There are a couple of things happening with the local repeaters, so I want to get out an update.
K9EQ (Chris) is always "optimising" his multiple repeaters, and it's hard to keep up with the current state of things. Today, however, I noticed his callsign come up on the RepeaterBook Twitter feed with updated info on the 444.075+ (114.8 PL) repeater. If my memory serves, the UHF .075 was previously located in Ham Lake using a 'compromise' antenna. Now it seems that it's in Mounds View (at Medtronic), and using a 100W hybrid digital/analogue IDAS (Icom digital) mode. It's not only running EchoLink (node 428728), but also IRLP (4779). The .075 came back to me S4, here on the opposite side of the metro area.
The 442.600+ (156.7 PL) machine in Maplewood, with excellent coverage across the metro, seems to have developed an audio problem. There's now a fairly strong hum in the transmitted audio. Likewise with the 443.475+ (85.4 PL) machine in Becker. I noticed it yesterday in a QSO with KD0RRA (Travis).
The other interesting bit of information that the RB feed brought me was that one of the local 1.25M repeaters might be returning to the air. Someone, possibly N0FKM (Dan) himself, updated the listing for the Columbia Heights 224.660- (114.8 PL) machine. The .660 is now reported to be in "testing", though I was unable to raise it or hear an ID from it today.
The .660 died a slow, painful death back in November 2013. At one point, it was linked to the Columbia Heights 444.750+ UHF repeater, but the link only worked one-way. Gradually, the receiver got worse, until it took more and more power and a Yagi to even "ker-chunk" it. Then, in December, it began continuously transmitting noise for a week on end. Shortly after that, it was completely dead.
I never got a chance to have a QSO on the 224.660, so I don't know how the audio quality or receiver sensitivity was when it was working. I know that I could "ker-chunk" it from a lot places in the metro while mobile. The listing states that it runs 50W output, which isn't bad. I know from KE0NA (Dave) that the (currently off-air) 224.540- ran 75W, and the .540 had pretty good coverage. The problem with the .540 was the audio, not the RF output. So, based on that experience, I'd think that 50W at 100 feet up could do the job. Just look at how well The Aggrandizer (224.240) does at 25 feet with 40W.
The thing that I always liked about the 224.660, and it's companion 224.500, was their location. The Arden Hills 223.940- is off the to north-east. Despite the repeater's claim of an 80-mile coverage radius, the coverage in the western suburbs is often quite spotty. People out as far away as Maple Plain can reach it, but it takes full power (40W or more), and it's quite scratchy even then. The 223.940 machine is more suited for the east metro out to Minneapolis proper. The Burnsville repeater struggled in the north metro. But the Columbia Heights repeaters reached the western metro very well -- when they worked, of course.
I should also note that N0FKM runs another 1.25M repeater in Maplewood -- the 224.880- (no PL) machine -- that does okay in St. Paul. Out here in Plymouth, though, it's not very useful.
Though it's still far from ready, another repeater has potential to be added to the 1.25M metro scene. The 224.940- (100.0 PL) is still (kind of) working in New Brighton. N0YNT (Matt) and N0TYE (Paul) have hazy plans to restore it at some point, but the site is yet to be determined.
So, there's not quite a compelling case to made at the moment to pick up a 222 MHz rig, there are developments going on behind the scenes that could change things. What's most needed is cross-band capability, so that 1.25M users aren't isolated on just one band. The effort to link the Arden Hills 223.94 machine to the HandiHam network has stalled pathetically for nearly a year. And the Arden Hills repeater suffers from intermod that makes it virtually unusable for hours on end, so maybe it's not so bad that it's not linked. Still, until there is some way for operators on 2M to speak to those on 1.25M, the band will continue to be a "hard sell". UHF linking and EchoLink capability can help, but the promise that the HandiHam link offered was two-metre access.
Relatively powerful (45W) monoband 1.25M rigs are now available for the same price as VHF and UHF models. Cheap HT's are out there, too. The issue isn't the hardware.
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