Retevis RT97S Portable Repeater

As far as weatherproofing, this thing along with a small LiFePO4 battery fits just dandy in a standard marine Group 31/24 battery box. Combine that with an N9TAX roll-up J-pole antenna, some coax, an arborist throw bag, and line, and you have a kit for setting it up at a random high spot out in the woods for a few days. The lack of Linux support for the programming software is definitely a problem though.

Them UHF repeaters are nice. I did set one up on GMRS . had to use good coax for UHF . and high gain antenna with some height. only 5 watts appx. after duplexer. the repeater ID can be done from the 9 pin mic port. no plug and play ID yet but maybe some day. the Midland one is the same. you can use one of them repeater ID boards and wire threw mic jack. GMRS ID slightly different than HAM. I put reverse polarity diode and ferrite core on power leads inside unit. you can run a amp with GMRS one. up to 50 watts but have to bypass duplexer and use a external one. a lot of work. they have 50 watt version coming out. just no date on that . UHF is line of sight so a high place works best for repeater. watch for metal budlings near buy. 73's

You possibly get a line over a high tree branch and pull an antenna up high if needed. That looks like a slick idea!

I've seen these units pop up on Amazon and other places, always wondered if they worked well or not, thanks for checking them out! I like you application, also seems like a portable setup for one could be useful for search and rescue teams, something that someone on a dirt bike or four wheeler could buzz up to the top of a nearby hill to provide coverage that way.

That’s a neat product. Thanks for the video

Fun video Jason, the Handheld Speaker Microphone IP55 for Retevis RT97S Repeater is available from Retivis for $29.99 currently with free shipping in the USA. (Just ordered mine). 👍👍

Our local group plans on buying one of these. It will be about 1000' above the valley floor plus the height of the tower where the antenna is. I would expect to get a line of sight of 8-10 miles (probably much further). 73 DE N7ARO

I run macs too, I feel the pain. Have a small laptop in case I need windows.

Windows programming would strongly discourage me from buying this Retevis portable repeater. I recently bought a Retevis RA79 handy talkie, because who doesn't need a dozen cheap dual band radios? Nice build quality for a Baofeng+ radio.

I'm curious how the duplexer works on multiple frequency pairs. Normally a duplexer is tuned to only one pair.

Feed line loss at UHF is very high. Keep that coax from the repeater to antenna as short as possible while getting that antenna as high above average terrain (HAAT) For that reason in the commercial world they have moved to keeping the antenna and repeater integrated and now at the top of the tower/mast. With such a small integrated unit, you could add a lipo battery, short coax to an antenna and have something to raise high into a tree or drop off for the weekend on a high bluff for a nice full duplex repeater. Another simple option for RV and other situations with no cell or Internet is a paint can parrot repeater. 1 gallon aluminum paint can with an NMO antenna on the lid. Inside is a cheap handheld radio and an argent data systems parrot repeater controller. It weighs nothing, completely weather proof, and painted camouflage can be hoisted into a tree, put on the top of the RV, or better yet find a spot to hide it between the RV parking and where the family will be. Last trip I dropped it in a bush at the top stairs leading down to the ocean. I could call my family to dinner with no line of sight between them on the beach and our campsite. That wouldn’t have worked with a repeater antenna 100’ above my RV. For those not familiar with a parrot repeater, you transmit and it records you, then retransmits your audio.

I own the repeater but the early model for GMRS but one of my club member's has that exact model and I have a few ways to have the repeater ID one of them is to have a radio that you don't use much connected to a PC and run echo station and have it ID right through your spare radio or get a raspberry pi and a USB Shari hat transmitter and install asterisk and set it to beacon ID automatically or if you don't have a spare radio get a din to 3.5MM cable connect it between your repeater and your PC and run echo station and have it ID those are my tricks but for mine I just used default tuned frequency and have my GMRS live node transmit to the unit which already has the ID setup

run windows as a vm on your linux box. I do that because I have few things that only run under windows, like my tax program. I use the free versionn of oracle vm.

While I understand and agree with what I assume to be your reasons, it does seem to be a bit shortsighted not to at least have the ability to use Windows. As this illustrates, as much as we'd prefer otherwise, we are nowhere near being able to be fully functional on alternative OS's.

I think that was a fail, when you were driving around. Thank you for testing the repeater and all the work making the video.

To second a question by another here, how does it handle duplexing of the various frequencies for which it can be programmed?

This is the repeater my deer camp group is looking to purchase. What kind of range were you getting with using the HT inside the vehicle? We only need to cover a 5 mile radius max, but terrain makes it hard for us to use HTs without a relay person at the cabin.

Wouldn’t we be better off using the $58 TYT TH-UV8000D handheld it has cross band repeat ? Or using a “manpack” a mobile like the TYT TH-9800 MOBILE RADIO?

How far were you actually able to reach out with the repeater and what did your anyenna setup look like?

Is this a "ham" or GMRS version? Rather pricey, I think. At home there is a hill between our house and the "rest of the world." I use an inexpensive HT (TYT TH-UV8000D), bought new for 60€, with a real 10w output (measured at antenna base) that has crossband repeater functionality It is located in a remote ham shack near the top of the hill. The HT is connected to a Diamond X30N antenna that is mounted on top of a 6.2m aluminum flagpole. My wife on the "home side" of the hill transmits on UHF frequency. The crossband repeater retransmits on a VHF frequency that I then receive. When I transmit on the VHF frequency the repeater retransmits on the UHF frequency that my wife picks up. I tested up to 5 miles away, including obstructions. Signal and clarity were pretty good to very good. This setup is meant for the time when we lose cellphone and internet for a longer period of time and not for day-to-day comms. We use our cellphones for that. But you could use that setup temporarily while camping, RVing etc.