Loose Notes 6/7/15

Yet another quick run-down on what's happened over the past week:

• The UHF 444.950+ (114.8 PL) repeater in White Bear Lake has experienced...something. I used to be able to reach this machine from my car, and even with an HT/stock duck indoors. This week, though, it takes a much better signal to even "ker-chunk" it. Even 5W with my exterior whip antenna is just ignored by the receiver. My 10W mobile has about 50/50 odds of "ker-chunking" the repeater now, when it used to be completely reliable driving around Plymouth.  It still seems be transmitting fine, as I get S9 here when I use sufficient power. The VHF .390 is working great, as always.

• The VHF repeater in Becker -- 147.345+ (85.4 PL) -- is also apparently down. This is a 600-foot powerhouse repeater that I've had QSOs on with under 10W, and now 50W into a beam results in only silence. 

• The VHF SNP HandiHam repeater on 145.230- (114.8 PL) is also performing much worse over the past week. Usually it came in here at least S6 with the exterior whip, but now it's barely above the noise floor at S3.

• The MGRC's feeble 443.700+ repeater seems to be off-air. Since it usually only came in at S2 from eight miles away, it's hard to tell. It was never listed on RepeaterBook, so there's nothing to update.

• Unknown to the parties involved, N0BVE (Don) has pulled the WIRES-X link between two other repeaters and his 444.925+ C4FM repeater: the 1.25M  223.900- (100.0 PL) and the UHF 442.175+ (100.0 PL) machines. WIRES-X is still working on the .925, as I just had a conversation with KG7NKG (David) in Idaho on the C4FM hybrid machine yesterday. The two de-linked repeaters still remain linked to each other, however.

•  I finally got the EchoLink node on the 145.370- (107.2 PL) repeater to work. K0MSP-L (node 9975) has never worked for me, but yesterday I switched from "Relay" to "Direct" mode and I was allowed in. Currently, it's connected to a conference server in Ireland, though there's no traffic on the repeater, and nobody else is allowed in. Weird...

• Speaking of EchoLink, KC0VRV (Matt) has set up a simplex node on UHF 446.025 in Hugo. Range is estimated at 5 to 8 miles. 

• Meanwhile, the TCFMC's putative node (mentioned on their site) has been continuously down for at least 18 months, and only working for about two weeks over the past two years. Is it really a node if it's never logged in? 

• There's a new APRS gateway in Ramsey. KE0BRY-10 has been in operation a few days, and is providing coverage on Hwy. 10 between Anoka and Elk River. it's also gating digipeated packets well into the metro. On the other hand, the KG9B gateway in Hudson has gone dark, and the AE0RF-10 RX-only gateway in St. Paul has switched to an experimental mobile gateway mode that may not be working as intended.

•  Previously, I mentioned running in to the 147.360+ (136.5 PL) repeater in Hampton during a road trip. K0JTA (Mike) felt confident that I could reach this repeater from my home in Plymouth during our conversation, so this past week I tried to do just that. I put my flimsy 2M Yagi on the tripod and aimed it, as best I could, toward Hampton. To my great surprise, I not only "ker-chunked" the Hampton repeater, but I carried on an extended QSO with Mike. I started out at 25W, and worked down to only 5W. I was still readable at 5W, though 15W worked better. The machine itself came back at S6. Even if you don't have a good enough antenna or enough power to work the .360, it has EchoLink (K0JTA-R). 

• I usually watch the 2M propagation maps daily, and last week had some very good conditions. It's not uncommon for the W0YC-5 gateway to reach Duluth, and for the N0AGI gateway to reach Mason City, IA! These maps work on the APRS signals received, and packet generally doesn't go as far as voice, so the actual conditions are probably better than what's shown. And, APRS is FM, so SSB will generally work farther, as it's a "weak signal" mode. Still, I've had no luck with my 2M beam running horizontally on 144.200 SSB or CW. 

