RT97S Portable GMRS Repeater Kit With FRP Antenna

We use the RT97S for events and on our property—it’s compact enough to carry and mount easily, but the coverage is impressive. Works great even in hilly areas.

I use a Retevis 97S for GMRS. I've been pretty happy with it. 5 watts out 3/4 of the way up a hill, I generally get a couple of miles, sometimes more depending on direction, out of it.You don't need to worry about encryption for the repeater if you're not using a controller. It will just repeat whatever goes in.

I set up the RT97S as part of our family’s emergency communication network. With a good antenna and proper placement, we’re getting 15+ miles of clear signal.

Highly recommended for business use!

We use the RT97S for our hunting camp, and it keeps everyone connected. The compact design makes it easy to transport, and the signal is strong even in dense woods.

Installed the RT97S at our farm, and now we have seamless communication across all fields. The range is impressive, and it works flawlessly even in hilly terrain.

I really liked the solid construction and affordability of these radios.

I bought these for use with my non-profit organization. They both worked fine, and I must say that they were easy to program.

I get 20 miles out of the 10W RT97S with a high-quality coaxial cable and a high-gain antenna mounted 37 feet up. The L should get even more. Remember, height, quality coax, and a good antenna make the biggest difference!

Coverage is about 10 miles of HT coverage from my hilltop location and was perfect to meet my goal of connecting family as well as providing a community resource for leisure as well as for future disasters and providing an alternate repeater to our local wide coverage GMRS machine. I've since added a repeaterid.com automated ID device that was plug & play with the RT97's data port as well as a LiFePO4 battery and solar panel so my repeater can remain in operation no matter what mother nature throws at us.

As a long time amateur radio and GMRS operator, I had often considered placing a repeater at my home QTH but always seemed to find an excuse to delay the project. Six months ago today, Hurricane Helene devastated the southeastern US and even my part of NC about 25 miles West of Charlotte was without power, Cell, and internet for days. I was no longer 'on the fence' about a repeater and decided it was time to move forward with the project. After assessing needs, wants, and budget the RETEVIS RT97S was the best choice for me and I placed my order for the bundle that also included a base antenna, coax, programming cable, power adapters (fixed & mobile) and a hand speaker mic for use directly with the repeater. Setup was quick & easy. Audio quality is excellent.

In the area I live, the tallest buildings are about two stories tall and the trees aren't any higher on average. I was able to get my antenna about 45 ft above ground level which makes this actually work.

This repeater is an awesome value for the money it works fantastic on our hunting property, I have it connected to a 12 volt deep cycle battery with a solar panel and charge controller. Built a 20' tall mast out of 2 chain link fence top rails guy wires and a nice gmrs antenna connected with lmr400 coax it's a sweet set up !!! Couldn't be more satisfied with this purchase nice job Retevis I will be purchasing another one for my home property.

If you don't need a lot of power and you want easy setup, this is your device. If you need station ID for allowing public to use, RT97s is the way to go. I have no background in radio and this was super easy to setup with an online video once.

Presently I am getting @ 16 miles coverage in a mountainous area. This summer I will place the unit at about 7000 feet after the snow recedes and should get @ 100 miles coverage. The unit appears to be well made and mine puts out @ 6 watts of power.

The repeater puts out about 5-6 watts of power after the duplexer, as would be expected. When connected to a 6dBi outside antenna, it has decent coverage.

Bought it based on reviews on youtube and have not been disappointed - this thing is cool. Set up in a hilly area with lot of trees and I seem to be getting what would be expected in this terrain and such. Solid coverage over 800+ acres with only a few spots being hit or miss. Has greatly increased comms ability in the area. Using a low-priced omni antenna purchased on amazon as well with no complaints. Shipping direct from manufacturer was quicker than regular post from Florida to Virginia!

The system works great. The repeater has an excellent design. A good value with good performance.

For what it is, this is a great little unit. I haven't done extensive testing on it like some others on here, but it works as intended. I live in the Bay area surrounded by hills and trees and I'm still able to communicate with family members 7 miles away using Radioddity DB20s with both houses surrounded by trees.Disclaimer: As with all things GMRS, line of sight it key so your experience may vary.

This is exactly what I needed. Fits my use case perfectly.

when used with a Comet 712 efc gmrs antenna on a 40 ft tower in a hilly area using mag mount antenna on trucks we reached out 15 miles

Have purchased 3 of these. They are compact and easy to set up. Have used them on my Jeep with a power supply and in an office building to extend range. They work great

About 7 miles range with my 5W GMRS HT in our wooded property. Have great reception and clarity! Work great! I would recommend.

If you don't need much power and want easy setup, this is the device for you. If you need station IDs for public use, RT97s are your best choice. I don't have a background in broadcasting and it was very easy to set up. This is the best repeater I could find for this price.

A portable mobile repeater, which is exactly what I was looking for. It is useful in emergency situations. It's easy to set up and use. Although it is less powerful, this means lower power consumption. More importantly, it costs much less than a “homemade” GMRS repeater system.

It is a portable repeater in a rugged, small metal package. I think a great feature of the Retevis RT97S is its ease of setup and use. It has a built-in duplexer so we only need to use one external antenna. I bought it for family emergency communication setup, but I can also see a lot of use for this unit for emergency communications groups, outdoor enthusiasts, and neighborhood groups.

Our Fire and EMS personnel teams used this repeater system with Retevis handhelds for communication over large areas. The range is great and simple to program. Would recommend these.

So far since i got this product, i used it around our property to test the area with an antenna on my tower to see how well this repeater worked as far as range, we were very pleased, I built an antenna pole/mounting system for our camper that puts the Retevis antenna roughly 20’ above ground allowing great coverage of the whole campground for all our family and other families sharing the repeater, it has been great so far and am very happy with this product and have already recommended to others.

Small GMRS repeater that is easy to use and easy to program. Comes with everything you need to run on AC or DC power in a portable setup. As expected, the repeater puts out about 5-6 watts of power after the duplexer. It has good coverage when connected to a 7.2dBi external antenna.

The GMRS Repeater arrived in great condition - no issues. It works well.

i just received my $409 combo pack of spkrmic/coax/ant everything about a month ago. took a couple weeks to get it here on the slow boat - it took 5 minutes of chirp-type programming to verify the freqs & change 2.5 narrowband to 5kc widerband. it worked here fine.. nobody else to really test it with.. i went 3 miles away to costco & kerchunked it when in the cashier line indoors on my bowfang.. (on 50ft diamond commercial ant on lmr though) i think it's a steal like the $15 bowfang was. now i want to move my life to somewhere where somebody will use it.. like utah, desert, or some island.. now i gotta rethink my whole retirement - audio is awesome/fullbodied/asskickin'