Steve, Do you do your own repairs to the Tait radios? I have a Tait repeater. Their USA headquarters is about a mile from my home. I took the repeater to them for repair, and they flat out do not work on anything of theirs that is not now narrow band. No exceptions period, not even for amateurs. That sucks, no compassion for us hams. N5ZUA On 9/24/2015 8:15 AM, Steve Zingman wrote:

Being a DSP based radio, the BF888 is a cheap low power analog only RF package. Given the lack of discriminator and modulator access it is limited.

For a receiver the Maxtrac / Radius / GM300 work well. For a transmitter not so much. Heat output and with the Maxtrac, problems with power and deviation control out of band can cause problems without custom firmware or hardware hacks.

My absolute favorite RF gear for Analog / Digital repeaters is Tait. The T800 series is a purpose built programmable Exciter / Receiver package. With access to all the signals anyone would want. I started using them for 927 MHz repeaters and have had great performance on UHF and VHF. Mix and match at will. Pair a VHF receiver with a UHF or 900 MHz transmitter for a nice RF linked receiver site. For link radios simplex nodes and "Hot Spots" I've come to favor the Tait T2000 mobiles. They are easy to program, well documented, lots of IO and run cool in transmit.

The above is not to say there are not a LOT of great repeater / node packages out there. The GE MASTR II comes to mind. I have to mention the Micor to keep the flack down. ;) I've built repeaters using everything from a Motorola 30D to current equipment.

Your mileage may vary.

73, Steve N4IRS