Per KA0PQW (Matt), the 223.940- (100.0 PL) repeater will soon be linked into the HandiHam network. This repeater was linked in for a long time, but the link was taken down when KG0BP (Chris) moved nearly two years ago now.
It seems that N0BVE (Don) has installed a tower at Chris' house for the 1.25M antenna, and that this station will re-transmit HandiHam network traffic to the 223.940 repeater. Likewise, any traffic on the 223.940 will be received by this remote base and linked in through the internet (most likely via EchoLink).
We finally have cross-band linking to 1.25M in the metro! There have been other short-lived efforts to link the band up to the rest of the world over the past year, and many more plans to do so voiced, but this looks as if this will stick.
The 223.940 has very good coverage. Those in the north metro and western Wisconsin that have struggled to get in to the network through 2M or UHF should find it easy to do using 1.25M, and mobile coverage throughout the metro has been pretty solid, in my experience. I've worked the .940 with a 5W HT in my car (using a tri-band whip) from North Branch, and I can certainly work it with 5W into an exterior antenna from here in Plymouth.
Chris also operated the 444.850+ HandiHam repeater out of his home years ago. It's possible that this development could restore that machine to the air before too long. The south metro already has good coverage on UHF from the .325 at the airport and whatever machine is currently running in Chaska. But Chris had told me last November that he planned to use a north-pointing beam on the .850 to eliminate some of the southern coverage redundancies and fill in the gaps of the .650 repeater. That would be good news, because the .650 has spotty coverage (and a maddening two-minute time-out). If the 444.850 could cover more of the UHF-deficient west metro, that would be a plus.
Previously, K9EQ (Chris) has voiced a willingness to host the 224.940 repeater, which has been operating out of a garage in New Brighton for years now. It's possible that another cross-band link (UHF/1.25M) could be in the metro's future.
It's getting a bit late in the year for any dramatic improvements in the landscape, so I'll take what i can get at this point.
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