Not a heck of a lot has happened in my radio world this week, but I'll try to put something together.
- On Wednesday (10/7), the RF link between the 1.25M 223.940- repeater in Arden Hills and the HandiHam network was restored by KG0BP (Chris) after being down for nearly two years. Chris received substantial help from N0BVE (Don), who provided a tower. The signal from the 223.940 is received in Richfield and sent to the network via EchoLink, and any traffic on the network is transmitted to the 223.940 repeater with an Alinco mobile. I had a chance to test it out yesterday (10/10) with KA0PQW (Matt) and Don, getting in easily with 10W into a mag-mount tri-band whip from the opposite side of the metro. Don was also on 1.25M, so I had a chance to hear the audio directly and it's pretty good. The .940 will get a work-out with all of the traffic on the network. Thanks to everyone involved in this useful project.
- As part of this upgrade by KG0BP, the 444.850+ (114.8 PL) HandiHam repeater is back on the air. In contrast to my discussions with Chris last November, he decided to use the old antenna that the .850 used before, rather than a north-facing beam. At only 13 miles distance, I'm unable to "ker-chunk" the .850 nor even hear any of the network traffic carried on it. Don has worked it from about seven miles at the University, and Chris' wife has worked it from about five miles distance. Undoubtedly, topography is the major limitation here. In its previous incarnation, the 444.850 had quite decent coverage to the south, and it's likely that it still does. Try it out and put your signal reports on RepeaterBook. Some operators in the inner southern suburbs might find the .850 a welcome alternative to the .650, as it's not plagued by a short time-out. The 444.850 is a fully-functional linked network repeater, so reaching it re-transmits your signal on every other HandiHam repeater over three bands.
- In an on-air chat with N0YNT (Matt) over DMR (N. America TG), I learned that he will moving back to St. Paul (from San Francisco) in 3 or 4 weeks. We discussed moving the 223.900- repeater to the St. Paul campus (definite maybe), and the 224.940- machine to K9EQ's (Chris) site (unlikely). Matt also has some hazy plans for the 443.425+ and 147.150+ repeaters that have more or less languished for years. Before his move to the West Coast, Matt expressed a vision for an ambitious metro-wide, linked, cross-band network. The pieces are finally coming together, with various people contributing their unique talents and thinking outside the conventional box.
- A chat with N0GOI (Terry) revealed that his six-metre FM repeater project (53.470-) is "not that far off". Two years ago, the TCRC's 53.370- machine died a whimpering death and left the metro without 6M FM coverage. Last year, W0CE (Charlie) informed me that his 6M repeater in Ramsey was, indeed, off-air, and would not be restored. N0BVE (Don) has been looking for a site for his 6M repeater for years now. I'm unsure how much interest there is in the metro for the six-metre band, at least as far as FM goes. With three bands already, and activity declining, it might be a "tough sell". In theory, the lower frequency should provide somewhat better "over-the-horizon" coverage (all other propagation anomalies aside). I could see more value with six-metre FM as part of cross-band linked system than as a stand-alone option.
- In a QSO with K0ZZK (Tom) on the 444.475+ (118.8 PL) repeater yesterday (10/10), I learned that the antenna for the Richfield (RARC) machine has been upgraded. I was fairly surprised to reach it so well with an indoor antenna 13 miles away, especially considering my complete failure to reach the 444.850 (in the same city) with an outdoor antenna. Tom gave me a good signal report, however, and the .475 came back to me with an S6 signal here in Plymouth. Per Tom, the cross-band link to the RARC's 145.390- (103.5 PL) is no longer working and the idea has been abandoned. Still, the UHF .475 is a System Fusion machine, which offers potential for WIRES-X linking if the RARC ever wanted to do something creative with their coverage. For example, a WIRES-X link to the 442.075+ C4FM machine in Prior Lake (18 miles away) would be mutually beneficial. It would open up more of 169 and 35W to the metro and boost the fringes of the 444.475's coverage. As it stands now, though, the upgraded .475 has excellent coverage. I just need to find out how well I can reach it with 10W in my car this far away.
- Not satisfied with being a major metro APRS gateway, N0AGI (Nagi) has teamed up with N0BVE (Don) to put N0AGI-5 on the Chaska water tower. This moves the I-Gate about a dozen miles north, and much higher. The results are very impressive. The map of stations directly heard shows that coverage for the west metro (which has always lagged) and the north-west metro (always spotty) has now dramatically improved. Keep in mind when looking at that map, that this is showing the results from less than a week at the new site. There still might be a gap between N0AGI-5 and the Litchfield KD0JOU-2, but the odds of getting your packets gated in the west metro are now pretty good. The map doesn't show coverage from digipeated stations, so this is a worst-case scenario...and it's very good. More information on the new gateway can be found at Nagi's blog.
