Loose Notes 11/14/15

   It's been another week, and I'm ready to tell you what I've found out over the course of the week. 

• The TCRC's 224.540- (100.0 PL) 1.25M repeater is back on the air! KE0NA (Dave) and I gave it a test spin on Friday night (11/14), and it's working well. I was able to work the repeater with 10W into a tri-band whip on my balcony for an S8/S9 signal from here in Plymouth, and Dave got a similar signal in NE Minneapolis. Word on the street is that the TCRC bought a brand-new Bridgecom BCR-220 repeater. The BCR-220 is a relatively new product in a market where gear for the 1.25M band can be hard to come by -- even old stuff. For about $1000, you get a 30W repeater (including power supply, free programming, and battery backup). It even has a built-in CW ID, so you don't need a controller for basic operation. I know that the TCRC had a 75W PA for their previous repeater, but I'm unaware if that's being used or if the new machine is running on its own 30W output. With the challenges that the 147.210 has been facing, this very likely makes the 224.540 machine the TCRC's most reliable and widest-coverage repeater. 

• N0YNT (Matt) and N0GOI (Terry) fixed the antenna at the Falcon Heights remote receive site for the 145.170- (100.0 PL) St. Paul repeater. Hopefully, it will pay off with improved coverage. I have a hard time reaching the .170 with my marginal antennae. 

• Per N0MWM (Mike), Connect Systems (CSI) is now (once again) selling the TYT MD-380 DMR HT for only $130 (including programming cable). KE0NA (Dave) has a code-plug for this radio here. You won't find a cheaper way to get into DMR (and the international network of repeaters) than this deal. 

• Per N0BVE (Don), his 443.000+ (100.0 PL) SNP repeater now has an auto-patch. It uses DTMF tones to bring the patch up (*) and down (#). Many years before I was licensed, I would hear hams on my scanner using auto-patches. I've never used one myself. The auto-patch has a five-minute limit, per an on-air QSO with KD0VSU (Randy). The repeater itself is at Don's home in Minnetonka, and it has a problem where the TX power drops down dramatically after it's used for a few minutes. It also seems to have a relatively brief time-out, so be aware of those facts if you use it.

• I'm not sure of all of the details, but it looks as if a System Fusion repeater on 443.250+ (023N DPL) will be replacing the current Fusion repeater on 444.450+ (023N DPL) in a couple of months. The .450 will be moving north to Zimmerman, and will be linked back to the metro with WIRES-X. The new .250 repeater will run 70W and be linked to the Zimmerman Fusion machine for continuous coverage. I guess that the NW suburbs won't be losing any UHF coverage after all.

 

APRS  

  A few things are happening with the local packet scene: 

• The AE0RF-10 RX-only gateway is no longer on the air, but AE0RF (Justin) is proposing that the Richfield Amateur Radio Club set up a similar RX-only gateway at their repeater site. This seems like a great potential development to me, because these gateways managed by individuals tend to come and go. The metro needs reliable redundancy in the network. It's really good to have people experimenting with gateways and digipeaters, because they have the know-how to put those nodes back into action when need arises. But we really need some elements of the network that are solid and don't disappear on a whim, because when the major gateways fail (like W0YC-5 did this summer) something needs to be there to fill the gap. 

•  It looks as if N0QHM -1 is back in Bloomington, only this time with a transmitting I-Gate instead of the previous RX-only node. In its short lifetime, it's already covering the south metro free-ways nicely. 

• The W0LKA-2 digipeater near Roseau has hung in there, and it remains the northern-most part of Minnesota's APRS network. On the other end of the State, KG0QR-1 has lasted a few weeks as a transmitting gateway with direct local coverage, but also gating other southern Minnesota digipeaters. 

• Minnesota still needs "something" (RX-only gateways, digipeaters, TX I-Gates) in Morris, Alexandria, Wadena, Park Rapids, Bemidji, and Detroit Lakes. Maybe you can help. 

• It looks as if N0RUA (Tony) is experimenting with a RX-only gateway in the Highland neighbourhood of St. Paul. It would be great to get the mobile packets from the surrounding freeways gated before they get tossed around by the local digipeaters. EDIT: It looks like Tony got N0RUA-10 to actually gate packets in RX-only mode.

• The big N0AGI-5 gateway/digipeater has moved from Minnetonka back to its old home in Prior Lake. Per N0AGI (Nagi), the time spent at N0BVE's (Don) tower was an "experiment", and he now has an RX pre-amp on the gateway to increase his (already substantial) coverage. 

 

Well, that's pretty much it. I'm going to set up my new Arrow satellite antenna for some 2M SSB/CW "action" and I'll be on FM tonight.