• Yesterday (6/6) KE0NA and I had a chat on the local DMR repeater -- 442.425+ -- and we both noticed that the interference from the .850's remote receive site had decreased significantly. Not sure what was done, if anything, but I was able to get in to the repeater using an indoor whip from Plymouth while there was activity on the 145.850 machine. Dave noticed no packet loss, and we didn't get the "deny" tone indicating that the DMR receiver was swamped by the TX of the remote receive site. 

•  Also regarding DMR, KE0NA (Dave) now has fully-licensed Motorola programming software and working code-plugs. So, if you've hesitated about picking up a Motorola HT because you couldn't get it programmed, that's no longer an issue. There are also code-plugs available for the Connect Systems CS-700 DMR HT. They will soon be available on twintrbo.com, or you can just email me for the CS700 version. A code-plug is just a programming file that you load on to the radio. With DMR, programming is a lot harder than it is with an analogue FM radio, so it's nice to have something ready-made that is known to work. 

• With Field Day coming up, I've ordered a 15M dipole to set up in my brother's back yard. Look for me on 15M CW, because I'm a Tech. I'll be running QRP, and not contesting. I have options for 6M and 10M, too, so a "sked" can be set up if you want to experiment.

• N0BZZ (Randy) has informed me that LSAC is in danger of losing several of their sites, including the once-popular Isanti 443.325+ site. Per Randy, Verizon has been selling off towers to raise money, and these towers are used for several LSAC repeaters. The new owners (ATC) seem to be disinclined to allow other equipment on their new acquisitions. While this was supposed to be the time of year to rebuild the network, instead everything is up in the air. The Isanti site is the crucial link between the northern MN network and the metro area. This is potentially disastrous news for the future of linked networks in the state.

 

Loose Notes 12/7/14

Just a few scattered things that I've run into lately. They don't merit a full post of their own, but worth mentioning: 

• The Columbia Heights 1.25M (220 MHz) repeater on 224.500- (114.8 PL) has considerably improved this week. The receiver has improved enough for me to "ker-chunk" it with an indoor, stock duck, 2.5W HT from here in Plymouth. The signal that comes back is S9 and clear of the noise that plagued it before. A check with the HT and the TYT TH-9000 revealed that it does, in fact, transmit clear audio. N0FKM (Dan) has struggled with this repeater for some time, but he's finally found the issue, judging from the results. The 224.500- joins Dan's other 1.25M machine on 224.660- (100.0 PL) on the band. This makes seven 1.25M repeaters now functioning in the metro, with varying levels of coverage. There's an inside joke that there are more repeaters now than there are people with 1.25M rigs. I don't think that's true, because there are people with Kenwood TH-F6A's that have 220 TX capability, and there are others with dual-band Chinese HT's that cover the band, too. There's also EchoLink on the .660 machine, and there are schemes afoot to cross-band link other machines to 1.25M. So you don't even necessarily need a 1.25M rig to join in the effort to save the 220 MHz band for ham radio. It's "use it or lose it", and you're licensed to use the band, right?

 

• Though it's been a tough time in the personal lives of the two-man team responsible for the LSAC network in northern MN, there are positive developments. The Grand Marais 147.360+ (114.8 PL) linked repeater will be getting a new site on a disused Verizon tower, which should help improve coverage of the eastern end of the remote Superior National Forest. Also, 33cm (900 MHz) repeaters in Duluth are now linked into the LSAC system. And six-metre FM repeaters have joined the network, too! Now if we can only get that 443.325+ (146.2 PL) back into shape, the metro area will have access to the network. N0BZZ (Randy) reports that activity levels are good and that the repeaters are getting use. 

