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What should I get as a 50w repeater?

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DylanMadigan

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Hello, not too sure if this is the best section for posting this, but I am looking to get a 50w repeater to use for GMRS (I figure most UHF repeaters cover the ham and gmrs bands).

I have the antennas and cables, but the repeater is just a couple of Motorola CDM1550s linked together. They work fine, but I am looking for something that is ment for this job.This was something I just threw together, now I would like something that is a bit more permanent and dedicated to this (plus I can put these two radios into some vehicles).

Quite a few people have come up to me and made suggestions and gave me websites, but I figure its best to ask the pros, what should I use as my repeater? All I really need is something that rebroadcasts and can broadcast my license (Hopefully on a seperate PL) (because 90% of the repeater users are under my lic). I think I know enough to do this on my own, but with little experience, I would rather play it same and not make any mistakes that I'm sure others have already made.

As I stated, I will keep the antennas and LMR cables, I'm just replacing the two CDMs that are currently acting as a repeater. Thank you for your help.
 

N4GIX

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If you want to do it right, buy a new repeater that is of commercial quality and comes with a good warranty. I have had a BridgeCom BCR-40U online for almost six months now and have been quite happy with its performance.

BTW, there is a separate forum here for FRS/GMRS.
BridgeCom_BCR_20140218.jpg


https://www.bridgecomsystems.com/collections/bcr-repeaters/products/bcr-40du
 

DylanMadigan

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Thank you, but is the 40w output instead of the 50 allowed going to impact my tx range significantly? Being I can only mount the repeaters to a house and not a tower, I do already have a relatively small area, just enough to cover our town.

Also I wasn't sure if the one GMRS section was the best place to ask about a repeater, being the unit is the same, I'm just operating on a diffrent freq. Next time I'll post there though, ty.
 

wyShack

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While power is a factor, it is not as much as you would think. My experience has been anything over about 20-25 watts on UHF has little effect on range. You are running a repeater, so I would have to say that the big difference would be in duplexers and antenna. If you are getting 15-20 watts to the antenna, more will have little effect. getting the antenna 10 feet higher would likely have a bigger effect on usable range than an extra 10 watts out of the transmitter. In particular if you are planning on handhelds using the repeater, your receive 'coverage' will matter more than the extra transmit power.
 

N4GIX

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Thank you, but is the 40w output instead of the 50 allowed going to impact my tx range significantly? Being I can only mount the repeaters to a house and not a tower, I do already have a relatively small area, just enough to cover our town.
Honestly the difference between 40 and 50 watts is a moot point. As a matter of fact, I've deliberately reduced the power on my repeater to 15 watts to provide a better balance between transmit range and receive range.

My repeater is currently located at my house and the antenna is at a 42' height. I am looking for a permanent home with at least 100' height for the antenna. At that point I'll raise the power to again bring the system into proper balance.

There's no point in having a "Gator Mouth" transmitter with a "Mouse Ears" receiver after all. The only way to increase the receiver's range is more height, a commercial quality duplexer, and the absolute lowest loss cable and connectors you can buy.

BTW, there is absolutely no requirement for the repeater to ID itself, since it is not "licensed" like Part 90 repeaters are. However, I do have my repeater set up to auto-ID every 15 minutes mostly for my own peace of mind 'cause it lets me know that it's still running! :D
 
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DylanMadigan

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wyShack you bring up a good point with the hand helds, i have thought of that because most of my system is handhelds and just a few vehicles. But the 10ft vs 10w idea really opens my mind lol, id rather put the effort into getting a larger antenna base and brackets instead of trying to find that more

N4GIX thank you, and what do you have set up for your antenna mast? I just have a few pipes stacked on top of eachother but i dont want to overload my brackets.
 

