Clay,
just wanted to let you know, I have scraped my use of the 35w as a repeater and went back to normal settings. We had mixed results, to say the least. A couple days it did fantastic, but we got everything in prime positions. A base on an extremely high point on the job, the repeater about 3200’ away and the the LS up to another mile away but imagine drawing a straight line from point A(base) through point B (repeater) to get to points C (random Ls shots). In that scenario it worked fine.
At least three other days where we were “all over” the farm we’re on, with many varying distances from both the 1W base radio and 35w repeater, we didn't have very good luck at all. Constant yellow and red showing up on the signal, sometimes very close to the repeater. There seemed to definitely be some overlapping and confusion of signals.
We had an extremely tough spot on some government monuments on Nolin River that were literally in the side of about a 100’ cliff that we tried to get and had a bear of a day. We’d set a base in the best place possible and, as instructed after setting the repeater about 200’ away, set the power of the 1W radio on its lowest setting. We were only about 1000’-1200’ away from the base for the 3 points we needed and didn’t get one single blip of radio on any of them. Now granted, these were extremely difficult conditions and I know that UHF can’t travel “through the ground” but I’ve gotten signal in places like this for years. Two days later, I had changed my 35w radio back to normal settings, sat it right beside my base as usual and went back to the same three points. The radio didn’t hold 100% by any means, but it did hold some signal at all times on all three points and we were able to collect rtk to verify the strictly PPK points I’d gotten previously.
I’ve tried, unsuccessfully, to get someone, anyone to detail out the exact settings, parameters, wattage settings and proper distances for this setup to work at peak performance and no one seems to know. The fact is, I believe it will be variable based on each and every site and what the 1W signal has to go through and subsequently the 35w as well. If you’re in a “perfect storm” kinda place an it’s just “extending” radio link via a pretty straight line, I think it’s great, but in typical rough, rural farm surveys where you’ll be up, over, around and down, cross/crossing over and through the competing signals, I think it may make it worse instead of better. Just my 23 cents worth.
Therefore, as I said, I’ve completely scratched the repeater setup as of now and am pursuing a different cable and antenna all together to try and help with our never ending radio issues. If I have any success with this new setup, I’ll definitely let you know. One or more of the radio, cables or antenna in the “stock” setup with the HPT435BT just aren’t allowing it to achieve reasonable distances in my opinion. (And if anyone’s wondering, all updates are current, all cables are secure - no pinches, crimps or loose connections. We’ve got three different systems and they all act/achieve about the same distances - maximum of 1 mile - if we’re lucky). I’ve said a million times, I wish I could clone whatever radio was in the yellow brands Hiper GA units. Nothing but an internal 1W and we consistently achieved 3 to 5 miles with those little dudes in the same terrain over the same cliffs and hills.