Trying to make a repeater

[Zach489]

As cheap as these things could run on ebay I'm sure its just easier to buy a Maxtrac or GM300 repeater already built. But I have a highpower MCS2000 that I spent $400 on for my car and then got sick of it so I took it out. I have a spare Maxtrac 32 channel 16 pin and I was wondering if it's possible at all to make the Maxtrac a receiver and the MCS the transmitter. I 100watt repeater would be pretty sick. Any ideas?

[Josh]

As cheap as these things could run on ebay I'm sure its just easier to buy a Maxtrac or GM300 repeater already built. But I have a highpower MCS2000 that I spent $400 on for my car and then got sick of it so I took it out. I have a spare Maxtrac 32 channel 16 pin and I was wondering if it's possible at all to make the Maxtrac a receiver and the MCS the transmitter. I 100watt repeater would be pretty sick. Any ideas?

Yes, you could make something capable of repeating signals using the maxtrac and MCS2000 with either a RICK or other repeater controller.

BUT, the MCS2000 wasn't designed to be a continuous duty transmitter, which is desirable for repeater operation. Running it at higher than 5/5/90 duty will burn up the PA in no time.

Ok, so you lets say you do have it wired up to be a basic repeater. Now you need to get a duplexer capable of handling the split and the 100 watts output. Most smaller "mobile duplexers" made for repeaters like the GR300 for instance are good for up to 50 watts.

You'll also need the coordination of a repeater split for your area, depending on the use.

[Bill_G]

Ah yup, what Josh said. So you get a Maxtrac repeater with about 30w (+45db) to the duplexer with a 2db insertion loss for about 20w to the antenna. You change out the xmitter with your 100w MCS, and you find a better duplexer. 100w in / 65w out to the antenna or +50db in / +48db out which is 5 db more than before. You could put a 6db gain antenna on the Maxtrac rptr and get a similar performance, and you wouldn't have to figure out how to make it all work, and you wouldn't have to find another duplexer. 5db in a mobile can make a big difference sometimes. 5db in a repeater may or may not. That's why those Maxtrac rptrs were so popular.

[patbrown23]

I made a crossband repeater for my truck using VHF and UHF GM300 radios. All you have to do is use a premade interface which costs little as nothing. I have the UHF radio on a switch that turns on and off when I want it to. Also, since it is mobile, I soldered a few wires on the PCB so that I could still use an external speaker.

http://www.dxhamfest.com/mysearch/?s=gm ... +interface