N4GIX

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N4GIX thank you, and what do you have set up for your antenna mast? I just have a few pipes stacked on top of each other but i dont want to overload my brackets.
It's easier to show than tell... ;)

The GMRS antenna is on the left side (front of the house). It is a 10' mast in a roof-mount tripod. A dual-band 2m/70cm antenna is in the center, and another dual-band antenna is being installed on the far side of the chimney, replacing an old 6m antenna that is no longer being used.

Not seen is a 20' steel pipe mast at the front of the house that has a UHF copper J-Pole antenna for bench testing radios.
qqV7s.jpg
 

SCPD

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Hi Dylan-
You didn't specify any budget -- I am going to assume it is modest. We have an older Motorola XPR 8300 UHF repeater that has done exceptionally well- But then what else could you not expect from Motorola? ;) - (this one is in the 406-420 band but I know they come in 450-470Mhz, and used I think they sell reconditioned for ~$800.) Its 50 watts output- with super isolation between Xmt/Rec.- no intermod, etc..... Low power handhelds can access it from 30 miles out - though it has a high transmitter site.
For what it is worth, this has my recommendation.
......................CF
 

cmdrwill

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Coyote, the XPR8300 repeater has really poor heatsinking and a rather in efficient fan. We have had some burn up running above 20 watts.

The Bridgecom is better and can run a larger duty cycle. And IS type cert for GMRS.

The CDM radios do not do well at repeater transmit duty cycles, again piss poor heatsinking.
 

N4GIX

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The Bridgecom is better and can run a larger duty cycle. And IS type cert for GMRS.
The BridgeCom actually has two fans; one that sucks in outside air and blows across the transmitter's heat sink, and another that exhausts air directly behind the power supply. It moves the air inside at a diagonal from right front to left rear of the enclosure.

They may be set for continuous running or carrier operation. I have the hang time on the repeater set for 8 seconds to prevent the transmitter from cycling on/off so frequently. I've had more than hour long QSOs with no sign of overheating or stress even while running at the full 40 watts.

Now that I've turned it down to 15 watts, I'm not the least bit concerned about burning it up.

BTW, I should add that the folks at BridgeCom are fantastic at support! I had a storm come through a few weeks ago and lost the power supply in the repeater. It continued running off backup power for several hours before the battery ran down.

I called Ron and had a new power supply mailed and installed within three days under warranty. In the meantime, I ran the repeater off of my Yaesu 50amp supply.
 

SCPD

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"Coyote, the XPR8300 repeater has really poor heatsinking and a rather inefficient fan. We have had some burn up running above 20 watts."

Ohhhhhhh My !........... that's not good thing............lol :(
.
That little Motorola sits in a rack in a back room, maybe we haven't cooked it (yet!) because it has a very limited use... probably measured in minutes per day. At the the same time, Cmdrwill, thanks for the Alert.... I will pass it on to the Tech's and maybe they will power it down to a safer level (they get upset with me if I touch their things :)..... I don't think it has to run full bore at 50 watts..........
.
..............................................CF
 

W8UU

Pilot of the Airwaves
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Wellston Ohio USA
Anyone have experience with these recycled commercial units?

mccrpt.com

I know they're old but they are built like a tank.

Rick, W8UU and KAE-9978
 

N4GIX

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Anyone have experience with these recycled commercial units?

mccrpt.com

I know they're old but they are built like a tank.

Rick, W8UU and KAE-9978
GE Master II radios were indeed "built like a tank." While I've never dealt this this company, as a long ago owner of a GE Service Station in South Texas, I gained a lot of experience with full-on GE Master II repeaters, which use essentially the same modular components in a much larger form factor of course. Our repeaters typically included a 500 watt amplifier because of the huge footprint required of them.