 

• K0LAV (Paul) recently told me about a new site that he has access to in Rockford, which is roughly 25 miles west from downtown Minneapolis. There's a Time-Warner cable building that's no longer used, along with a 150-foot tower (estimated). Paul has plans to put one of the links for the SuperLink network in the building, which would link the St. Cloud node to White Bear Lake. Word is that N0YNT (Matt) is mulling over some plans at the Rockford site, too. Remote receive sites, links to metro repeaters, and APRS digipeaters are possible. The site has a lot of unused antennae that need to be removed, and a lot of old equipment that's been abandoned inside. The 6GHz microwave horns sound especially daunting to remove, as they aren't small or light. There's plenty of (75-ohm) feed-line and arms for mounting antennae on the tower, once the old Yagis are taken down. No internet at the site, so EchoLink, AllStar, and APRS gateways aren't happening. But there's potential for some exciting developments to the west of the metro area in the future. 

 

• I heard the NCO on the HandiHam net Thursday talking about a new trend in amateur radio: micro-nodes and nano-nodes. It wasn't clear to me how the whole thing worked, but I'll mention it in case someone else knows more about it and feels like writing something up for the blog. The idea is that you use a sub-1W HT in your home that's linked to something like an IRLP thin client, allowing you to walk around your place and talk to IRLP-linked machines around the world without creating RF interference with your neighbours or requiring an exterior antenna. More information is here, along with a $500 0.2W UHF FM simplex client with built-in IRLP and EchoLink. There are only about a half-dozen IRLP nodes in MN, but the idea is to be able to connect with machines all over the world -- from Antarctica to New Zealand, from Armenia to Bermuda. IRLP nodes use Linux and a special board -- so if this has been a barrier to adoption, then these thin clients could make the difference in allowing a wider audience of hams make use of the technology.

Exploring two-metre FM

In the past month, I've spent more time on two-metre FM than I have in the preceding six months. Normally, I'm on UHF and 1.25M, as my FT-897D was in repairs for a few months and I could only get on VHF with an HT. So I kind of got out of the habit of checking two-metre repeaters, or even swapping in a 2M antenna on my mount. When I put the Leixen VV-898 in my study with an indoor mag-mounted whip, I spent a little time finding out which repeaters I could reach, but not really engaging in conversations on VHF. But I finally programmed all of the local two-metre repeaters into my FT-897D and took the risk of putting up my more-conspicuous monoband VHF whip outside here at the condo, and it's a different world. 

It's pretty easy to reach the 146.790- (100.0 PL) machine in Faribault, I've found. Along with that, the 147.360+ (136.5 PL) in Hampton (near Northfield) is quite accessible, Becker's 147.345+ (85.4 PL) is nice and clear, and the 145.210- (114.8 PL) in Crown (between Zimmerman and Isanti) is almost like a local machine as far as coverage. The west is now open to me with the (previously mentioned) 145.230- (114.8 PL) Maple Lake HandiHam repeater (which is not linked to the network). 

Certainly, we have some excellent local VHF repeaters, and the activity is generally higher on them than what you find in the more far-flung reaches of 2M FM. And you can reach across Wisconsin on the UHF WINET repeater in Arden Hills. And, generally, UHF is where actual, meaningful conversations are common. But I can see where 2M gets its reputation for distance. 

This is what I found out tonight by investing less than an hour on two-metre FM: 

• The 145.290- (114.8) repeater in New Brighton is back on the air, after being down most of the week. The owner, N0FKM (Dan), has told me before that the repeater doesn't tolerate cold weather well. The City won't let him add a space heater to the shack, and there isn't enough activity to keep the machine warm by simply transmitting. So when it gets cold, maybe think about a QSO on the .290 to warm that machine a bit. 

• The Hudson 145.130- (110.9 PL) machine has developed a nasty hum in the audio, though it's reaching Plymouth better than it did last winter. 

• I had a brief chat with a guy at the National Weather Service station, K0MPX (John), on 146.520 FM simplex. I've heard the station on the 444.775+ (114.8 PL) machine in Robbinsdale before during bad weather, but I had no idea that they used VHF, much less simplex. S9 here in eastern Plymouth from Chanhassen, so they must have a decent rig and antenna for two metres. It might be an interesting way to check your simplex range, but be sure to have your local weather info at hand. 

