DMR Communications Problems
DMR communications have been disappointing, as we battled to trigger the repeater. We hoped that this was due to a faulty antenna. Also, the routing problem was still there as we could not be heard on the Durban DMR. We (ZR5S and ZS5ML) went to the repeater this afternoon armed with connectors and another second hand antenna.
We found that the tx connector was faulty – badly corroded, and it looked like the cable on the outside had a nick in it. We cut back the braiding until it was acceptable – still some corrosion but not too bad. The cable will need to be replaced sometime in the future.
After the new connector was fitted, the swr was good once more – about 1.5:1 on uhf and 1.1:1 on vhf. Shaun also reprogrammed the repeater to change the time out timer (TOT) from 1 minute to 3 minutes, and change the tx power from 10W to 25W.
It certainly is working much better now. I can trigger it from my yard using 4W. It’s not line of site.
