Recommendations for replacement dual band mobile

[pir8p3t3]

Thanks again for all the feedback. I had a chance to play around with a 710 this weekend, and I think I have pretty much landed on buying that set.

 

[DaveInDenver]

Not so sure about that. The kenwood D710 has an ident feature in repeater mode.


Every Day is a Good Day Surfing...Some are just Better Than Others

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Gary is right, even the 710 isn't fully legal. The self ID feature only identifies in one direction, whatever call sign you enter into menu 406. It cannot identify the received signal, e.g. the other ham or repeater that you'd RX on your HT. So it's not possible to retransmit that signal legally unless the other station knows he's being x-band repeated.

Being a cross band repeater it's transmitting on two frequencies and both need identification. When you're talking it's (probably) U->V and when the other station is talking it's V->U back to you.

Kenwood's implementation is better than Yaesu insofar as it is legal in half duplex mode as a range extender. But it's not a fully legal, stand alone repeater. It also has no provision for a remote control so it can't be left unattended. The main advantage (other than the ability to add a call sign) over Yaesu is it can be configured explicitly to do half duplex, which really is handy. Yaesu requires you to play tricks to get it do half duplex, which would otherwise be legal by you just identifying both frequencies.

It can be a thin traditional repeater, one frequency in, one frequency out. It can't be legal full duplex. Nothing really can unless everyone knows it's happening and can add the correct ID.