More UHF repeater stuff

Well, my update for the Plymouth .375 never even showed up on RepeaterBook. That's just as well, because that machine is back up!

It's too bad that N0FWG was down, because I was fairly far afield last night and it would have been a good test for coverage. As it was, though, I got a better idea of the coverage on a few other repeaters.

Another mysterious repeater is the Coon Rapids .550 (443.550+, 114.8, KD0ORH). I haven't heard anything on this machine for months, and I was unable to reach it last night from a number of locations. I haven't yet set up the Yaesu this afternoon, but Coon Rapids isn't that far away.

Okay, so I took a break and set up my 20W UHF Yaesu FT-897. Using the offset and PL tone on the RepeaterBook listing, there is no response from this repeater. Considering that I can reach Isanti, River Falls, and Chaska from Plymouth using that much power on UHF, I am confident that the utter lack of a "ker-chunk" proves my suspicions correct. The listing says "testing", but the bottom line is that it's not working.

My LMR-400 cable came today, so I am going to make a pigtail and solder it on to my new UHF Yagi from Centerfire Antennas. With that, I'll be able to reach the LSAC repeaters when I'm camping, or maybe do some satellite work. It might be fun to play with some UHF SSB simplex this fall, or some PSK-31. I don't have any expectations, but I should make the most of the crummy bands that a Technician can operate on.