I would note that the ones they custom build do not include a power supply or duplexer, so that would be yet another added expense. The major drawback is that since they are crystal controlled, changing frequencies is not a quick, trivial or inexpensive matter.
The cost of recrystallizing a repeater is $120 plus shipping ($25 in USA).
 

radioman2001

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If you are going to go with older commercial equipment I would recommend a Mot MSR2000, MSF5000 or even a Micor, and not a converted GE mobile radio. The MSF is computer programmable if you get the later version, and sometimes come with a built in duplexer. The other require crystals, but you will never have any problems with them.
I actually have 2 MSF-5000 on GMRS
 
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n1das

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Coyote, the XPR8300 repeater has really poor heatsinking and a rather in efficient fan. We have had some burn up running above 20 watts.

The Bridgecom is better and can run a larger duty cycle. And IS type cert for GMRS.

The CDM radios do not do well at repeater transmit duty cycles, again piss poor heatsinking.

I have had some experience with Bridgecom repeaters and and they are junk, IMHO. Actually they are OK however they are not what I would want to use. A friend of mine had a few of them in service as community repeaters for some of his Part 90 business customers and they didn't last long at high duty cycles. The Bridgecom is something cobbled together using a pair of 40W mobiles instead of something specifically designed from the ground up to be a repeater. That's the problem with a Motorola XPR8300. Mobiles in general aren't designed for the demands of repeater service unless you heatsink them well and seriously de-rate their power output. The Bridgecom mobiles are no better than the Motorola CDM mobiles. My friend ended up replacing the Bridgecom repeaters with Icom FR-3000 (VHF) and FR-4000 (UHF) repeaters and they were rock solid reliable and he ran them for years at rated output. He has since replaced the VHF repeaters with Icom iDAS 6.25k NXDN digital repeaters and the UHF repeaters were replaced with Hytera DMR digital repeaters and they also have been rock solid reliable.

Several Kenwood repeaters are worth checking out and have Part 95 type acceptance in addition to Part 90. These are: TKR-820, TKR-850, and NXR-800 series models. The NXR-800 series models do NXDN 6.25k and 12.5k digital in addition to plain old legacy analog.

I have previously used a Kenwood TKR-820 and a TKR-850 on GMRS. The 820 was bulletproof reliable and I later sold it to ham friend who is GMRS licensed and still has it in service on GMRS. The 820 is wide bandwidth only and I wanted narrow capability to solve adjacent channel splatter problems from bubble pack users on the upper FRS channels adjacent to the input frequency. I used the TKR-850 in narrow mode and it worked well.....when it worked. Early version TKR-850s were notorious for PA problems and mine was one of them. It had the PA repaired a total of 4 times before it was reliable. The first 2 times were by Kenwood under warranty and the last 2 times were by me. It has been bulletproof reliable since. Kenwood has since fixed the PA issues with an updated PA board design since the early Version 1 PAs had a nearly 100% failure rate. If you get a TKR-850, make sure it is a newer Version 2 unit to avoid having PA problems with it. Mine was an early Version 1 unit. It is still in service at my friend's house.

I have also used an Icom IC-FR4000 UHF repeater on GMRS for a while and it worked well. An FR4000 is worth checking out. It is built like a brick schytehouse since it is specifically designed to be a repeater and not something cobbled together from a pair of mobiles.

I have a Hytera RD982U-1 UHF DMR repeater (50W) on GMRS at home. It is programmed for analog only mode for GMRS. I need to get the antenna up on a tower at home to give it some coverage. I'm also using DCS/DPL instead of CTCSS/PL to help keep the riff raff out of it. It has been said that DPL also stands for "Definitely Prevents Losers". :) If the FCC someday destroys GMRS by de-licensing and turning it into a bubblepack only service, the Hytera repeater will get re-purposed as a 440 ham repeater. I already have a Motorola MOTOTRBO SLR5700 repeater at home on 440 and I wouldn't mind having another DMR repeater to play with on 440.

Out of all of the repeaters I've had in service on GMRS over the years, the Kenwood TKR-850 has the best repeat audio quality IMHO.
 
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prcguy

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The radios in the link are mobile radios modified for use as a repeater. Maybe ok for ham stuff but its not a real repeater. About 20yrs ago my GMRS group standardized on GE Master II repeaters, actual repeaters and not modified mobiles.