• It seems crazy, but I "ker-chunked" the two-metre 146.865- (146.2 PL) in Giese (northwest of Sandstone) for an S3 signal. Gotta hand it to LSAC, even though their .325 UHF repeater has been down for about a year. 

• I could kind of reach the 145.250- (100.9 PL) machine in Baldwin (WI) at S6, but there was a huge amount of noise. I think that somebody came back to my sign, but I couldn't read them in all of the noise. It seems a lot easier to reach the east metro and beyond into Wisconsin on UHF, though I understand that the 146.850- does pretty well with a remote receive site in Roberts, WI. Still, it's trivially easy to reach the UHF 443.025+ machine in River Falls directly, and the 442.075+ (110.9 PL) repeater in Arden Hills can be readably reached with an indoor 4W HT from here in Plymouth -- and that links you into all of the UHF machines across Wisconsin. 

So that sums up an interesting evening exploring the more distant reaches of two-metre FM. I always prefer close-at-hand quality conversation to distant non-conversation, but I have to admit that there's potential there.

Is your ker-chunk just bunk?

 For a long time, I've wondered about my ability to reach two UHF repeaters in particular: the 442.950+ (114.8 PL) in Rogers and the 443.325+ (146.2 PL)  in Isanti. Recent experience has cast doubt on my hold on the Rogers machine, though I can receive it S9 well into Minneapolis proper and I've been told it gets S3 in St. Paul. Certainly, I can ker-chunk it with ease with a 3W HT, using a stock duck inside of my condo. But that can be deceptive and meaningless.

A "ker-chunk" is the squelch tail from a repeater, responding to a signal of sufficient strength (and possibly correct CTCSS tone) getting into the repeater input. If you can't ker-chunk a repeater, then you can't access it for any of several reasons. It's possible, though, to be able to ker-chunk a machine while not being able to actually use it. Your signal could still get in to the machine, but be too weak to be readable. You've probably heard this exact situation before, where somebody's signal is mostly noise and intermittent, broken words. Their signal is strong enough to open up the repeater, but not strong enough to be understandable. A "ker-chunk" is not a guarantee that you can be clearly heard; it's a guarantee that you can make noise on a machine.

On local repeaters, you can use an earphone on a separate HT and listen to your transmitted signal (from another radio, obviously) to judge the quality of your input to that repeater. For the two repeaters that I was concerned with, though, I needed more than that. In this case, I got some help from KD0KJI (Al) to monitor the repeaters with his superior equipment.

Using a simple UHF 1/4-wave whip, I transmitted into the Rogers machine with ten watts. Al, with his beam, was able to respond to me directly on the 442.950 repeater, telling me that I was readable with a lot of noise. At five watts, he reported a poor signal mostly buried in noise. This lines up with my experience a few weeks ago, where I was unreadable on the repeater in my car using five watts and a tri-band "gain" antenna, per two other hams on the .950 machine. I was about forty feet lower in that mobile than I was in my experiment with Al, so that would explain things. This proves that the Rogers .950 is, in fact, an unquestioned alligator, as the entire time it was being received full scale on the S-meter. It also told me that a better antenna and higher power would be very likely to get me into that machine adequately, with all of its wide transmission coverage.

The other repeater in Isanti was more important to me in the bigger picture. The 443.325 is the southern-most repeater in the LSAC network. Right now, the .325 links to Hinckley (444.575+). This covers a significant part of 35W, but so does the MARA .850 and EchoLink to Rush City (node #23958). The importance of the Isanti .325 will be clear late this summer, when the northern and southern sections of the LSAC network will finally be re-connected and it will be possible to reach Duluth, the North Woods, northern Wisconsin along Lake Superior, and even out to the Michigan border -- simply by getting in to the Itasca .325 machine.

One of the more interesting things that I found in my air time at Aerials in the Park was that I could ker-chunk the Isanti 444.325 at around S7 from Long Lake Regional Park. Certainly, S5 and S6 are common here in Plymouth with a decent antenna. I can ker-chunk the machine in my car in a lot of places.
The question was, "Could I actually talk on the .325?".