- Nagi is also involved in another project: a WinLink gateway and packet node on 145.670. Per Nagi, this is actually three different projects. N0AGI-10 is a WinLink gateway that allows access to mail over RF. N0AGI-15 is a KA-node for packet allowing you to link to other packet nodes. And N0AGI-5 is a BBS (bulletin board) for posting messages, accessible over RF. Nagi is very keen to have others test this out and make use of it. Remember, packet works over FM. Your standard FM mobile, connected to a TNC and your computer, will allow you to do access these nodes (and other nodes on 145.110). While I'm just getting in to packet through APRS, I'm not familiar with anything outside of that. Nagi has generously agreed to advise me on how to set up a working packet station, and I hope to share that information here on the blog in the future.
- After being unable to reach N0YNT's (Matt) UHF SNP repeater on 443.000+ (118.8 PL) for a couple of weeks, I was surprised to find it working this week. Located in St. Paul, it's been around for years. Hopefully Matt can find time to look at it when he returns to Minnesota in a month or so.
- On the other hand, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to get in to the 444.950+ (114.8 PL) repeater in White Bear Lake. I haven't been able to raise it in my car for over a month, nor with an indoor whip. I takes an outdoor antenna and at least 10W to open it up. A few months ago, I was able to work it with an HT/duck indoors.
- The MARA 444.800+ (114.8 PL) continues to struggle. If you use this machine regularly, you are probably aware of it's annoying tendency to shut down completely for ten minutes or more if a QSO goes beyond six or seven minutes. In a QSO with KG0BP this week, it went dead just as we were discussing the effort to restore his UHF .850 repeater. It's smart to agree to a backup QSY when using the .800 repeater.
Not much to go with this week, but I wanted to get in a post. Here goes:
- Per KA0PQW (Matt), the 223.940- (100.0 PL) will soon be re-linked to the HandiHam network. N0BVE (Don) has put up a tower for the remote base at KG0BP's (Chris) house. No word on if KG0BP plans to restore his 444.850+ HandiHam repeater as part of this effort. Still, we have cross-band 1.25M linking in the metro again.
- Rumours are that K9EQ (Chris) is testing yet another System Fusion repeater to go on the 442.025 pair. Per Chris' RepeaterBook listing, the new repeater will be in Ham Lake and provide wide-area coverage, though it seems it will mainly be providing C4FM coverage to the north metro and exurbs. This is an area that has always seemed reluctant to embrace UHF, but it should provide a very useful link to the urban core.
- N0FKM (Dan) has now fixed the 444.550+ (114.8) repeater. It has been suffering from poor receive for several months now, and apparently had a bad connector or patch cable. Dan also has another UHF repeater in testing out of his home in Columbia Heights, so it should be interesting to see what comes of that.
- Less than a week before the launch of the new Fox 1-A satellite.
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.
I've been waiting to write about this, because things have been changing with this repeater so much over the past year, but N0FKM's (Dan) 224.660- (PL 100.0) 1.25M repeater is back on the air!
From here in Plymouth I've been able to "ker-chunk" it with an HT/stock duck indoors, and it comes back with an S9 signal. Listening on my TH-9000, I've verified that it is actually transmitting audio (and not just noise, as it was previously). Of course, with even 10W into a three-element Yagi, the TH-9000 reaches the .660 easily. The signal is full-scale and very quiet. The 224.660 is no longer linked to the UHF 444.750+, though, so there still isn't any cross-band action for 1.25M. One surprising thing about the "new" 224.660 is that it is has an EchoLink node (node 263469) ... and it actually works! So you don't even need to have a 1.25M rig to reach across the metro with this repeater.
Even the Arden Hills 223.940- (PL 100.0) machine seems to be more reliable these days. Once KG0BP (Chris) gets the link to the HandiHam network restored, those with 1.25M rigs will no longer be isolated.
The other 1.25M repeaters
The other 1.25M repeater that N0FKM runs -- the 224.880- (no PL) in Maplewood -- has been unreachable for a while now. But that repeater had low coverage and nobody using it anyway. Maybe it was cannibalised to restore the .660 machine, but I don't know.
Still no word on what is going to happen with the 224.940- (PL 100.0) machine in New Brighton. It works fairly well, but has low coverage operating out of a garage. The last that I heard N0YNT (Matt) and N0TYE (Paul) were looking for a better site, and struggling with that effort.
The 224.100- (no tone) repeater that K0LAV runs out of White Bear Lake is claimed to be up, but I can't reach it at all. I think that there's a plan to cross-band link this repeater to two metres, and then to the SuperLink at some point.
The 223.900- (PL 100.0) machine operating out of KE0NA's (Dave) home in NE Minneapolis is still in testing, and is currently down. There was talk of moving it to the University and possibly running a three-band link with it, but no word on that effort.
The TCRC's 224.540- (PL 100.0) remains down, and will probably stay that way throughout the winter, at least.
N0FKM's 224.500- (PL 114.8) machine is listed as "on-air", but I'm unable to reach it nor hear any ID.