The GE Master IIs have a reoccurring receiver problem were dissimilar metals in a front end cavity casting reacts with some steel fingers and every 5 or so years I have to take them all apart and clean the mating surfaces and then they are ok for a long time. These repeaters were well used when we got them and are probably 30+ years old now and except for the known receiver "gunge" problem they have never failed.
prcguy


GE Master II radios were indeed "built like a tank." While I've never dealt this this company, as a long ago owner of a GE Service Station in South Texas, I gained a lot of experience with full-on GE Master II repeaters, which use essentially the same modular components in a much larger form factor of course. Our repeaters typically included a 500 watt amplifier because of the huge footprint required of them.

I would note that the ones they custom build do not include a power supply or duplexer, so that would be yet another added expense. The major drawback is that since they are crystal controlled, changing frequencies is not a quick, trivial or inexpensive matter.
 

jim202

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The radios in the link are mobile radios modified for use as a repeater. Maybe ok for ham stuff but its not a real repeater. About 20yrs ago my GMRS group standardized on GE Master II repeaters, actual repeaters and not modified mobiles.

The GE Master IIs have a reoccurring receiver problem were dissimilar metals in a front end cavity casting reacts with some steel fingers and every 5 or so years I have to take them all apart and clean the mating surfaces and then they are ok for a long time. These repeaters were well used when we got them and are probably 30+ years old now and except for the known receiver "gunge" problem they have never failed.
prcguy

Have you tried spraying some clear coat on the inside of the helical cavity's? This will reduce the growing of the crystalline whiskers that chemically grow and cause the cavities to de-tune and cause receiver sensitivity to got to crap. Clean them out, getting rid of any crystal growth and then spray them.
 

Project25_MASTR

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The difference between 50W and 40W is not even 1 dB…it's really a non trivial level.

Some companies can do mobile based repeaters right, others can't. Simoco does a pretty good job…their DMR repeaters are mobile based and there has not been a single recorded PA failure in the US even when running as a control repeater in a Tier III arrangement at full power.

I'd avoid crystal controlled repeaters. Before Bomar shut down radio crystal manufacture the other year you could get crystals for $25. Now the only manufacturer is ICM at double the price plus for GMRS you will want it frequency compensated which doubles the price (so that's $200 spent just ok channel elements).

Quantars can be had for under $1000. Icom's FR8000 sells for $800 (narrow only). MTR2000 and MTR3000's are in the same neighborhood used.


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prcguy

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I have been wiping the the mating cavity and finger parts with Caig Deoxit R5 when I do maintenance. Not sure if I want to coat with something that would be difficult to remove but I'll do some research on what others are doing.
prcguy

Have you tried spraying some clear coat on the inside of the helical cavity's? This will reduce the growing of the crystalline whiskers that chemically grow and cause the cavities to de-tune and cause receiver sensitivity to got to crap. Clean them out, getting rid of any crystal growth and then spray them.
 

prcguy

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Not sure what I spent 20yrs ago for ICM crystals in my GE repeaters, but its worth $200 (to me) to have a repeater stay within frequency spec for 20yrs without touching it.
prcguy


The difference between 50W and 40W is not even 1 dB…it's really a non trivial level.

Some companies can do mobile based repeaters right, others can't. Simoco does a pretty good job…their DMR repeaters are mobile based and there has not been a single recorded PA failure in the US even when running as a control repeater in a Tier III arrangement at full power.

I'd avoid crystal controlled repeaters. Before Bomar shut down radio crystal manufacture the other year you could get crystals for $25. Now the only manufacturer is ICM at double the price plus for GMRS you will want it frequency compensated which doubles the price (so that's $200 spent just ok channel elements).

Quantars can be had for under $1000. Icom's FR8000 sells for $800 (narrow only). MTR2000 and MTR3000's are in the same neighborhood used.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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