Once again, KD0KJI programmed in the repeater on his radio and swung his beam toward it. He hit it easily, and I could hear his signal hammering the repeater input. At ten watts with a 1/4-wave whip, Al said I was into the .325 machine in Isanti at nearly full quieting! No alligator there. If you can hear the 444.325 squelch tail or voice ID, then you probably can work it, too.

This experience also highlighted for me the usefulness of propagation reports on RepeaterBook. For example, on the page for the Isanti 444.325 there's a map of the coverage area. Underneath that map are the words "Add a Propagation Report", which lets you select your location on a map and enter the signal report from the repeater. These reports can help give other hams an idea if they can hit a repeater or not.

EchoLink access for LSAC

The good news is that there is EchoLink access for LSAC. The bad news is that you need to be authorised before you can access it. Still, it's possible that conference links could be established temporarily for nets and such. So, the metro area could still be linked to LSAC in the future.

See my previous posts on LSAC if you have no idea what I am talking about..

LSAC makes progress into the winter
LSAC update 
MN's big linked network: LSAC

Confirmation of local LSAC access

In a conversation on-air last night, KA0KMJ (John) told me that he had previously accessed the southern half of the LSAC linked network. He found that, if he accessed the UHF .325 in Isanti, he could hear himself in Giese and Hinckley. This is first-hand confirmation that the UHF .325 does, in fact, give an operator in the metro access to LSAC. In early Summer, the two ends of the network should be joined. At least, that's the tentative timetable.

New Years Day

The repeaters were kind of quiet today. I spent about an hour on 6M FM, trying some simplex and monitoring the restored repeater. Nobody there, though. With subzero wind-chill figures, I really didn't want to do anything that involved changing or adjusting antennae a lot. So I aimed the 1.25M Yagi eastward, put the dual-band whip on the balcony, and settled in. Still, not much going on, except for a QSO with KD0WQQ (Matt) on the HandiHam network.

Matt got a new Anytone dual-band for Christmas, so he's on UHF now. He's been having some small issues adjusting to the new radio, but he's rising above it, I think.

I haven't heard KA0PQW (Matt) since before Christmas, when he was sick. I really hope that he's okay. I was hoping to hear him on the Arden Hills .940 (1.25M) machine, but still no luck. Maybe he'll be on the HandiHam net tonight.

Since it's the new year, I went through the repeater memories on my Yaesu FT-897 and cleaned them up a bit, and checked over the RepeaterBook listings. I found that the UHF K9EQ (444.075+) machine that's been in "testing" for a few weeks now is operational. It came back at only S4 from Ham Lake, but it's working.

On a whim, I tried an "unknown" status repeater in Maplewood -- the UHF 442.600+ (156.7). It also is working.

I heard some activity on the other Ham Lake machine, but I can't hit that one: the 146.445 simplex IRLP hub. There was some kind of simmering argument between KL7M and some out-of-State operator who seemed a bit weird. It's interesting to hear more 2M simplex lately, though I think that a lot of the people on the .445 were coming through on the internet.

It was a nice day off and I still hope to catch the net tonight.

Oh, and I found out that LSAC has EchoLink access through a node run by KC0KMS, but I'm not sure about the details yet. Randy (N0BZZ) has been generous with info about the network this week.

LSAC update

Even though it's winter "up north" and a pretty uncomfortable time to be climbing towers, the LSAC repeater network is still being restored. N0BZZ (Randy) emailed me with the information that he's checking on the Bayfield, WI 146.700 repeater to make sure it's ready for the John Beargrease Sled Run. This VHF machine is located in the northern reaches of Wisconsin where the UHF WINET fears to tread.

The VHF 145.410 repeater in Duluth was also confirmed by N0BZZ to be up and running. This is sited on a 500' (wow!) tower. I suspect that the rated 30 mile coverage radius might be conservative, so if you are up near Duluth, submit a propagation report for this machine. It isn't linked to LSAC yet, because the priority is to restore the UHF link to the Bayfield repeater.

