ryan on Nostr: To add on to this, I’ve run a repeater before on 900 MHz using old Motorola paging ...

To add on to this, I’ve run a repeater before on 900 MHz using old Motorola paging gear. The thing put out 225 W forward but I had to dial that back to about 150 W because of desense issues with the receiver.

I approached my repeater coordinator and asked if they’d even coordinate it on a non-standard split (430.15/439.15). Surprisingly they answered saying they’ve never had a request for such a low powered repeater before. The end result was don’t use the 9 MHz split and stick with the standard 5 MHz split. My concern was that using a 5 MHz split with an inexpensive flat pack duplexer would have more insertion loss. Maybe it wouldn’t matter that much.

The big red flag that I’ve had so far is that the hotspots aren’t set up to handle power outages very well. Maybe I can modify the thing so it will survive power outages with minimal issue.