This afternoon, when I got off work, I drove out to Long Lake Regional Park in New Brighton to do some propagation reports for RepeaterBook. It's kind of near the intersection of 35W and 694, to the north-east of Minneapolis and the north-west of St. Paul. I chose this spot because I was familiar with it, and because it allowed me to check the southern and the western suburbs repeaters' range. I used my Yaesu FT-897 with the internal batteries, and I put a battery and "rubber duck" antenna on the PuXing PX-888K that I use as a mobile. This let me give reports for a mobile (with the Browning dual-band) and an HT.
The RepeaterBook propagation reports include your location, the type of antenna (base, mobile, or HT), and the signal strength of the repeater in S-units. It has nothing to do with the amount of power that you use to hit the repeater.
I was surprised at the results. A lot of repeaters that I had thought would be weak instead showed up S9. Even the HT had good results on some repeaters that were fairly distant. The 444.375 N0FWG repeater in Plymouth didn't reach out to New Brighton at all. Neither did the Maple Grove 442.400 KE0L machine. Another no-show was the UHF W0EF 444.125 a mere 15 miles away on the mobile. And the new Maple Lake HandiHam repeater on 145.23 - which is not linked to the network yet - failed to reach New Brighton.
The big western repeater K0LTC 147.000 in Maple Plain was great on the mobile (S9), but only S4 on the HT due to the inferior antenna. Still, that's 23 miles for a VHF hand-held, and it wasn't even an especially elevated location in the park. It makes me want to go further and test the mobile range until it gets down to an S4. Maybe Forest Lake.
The HandiHam VHF 145.450 repeater was S8 on both the HT and mobile, which is a bit better than their coverage map would suggest. That repeater is S9 at my place in Plymouth, which is outside of the specified coverage, but that probably has more to do with the elevation here. The UHF 444.325 on the same network was S7 on the mobile at 17 miles, with nothing on the HT.
The Rogers UHF W0IDS 442.950 continues to impress me at S9 20 miles away on the mobile. The UHF W0EF 444.100 ("dot one") was S7 on the HT and S9 on the mobile at 12 miles, but that short of a distance isn't really putting it to the test. TCRC's W0BU 444.300 washed out at S3 on the mobile over 22 miles. And the LSAC Isanti repeater 443.325 was S4 on the mobile at 28 miles - which is well outside of its rated 20 mile range, but not particularly impressive. By comparison, the Becker KB0RRN 443.475 was S3 at 40 miles on the mobile.
When you get down to S3 and S4, you are on the edge of usefulness. The signal has a lot of noise, and it can easily drop out when you're mobile. Levels of S5 and S6 are still comfortable to work with, and leave some room for fading.
The big "emergency" repeaters on UHF did okay, but they weren't put to any tough tests. The Plymouth 444.500 was a mobile S9 at a mere 14 miles. The Golden Valley 444.175 was also a mobile S9 at only 9 miles. And the Robbinsdale K0YTH 444.775 repeater was S9 at an unsurprising 8 miles on the mobile.
Being closer to Arden Hills ( 2 miles away!) mean that the WINET 442.075 came in at S8 even on the HT. That's hardly surprising, since I get S9 on the mobile here in Plymouth - 13 miles away.
Maybe the biggest VHF disappointment was the Eden Prairie 146.880 that was barely audible for a generous S1 at 20 miles on the mobile. The Bloomington KD0CL147.090 failed to make the trip, too. The Elk River 147.285 was not even there, well within its putative 40 mile range.
It was nice to hear the excellent Stillwater 147.06 at a mobile S9 over 19 miles. TCRC's VHF machine on 147.210 in Burnsville did far better than their UHF offering - S9 mobile at 23 miles. The always-strong Oakdale 146.850 turned in S9 on the mobile at a mere 13 miles. The Minneapolis 147.270 was hardly tested by an eight mile distance for S9 mobile. Likewise with the Little Canada 146.925 over a range of 6 miles (S9, of course).
The W0EF VHF 146.76 was not hard put to give me S9 on the mobile and S8 on the HT over a 12 mile range. The same levels were obtained by the County's 146.700 at 14 miles for mobile and HT.
In summary, the Rogers UHF repeater does very well, even with an HT, though there is absolutely nobody on this fine machine. The VHF TCRC repeater also was impressive, though I didn't test it on the HT.
With the inherently shorter range of UHF, getting a clear signal over 12-15 miles isn't anything to dismiss out of hand. Some repeaters might be able to remain strong over much further distances, though my location wasn't really far enough to find out.
More work still needs to be done, it seems clear. I need to go further east and test the western repeaters especially.
No comments:
Post a Comment