It was after 9 PM when I heard some "ker-chunking" on the 223.940 machine. I threw out my sign, and N2PSR (Matt) came back. He had just spun together a home-made ground-plane antenna for the 1.25M band, set it up inside his home, and connected it to an HT (walkie-talkie) for a few tests. Being in Mounds View, he hardly put the Arden Hills repeater to the test at roughly 3 miles distance. Even at 1/5 of a watt he was clear, though not "full quieting" at that level. Still, for an internal antenna powered by a few watts, it was impressive.
What was more impressive to me, however, was the performance of the 223.940 machine. I was getting an S9 signal from 13 miles away in Plymouth, and Matt was on the other side of the metro. It makes me wonder just how far the .940 really reaches. Still, I was using a 3-element Yagi, and maybe that was giving me an inflated notion of the repeater's performance. After some talk, I asked Matt if he would try the Burnsville 224.500 repeater for comparison. Though I've hit it several times, I've never talked to anyone over it and had no idea how well it performs. Matt and I were both about 20 miles from the Burnsville machine, though on opposite sides of town, and he had an arrangement (interior antenna, HT) that would challenge the .540 repeater. With my ten watts and a Yagi, I expected good results.
There was quite a difference, and not in favour of the TCRC's .540 repeater. In fairness, my Yagi was still facing east, rather than south-east towards Burnsville. That made the repeater's signal about S6 instead of the usual S9 I get from the machine ID when the antenna is facing south-east. Matt made it into the machine, a 20-mile trip, though scratchy. Here I was, though, running ten watts and getting a report of weak audio from Matt. And his audio was markedly worse than what the .940 machine gave me. It wasn't just weaker, it sounded compressed and tinny. As I said, I've never actually had a contact on that machine before, so I had no idea how it sounded. Without turning my beam to face the Burnsville repeater, I guess that I can't make a hasty judgement on its coverage, but I expected a lot better.
I still haven't had a contact on the Maplewood or Mounds View machines, though I can "ker-chunk" them just fine. I don't get the Maplewood machine's CW ID at full quieting, and there's not a substantial difference in distance between Mounds View and Arden Hills. Maybe I can get Matt to make a test of those repeaters in the future, as he plans to mount his new 1.25M ground-plane outside and he's much, much closer to both of them than I am.
The only other test that I've had of the Arden Hills .940 repeater is with KG0BP, when he was on an HT inside of his home. At roughly 13 miles, he was not readable into the repeater, but he was using a "rubber duck". He could read me just fine, though. Actually, I've also spoken with KA0PQW (Matt) over the .940 when it was still set up for cross-link, and he came through very well. But he has a superior set-up, and that's to be expected.
So far, I'm really liking the 223.940 repeater. The audio is strong and clear, and the coverage hasn't disappointed me yet. Obviously, I need more contacts in different areas, with rigs of different quality, to evaluate it fairly. But I can hit it easily and I can be heard clearly 13 miles from the machine, and I know that it reaches me at full strength 20 miles away. Once the Columbia Heights 224.500 repeater gets fixed and runs cross-band to UHF again, 1.25 metres will be more than viable. And the 223.940 repeater will, at some point, run cross-band to the HandiHam network. That means two metres and 70cm coverage for anyone that can hit the .940 machine.
One thing that N2PSR told me about was the new 220 MHz repeater due to come on-line in Paynesville, MN. From the QRZ.com page of N0JBN, I found the following:
You found our Central Minnesota Echolink NØBJN-L on the Avon 443.650 + FM Repeater & the KCØCAP-R Litchfield 443.800 + FM Repeater.
Soon we'll be joined by the KDØILS-L Paynesville 224.800 - Repeater.
We're linking together these Central MN Repeaters to allow out of range stations to connect with us & bring more conversations to these repeaters, that were way too quiet.
This is part of the central MN linked network that I've written about before . There was some excitement over the summer about four repeaters (Little Falls, Avon, Litchfield, and Becker) being linked via EchoLink and providing continuous coverage, along with a linked VHF machine at Becker.
The UHF machine at Becker works, and I can hit it (barely) from my (4W) mobile, but it isn't linked.
