be close to $2,000.00 for a pyramid setup. Also, keep in mind that the Pyramids are only 2 watts on transmit.

My fire department used to have 6 or so of them in our apparatus. We ran into alot of problems with them in regards to tuning and so forth. We got rid if them and I'm building repeater systems in the trucks from 2 seperate mobile radios and a Motorola RICK controller. The RICK controller simply connects to the two radios together as a repeater. I have had really good luck and you get much more power, RF wise in the end.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk
 
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Thanks, John. $2,000 is WAY more than it's worth for my use lol. Now, I do have another CDM1250 that I could use to join to my first CDM. Could I still be able to make that bi-directional, having the mobiles transmit to my portable, then from my portable--->mobile--->mountain repeater?? If I did this, could I still use the primary mobile as, well, a mobile?
 

RodStrong

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Another possible option would be this:

iOPT Comm-Tac

However, it ain't cheap either, and you would have to install a second radio in the car.

I have one in my work vehicle and have 4 radios attached to it. I occasionally use it for 800mhz-800mhz patching in situations similar to your needs (as well as other uses). I just dial one of the radios up to a simplex, turn the box on, and patch the simplex to my dispatch channel on the other radio. Talk on the simplex and you are golden.
 
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ndejohn

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You can use two mobile radios and combine them together. I do this currently and I use a Motorola RICK controller. Very effective and not expensive. I think you can get a RICK controller for around $300.00 and with the little leg work, you could have them combined together in no time. With the CDM's, its actually very easy. If you can get your hands on a Motorola CDR500/700 manual, it will tell you step by step how to program the two radios. The only thing it won't tell you is the pin setup for the cables. But, when you buy the RICK controller, it will come with the two cables needed to connect the controller to the two radios.

I have the manual in PDF format that I could probably send to you if you end up going this route. Let me me know. I know this setup will work just fine for you. Just remember, if you do the setup with the two radios make sure you have good vertical seperation with antennas, especially because the two radios will be on the same band. I've built these in a cross band format and they work beautiful.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk
 

RKG

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Pay attention to the man who wanted to ask you more questions.

If you're thinking of a cross-band repeater, two separate mobiles each on its own antenna can be made to work in a vehicular application. The R*I*C*K box works, and can be aligned for bi-directional repeating. I happen to prefer the NIDA RC-400, which is a bit simpler to wire and program.

If, on the other hand, you want to repeat in-band, life is going to get a bit more complicated. Bi-directional repeating in-band is going to require separate antennas, and if they are horizontally separated, you'll need a couple of hundred feet or more of separation, which isn't possible on a vehicle. The solution is to run the two radios on a duplexer, but duplexers are costly and a bit picky to tune, and running two radios through a duplexer precludes bi-directional repeating.
 

wcu02mpa

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VHF Pyramid SVR-200R

I have three VHF Pyramid SVR-200R repeaters available for sale. The software is free from their website and I could build a cable for you for a nominal price. I also have all cable associated with the repeaters. Check my post in the inductry discussion forum. All of them are bench tested and I can can reprogram if you are interested. Contact me in a PM if you are interested in one.

You would just need to find someone to connect it to your existing radio.
 

SteveC0625

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Does anyone have any experience with some of the repeater adapter products from a seller called mre1032 on Ebay? In particular, he offers a bi-directional setup specifically for the CDM's and some of the Radius/MaxTrac radios. I have purchased some accessory connectors and wiring from him with very good results, but haven't tried one of his adapters yet.

RA-2 Repeater Adaptor Motorola GM300 GR300 CDM1250 RICK | eBay

$64 for his cable or $300 for a Motorola RICK. Might be worth a closer look especially for a cross band application.
 

jim202

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As your looking to do an inband repeater, bear in mind you need to come up with a frequency that is as far from your daily channels as you can get. Then your going to need a second antenna on the vehicle to be mounted as far from your prime radio antenna as you can get it. This is all about isolation. This is also why most vehicle repeater packages use a different band to talk to the portable. All the isolation problems go away.


The magic numbers start about 70 to 80 db of isolation. Make sure you understand that when your higher powered mobile transmits what your trying to have relayed from your portable through the repeater, it needs more isolation on the vehicle repeater. As others have said, if you do an inband repeater, you will need some sort of filtering to keep you original mobile transmitter from killing the receiver on the vehicle repeater from hearing anything while it is in transmitting on you mobile frequency.

There is also a technical aspect that you may or may not know about on the vehicle repeater operation. If you do purchase a unit or get a used unit off of a surplus sale, they will be set up correctly. That is when the vehicle repeater is in the TX mode, it will go into RX for brief time to make sure your not trying to talk from your portable. Otherwise, there may not be any break in the in coming signals to the mobile receiver. This way the system automatically checks every couple of seconds to make sure there is no priority signal coming into the vehicle repeater receiver. If nothing there, it will go back to repeating what is coming into your normal mobile receiver.

Another part of a true vehicle repeater operation is it checks to make sure that no other vehicle repeater is operational in the local hearing range. Like if another vehicle shows up on an incident and you have your vehicle repeater turned on, the new comer will signal yours to shut down and the new one will now be the vehicle repeater. Hopefully the new unit will listen to the same mobile channel you had your mobile set up on. If not, guess what, your now talking out on a different mobile mobile channel.

Hope this gives you just a tad bit more information to help you in your project.
 
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