2 Cheap Baofeng's = Cheap Repeater?
My area has a well built out repeater network, but when I came across this youtube video about building a simple repeater, I had to order the $20 cable and try it for myself!
I used this "Simple Walkie Talkie Two Way Relay Box" from Amazon. While waiting for it to arrive, I began to google. The general consensus: why would you do this - and it won't work (or at least will break the radios with any sustained use).
Realistically, they are probably right - compared to the thousands of dollars worth of infrastructure that was maintained by my local club (W4CVY), this would be rather pointless. I wasn't planning on mounting a large antenna (HOA), and using handheld radios (I had been thinking GMRS - where I recently got issued a callsign - could be interesting, but I haven't tried that yet) would not provide much by way of range. They also might "burn out"/break if I used the setup for more than a proof of concept.
It is just that: a proof of concept, and a little afternoon project getting the handhelds programmed and tinkering with radios is fun!
Materials
- UV-5R for the RX radio
- K5-Plus for the TX radio
- Yoidesu K Head Repeater Box, RC 108 for the connection between them
- Some other VHF/UHF radios to test with
Programming / Configuration
The two radios are connected by the repeater box cable, the box in the middle labeling which side is "Receive" and which is "Transmit", so presumably when the RX radio hears audio it enables TX on the other radio and passes through the audio. I looked at my local club's repeater list and found a UHF set of frequencies that would not interfere with anything published, and listened on both to make sure it was quiet while I was programming the handhelds with CHIRP.
The RX radio was programmed to receive on my clients TX frequency with a specific Digital Code Squelch (DCS) code, and dual-watch was turned off. The TX radio was programmed with the clients RX frequency (also with the same DCS code) where other radios would listen, in my case -5.000 MHz from the RX radio.
"Client" radios were programmed with the DCS code, the frequency from the TX radio, with a +5.000 MHz tx offset.
CHIRP Config
The UV-5R was set to REP-IN, the K5-PLUS was set to REP-OUT, and all the clients used CH23 (REP-USE). With the RX radio volume turned all the way up, and the TX radio powered on, it worked!
Results
This is not something that I'll be keeping powered on, or will be getting any practical use out of, but was a fun way to learn about DCS codes and get some experience programming my radios!
73
Ryan, W4RDZ