My impression, from N0BZZ's updates, is that Randy (N0BZZ) and Pat (KB0QYC) are concentrating on restoring and upgrading the repeaters themselves before working on the links between them. This is pretty smart, and it establishes a local user base for each unlinked machine that will only grow once it is linked to the other machines in the network. N0BZZ has tentatively given early Spring as a possible date for the north and south ends of the network to be linked together, with Summer being projected for restoration of the links between the more far-flung elements. It's a heck of a lot of work for just two guys, especially considering that they are also maintaining repeaters for non-LSAC radio clubs, such as the VHF machine in Mahtowa.

With this ambitious agenda in mind, I haven't asked about the restoration of the old "LSAC II" network, which is a scattering of UHF, VHF, SHF, and 6 meter repeaters that have been operating on a standalone basis since the link between them was lost. 6 meter FM is a very good (Technician-accessible) option for these relatively remote areas, even though the numbers of people with gear (especially mobile) for the band are not high. Still, the availability of cross-band use and the (eventual) introduction of a 6 meter FM repeater to the HandiHam network may promote more activity. But that's all down the road and only dimly visible as a potential future at the moment.

I think that more people are figuring out the consequences of the current amateur radio demographics. The numbers of licensees have been held relatively steady by the introduction of newer people who really aren't getting on the air much - many of which are "preppers" that are not interested in the long-term health of the hobby or the community. With fewer people actually on the air, simplex becomes something that has to be "scheduled", and the challenge is to find those fewer numbers. Repeaters are the "watering holes" that people congregate at and gravitate towards, and linked repeaters (especially cross-band) increase the likelihood of finding both familiar people and interesting new ones. The other challenge is to get people on the air in more situations, both for them to establish ties to the community and for the community to have an active on-air population.

LSAC helps with both of these challenges. It links fragmented, smaller communities that don't have enough active people on-air at any given time to make turning on your radio look attractive to other similar communities to form a larger "pool". It also brings people together on different bands who would otherwise be unaware of each other. And it lets people stay connected to their local communities when they travel outside of it.

When the network is restored, it will be possible for a ham travelling on 35W "up north" to talk to another ham at his lake cabin near Brainerd, and let a hiker on the Superior National Trail join in. Someone on their way home from work in Pine City could talk with another ham out on Lake Superior or camping at Itasca State Park. It makes bringing a radio to those more remote locations attractive, and it makes turning on your radio at home more inviting, too. It doesn't take too many incidents of a new ham being greeted by silence when they throw out their sign to discourage them from turning on their radio in the future. There are still those who would scoff, "Good riddance!" at that situation, but more hams are realising that the crowded repeaters of the 1980's are not coming back, and that something has to change.

Linked repeaters aren't a guarantee of future growth, but they are a hell of a lot better gamble than betting on widespread simplex activity. Every time that someone packs an HT on their camping trip, or brings one up to the cabin, or turns off their CD player and turns on their mobile on a road trip is a potential step forward. The key is having someone else available for them to talk to when they do that.

The southern-most edge of LSAC is the 443.325+ (146.2 tone) machine in Isanti. Most won't be able to reach it with their 5W HT "mobiles", and that may be fine with the people using LSAC. I can certainly reach it with a solid S9 or S8 using my small 3-element UHF Yagi and 4W, but I can't drive around with a Yagi on my vehicle. I would think that anyone in the metro with a UHF ground-plane and around 20W would have access to that repeater, though. Absent a two-meter link in the chain accessible by at least a 40W mobile here, I tend to think LSAC will remain a novelty to those in the metro even when the south and north ends are eventually linked. EchoLink will undoubtedly be available, however. If the UHF .950 in Rogers could be linked -- a long shot, of course -- it would make LSAC truly accessible to the metro area. The challenge will be to make people in the metro aware of its existence and potential, so that they will use it when travelling in those covered areas. Further expansion of the LSAC network is too much to expect, given the burden of only two people maintaining what already exists. Any expansion would have to come from the fragmented community of people operating independent, local repeaters finding a way to link their machines to the network. Likewise, if only one of the dozen or so VHF repeaters in town could be linked, the entire game would dramatically change. The best chances for a metro-area link are on UHF. K0LAV's .800 machine, for example, would be the easiest target, since he is already planning a link to Pequot Lakes. Another potential option would be for KA0KMJ's .425 UHF machine to be linked by EchoLink conference.

