VHF repeater in Paynesville now operational

There's more VHF news in Central MN than the Becker 147.345 restoration.
The Paynesville VHF 145.270- (no PL) repeater is back on the air after seven months of silence. It's on the same site as the 224.800, up 200 feet.

Here's a map for some perspective:

This morning, I received an email from N0BJN (Rick) with the announcement:

Today we were successful on returning the Paynesville

145.270  - Repeater to it's permanent home in Paynesville

on it's 200' antenna. It works mint ! Please try it & chat with us. 

The signal reports so far are my mobile holding
it all the way to Little Falls. Shannon in St Joe can work

it with 5 watts on a HT. Dave in Freeport held it all the way home.     Larry worked it from Rice mobile. Here in Little Falls I can work it & it comes back S8. Kevin KBØNMN worked it from Foley & said it's full scale at his house. Peter & Nick mobiliing thru St Cloud hit it pretty good.

If this repeater can reach Little Falls and Foley, then it certainly can reach places like St. Cloud, Willmar, Hutchinson, and Alexandria. I wasn't able to hit it from here in Plymouth, but my station is hardly a power-house. So I prevailed upon one of the blog's guest writers, KD0KJI (Al), to try to reach the Paynesville VHF repeater. He pumped 50W into a CushCraft beam with 10 dB gain, but failed to reach it. So this new repeater won't have much of an impact here in the metro, though it's option for those travelling on I-94, Hwy 10, and Hwy 12 into central Minnesota.

It's unclear if there will be EchoLink access to this VHF repeater, or if it's linked to the UHF/1.25M machines in Avon and Litchfield.

Rick also included a picture of the site at Paynesville:

With the addition of the Becker 147.345+ (85.4 tone), and the planned restoration of the LSAC network this year, "outstate" Minnesota is rapidly developing its infrastructure and capabilities.