Loose Notes 11/26/14

• The 147.390+ pair that K0LAV (Paul) was assigned recently is now "in testing". Per the listing, this new VHF repeater will be cross-band linked to his (1.25M) 224.100- (no tone) machine and his UHF 444.275+ (PL 67.0) repeater. And this whole thing will have access to the RF-linked SuperLink network. The UHF repeater used in this tri-band arrangement is listed as "Closed", so it may end up just being a hub rather than an accessible repeater. The new VHF repeater (operating with a 94.8 tone) has remote receive sites, too. Per a previous on-air conversation with Paul, my strong impression is that he is going in this direction as an alternative to his prior plans of bringing VHF DMR to the metro. So no DMR, but we it looks as if we get 1.25M/2M cross-band FM voice with access to the SuperLink. Keep your ears on this new repeater and give Paul signal reports. EDIT:  Per on an on-air conversation with Paul, I learned that the UHF side of this arrangement functions as an auxiliary link, which is why it's "closed".

• The long-struggling 224.500- (114.8 PL) repeater run by N0FKM (Dan) is on the air again, though it is still struggling and is mostly unusable at the current time. His 224.880- (no tone) machine in Maplewood is actually working, contrary to what I wrote earlier. I was able to bring it up very faintly by re-aiming my Yagi, but it's still very much a "local coverage" repeater. 

• The 443.450+ (123.0 PL) repeater in St. Cloud has had an updated listing, and it now claims to be able to reach into Minneapolis proper (and Coon Rapids, Edina, Minnetonka, etc). I haven't had a chance to give it a try yet, but UHF in the metro seems to be doing very well. It's the actual use of the band that lags behind the infrastructure. Check out the repeater's coverage and maybe add some propagation reports to the RepeaterBook listing so that everyone can get a clearer idea of the actual coverage. EDIT: Per an on-air conversation with K9EQ (Chris), the 443.450 does seem to have wide coverage. What the RB listing fails to mention, however, is that the repeater is D-Star rather than FM voice. EDIT: There was some confusion about this repeater. See this post.