I'm completely incapable of hitting the VHF repeater at Becker, in spite of its vaunted 600' tower. If I can hit the UHF machine with 4W and a 1/4-wave mobile antenna, it seems odd that I can't reach a VHF machine from home with a 5/8-wave and 50W. Really odd. Almost like "the repeater is down" kind-of-odd. Yet the page brags about this awesome repeater, which makes me wonder how credible it is.
Don't get me wrong -- I think that it's absolutely fantastic that there's all of this activity, and it's not easy to pull a network like this together. I'm just saying that the QRZ page of N0BJN could stand a little updating before I get enthusiastic over a new 1.25M repeater.
At some point, though, I expect things to coalesce with DARC. Things will get linked, machines will be working, and there will be cross-band and wide coverage that could rival HandiHam's metro network. This would be a linked network from Little Falls to Litchfield -- and including the putative VHF repeater at Becker -- that would be accessible through the internet and operate on three bands. The addition of digital repeaters and integration with the MN 53A reflector gives it an edge over both HandiHam and LSAC. It's remarkably forward-thinking and flies in the face of those still operating under a model relevant thirty years ago.
UHF in the rural areas is a "tough sell" under the thirty-year-old model. Still, repeater slots are fairly easy to get from the MRC, commercial equipment is out there, and cheap UHF rigs are commonplace. UHF rigs weren't that easy to find thirty years ago, and the range is smaller than what you can get from two metres. But, once you abandon a model that places simplex operation as supreme, you can see the opportunity of UHF: smaller antennae on homes and vehicles, less RF power needed, less interference, and ease of creating links. Linked repeaters largely eliminate the inherent advantage of VHF, which is longer range. And, during winter in Minnesota, UHF really shines because there are no leaves to attenuate the signals. There's less opportunity for a UHF signal to bounce off tall buildings and reach otherwise-obstructed areas, but VHF doesn't bounce at all.
The 1.25M band has a lot of obstacles to overcome before it's a viable rural alternative, but it has advantages from the user side. Antennae are still pretty small, propagation is closer to that of VHF (while still bouncing less efficiently than UHF), and gear is available (though not nearly as much as two metres).
Two metres is still firmly mired in the old model of thirty years ago, and that makes it hard to take advantage of it when crafting a new approach for rural areas. Repeater slots are taken up by clubs of old men that despise EchoLink, have contempt for linking repeaters, and still see simplex as "the way to go". If you don't have a twelve-foot wide beam on a tower, then you aren't a serious ham, in their minds. And the whole idea of FM is disdained, really. A "real" ham is on HF, after all. FM is for "emergencies", like SkyWarn nets.
LSAC has decent VHF coverage, but their growth has come from UHF. Likewise with HandiHam, linking UHF simplex nodes from far-flung areas to the metro-area network.
Adding 1.25M coverage to a linked repeater network is still more of a favour to the band than it is to the network. There aren't that many hams on 220 MHz, but it will stay that way until repeaters are available for people to talk on the band. It's my hope that the availability of relatively cheap Chinese HTs that include 220 MHz will increase viability of the band in the same way that dual-band BaoFengs made UHF accessible to new hams that otherwise would have limited themselves to two metres. Normally, the promotion of 1.25M would increase the fragmentation of hams into different, incompatible bands. But the linked, cross-band nature of these linked networks results in the opposite. If someone invests in a 220 MHz rig, they can still talk to people on the other bands through the linked network. And this ties the 220 MHz user into the linked network, rather than having to compete for that ham's air time with other repeaters.
Last, the integration of EchoLink into these linked networks makes them far more attractive to newer hams than the two metre "old model" repeaters. It becomes for possible for hams from all over the world to talk to local people on the linked network, and it allows people that normally are on the air locally to talk on the network when they are out of town. What a gaggle of geezers define as 'real' ham radio is less and less relevant as viable options increase. As hams become able to reach linked networks from an HT at their lake cabin, or vacationing at State parks or private resorts -- and establish connections with other hams on the drive up or back home -- the hobby could make a critical leap from being the domain of geeks and geezers and swing toward a more stable demographic. Also, as more people find that they can use a $40 HT to talk to their family out on the water (marine VHF), as well as people hiking with GMRS, and interesting strangers across a wide area on ham radio, ham radio becomes more attractive to the average person. Not HF, which would threaten the entire "exclusivity model", but local FM instead.
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