Loose Notes 4/4/15 - Easter

  I didn't spend a great deal of time on the air this week, but I did spend a fair amount of time in amateur radio discussions off-air. Here's the round-up: 

• KA0KMJ (John) has moved his C4FM repeater to a new site in Dayton (northern metro suburb) about eight miles from his home. The 444.725+ (127.3 PL) hybrid-mode repeater now has a 50W Henry PA, making it the second most-powerful C4FM machine in the metro. The new site is nicely unobstructed and significantly higher, and John has been exploring the improved coverage radius. The machine uses an ARS GasFET RX pre-amp to really clean up signals on the fringe, and it's a welcome addition to the UHF under-served NW suburbs. Don't be fooled by the PL tone; this is an open repeater, and not one of the "emergency" machines. John tells me that a 50W UHF mobile gets him in to the .725 from Zimmerman.

• Last night, I had a brief QSO with John on the UHF .725 while returning home from a birthday party in St. Louis Park. At Hwy 55 and Winnetka, I was virtually unreadable on my 10W mobile (with trunk-lip mounted tri-band whip). That's a very low spot, however, and I chose it specifically to test the coverage. I've always considered it interesting that the County put the 444.175+ (127.3 PL) "emergency" repeater in that vicinity. Once I got on I-169, however, the signal into John's repeater improved -- especially as I gained a little elevation. This is the nature of UHF, and one of the things that I love about the band. It's not "easy". It's also a compelling case for linked repeaters on the band, rather than "monster coverage" machines that attempt to defy the physics of UHF propagation. Also, another QSO with John this afternoon had him getting in readably at 23 miles from I-35W and CR 36. 

•  Coverage reports are also trickling in for the KE0NA/N0AGI cross-band link effort. Using WIRES-X, the 1.25M 223.900- (100.0 PL) and UHF 442.175+ (100.0 PL) have been linked for a few weeks now. At the moment, this is the only 1.25M cross-band action in town. Still no word on when the 223.940- (100.0 PL) machine in Arden Hills will have its link with the HandiHam network restored, either. N0AGI (Nagi) recently reported that KE0NA (Dave) was getting through to the UHF .175 Prior Lake repeater while mobile on the 1.25M .900 -- even as he went through the Lowry Hill tunnel. There have also been scattered reports of activity from distant parts accessing the twin repeaters through WIRES-X.

• The APRS site aprs.fi is back up again after a dust-up with Google over the use of OSM maps on the site. I had expected the site to be down over the holiday week-end, but Google responded promptly.

• Speaking of APRS, the Doers Coop looks as if it is reviving its efforts to use Raspberry Pi (RPi) boards for APRS gateways. If it's successful and documented, turn-key I-Gates could very easily be set up anywhere with internet access. Even rural areas could see gateways implemented with mag-mount 1/4-wave antennae, connected to the internet at libraries, courthouses, schools and vo-techs, and even municipal garages. There are a lot of digipeaters in rural MN, but few gateways. Strategically placing one of these RPi I-gates a few miles from a digipeater would connect local APRS end-users to the rest of the world, and add valuable VHF propagation data to alert hams of VHF tropo openings.

• And, it seems as if AE0RF (Justin) is on a parallel course. He's had AE0RF-10 operating as a receive-only gateway in St. Paul's Payne-Phalen neighbourhood for a few weeks now. His gateway uses RPi, an SDR receiver, and solar power. It was a valuable resource when W0YC-5 went down recently, and it's proof-of-concept for the Doers Coop. Hopefully, Justin can team up with the Doers and we can make this clever solution accessible to the amateur radio community at large. K0LAV (Paul) has also told me of a solar-powered digipeater in Isle, MN.

• Also along these lines, WB0GVI-8 is back on the air with a digipeater near Loring Park. As you can see here, WB0GVI (Noel) is providing fill-in service for the metro, and he routinely reaches the N0AGI gateway in Prior Lake.

• Last weekend, on N0BVE's (Don) 145.230- SNP repeater, I had a nice QSO with WA0DKS (Susie) in southern California. It seems that Don has left the EchoLink node constantly connected to the MN_CONF conference server. The repeater itself is in Chaska, which might make reaching it a challenge for some in the metro.

• N0AGI has put his ARISS I-Gate on the air! The International Space Station (ISS) has about a half-dozen passes over the metro each day, lasting from five to ten minutes each. While it's FM voice function is mostly disabled, it receives FM AX.25 packets (including APRS) on 145.825 regularly. Naturally, a gateway is needed for those packets -- and Nagi has provided one. If you'd like to get in on the fun, see Nagi's "how-to" post on his blog. Work the "digipeater in the sky"!

• KE0NA (Dave) has a short video of activity at the Doers Coop table in the Mid-winter Madness hamfest last weekend. 

•  Over the past week, I've noticed test digipeaters in Maple Plain and Anoka on aprs.fi. Both of these are nice locations to fill in the gaps in coverage and make HT APRS operation possible. 

• The 443.075+ (146.2 PL) machine in Little Falls (WU0S) is now "periodically" connected to the small Central MN linked network (run by DARC). This network links the UHF repeaters in Avon (443.650+), Litchfield (443.800+), and Paynesville (224.800-), and it is accessible through EchoLink (node 925804). This network has always impressed me. UHF can be a "tough sell" in rural areas, and 1.25M is a "tough sell" in general. The 443.475+ in Becker was, at one time, part of this linked network -- and the only part that reached into the metro. N0YNT (Matt) offered to link the network to the local UHF 444.425+ power-house, but DARC wanted to keep their network local in nature. Still, LSAC is making UHF work in northern MN, and western MN is also implementing UHF in rural areas through linked repeaters. And, there's also a linked UHF repeater system in Moorhead. Stand-alone repeaters on the band make a good showing throughout the State.

Well, that's more than I thought that I had when I sat down. There you have it.