UHF Repeaters

[bungie]

Ok, simple question but i have got myself in a muddle here.

Going to Moreton Island with a few other 4x4 and all taking UHF hand held (first time using one). There is a repeater at Amity point on stradie. Now to get the repeater to increase my signal/call strength do i need to be inside the reapers radius ie with in 100km or what ever the distance is for that repeater, or does the repeater need to be inside my radius ie 4-6km ??
bungie

[JewseeTHAT]

OK, first, the repeater can only relay your signal if it receives it, so it needs to be within your transmission area, eg 4kms. It will still only work on line of sight, so geographic features may reduce that amount significantly. The other thing to remember is that if you are running on duplex within range of the repeater all of the members of your group must be in the same mode, as the nature of duplex is that the transmission will be retransmitted on a different channel, eg ch 8 is retransmitted on ch 38. Yes sometimes you will still receive if the modes are mixed, but trust me when I say it is not reliable.

[bungie]

ta :)

[rebelone]

Good info from JewseeThat. Just wish that the majority of UHF cb users would learn how the duplex system works. We have a channel 5 (reserved for emergency use only) in our area, I actually helped install it for our local volunteer rescue group several years ago. The problem is that lots of people are using channell 35 within the reception area of the repeater tieing up the repeater with all sorts of crap talk oblivious that their conversation is transmitting for about a 120km radius. Even though you don't need a licence to own and operate these nowdays they are still covered by what is termed a class licence and there are rules and regs attached to this. Basically you are not supposed to use the input frequencies to the repeater channels where there is a repeater in the area. The best way to avoid this is to not use them at all as it takes a bit of doing to check all 8 repeater channels for their presence and even if you do UHF being what it is you might not get a signal in one spot but 10 mtrs further away you will. For those that dont know, the repeater channells are 1 through to 8 and the input chanells are 31 through to 38. That is channell one repeater uses 31 as the input, ch.2/32 ch3/33 and so on. There are 40 channells to choose from so how about leaving the repeater ones alone if you don't intend or need to use them. :'(