There are some visionary VHF repeaters out there: MARA's outstanding .850 with multiple receive sites, the .370 sited on the IDS Tower, and the HandiHam .450 cross-band. Still, the frontier has largely been ceded to UHF here in the metro. Of the three VHF repeaters I mentioned, only HandiHam has EchoLink or IRLP, which is hardly a challenge to implement, and they are the only one with cross-band or links to other machines. And the extensive fibre network throughout the metro has not been taken advantage of to easily link machines without expensive UHF links. The future is not in a dozen VHF repeaters competing for a dwindling number of hams, nor is it is in the "hobby" repeaters on UHF with local coverage.

The days of local fiefdoms run by out-sized egos is passing away. There needs to be a novel approach that brings people together, rather than isolating them in enclaves based on band preference or club allegiance.

Linked, cross-band repeaters with EchoLink access are the future of the hobby. There will always be a place for cliquish "elites" and simplex snobs, so they shouldn't feel threatened by this new reality. Without options that engage the new Technician-Class licensees, these people will be lost before they ever realise the potential of the hobby. There will always be a place for the snarling "watch-dogs" that haunt the "emergency" repeaters. And people that abandon the hobby because the repeaters are dead won't ever get a chance to try 2-meter SSB or HF. The smart move is to hold on to the people that have already got their license, who will then tell others about the hobby's potential. That involves offering some kind of potential other than their eventual, conditional, and grudging acceptance by the "elite".

We've given the "old school" approach more than a chance. It's killing the hobby.

LSAC makes progress into the winter

I got an email from N0BZZ (Randy) about the repairs being made to the LSAC network. You may recall my previous post on LSAC, which is the linked network in northern MN that stretches nearly to Michigan along Lake Superior. Pat (KB0QYC) has fixed the repeaters in Gilbert and Virginia, and Randy is working on the repeater in Mahtowa. Bear in mind that this is northern Minnesota, and it's been cold for weeks now as these guys have been climbing on towers to restore these repeaters. Randy is also going to do some maintenance on the repeater in Bayfield, WI. The main "hub" of the linked network is in Proctor, and upgrades have been made to that machine so that it will be solid when the UHF links are re-established.

As I understand it, the links are tentatively scheduled to be in place by late summer 2014, and the southern half of the network should be connected to the northern parts. The Aitkin repeater will also be linked, which means everything to the east of Brainerd will be continuous. That's an ambitious goal for just two guys.

There are also plans for a powerful VHF repeater in Duluth. I don't know about the timetable for the restoration and linking of the old LSAC II system, but the current plans are aggressive as it stands.

With the UHF 443.325 LSAC machine being accessible from the Twin Cities, the potential for EchoLink access to LSAC, and the plans of local K0LAV to link the big UHF .800 to "Lake Country" by UHF, 2014 should be exciting for FM here. It's also rumoured that HandiHam will bring a 10 meter FM repeater on line and link it to their network. Conceivably, a little 4-watt hand-held could then reach 75 miles or so.

MN's big linked network: LSAC

In my last post, I looked at some of the region's linked repeater systems. A repeater, in itself, is similar to a "relay station" that passes on what you transmit to a wider area, and allows you to hear people across a wider area. It "repeats" whatever it hears. Using a repeater will at least double your range, and probably a lot more than that. Repeaters are usually much more powerful than your hand-held 5W radio (50 to 100 watts is common), and they have much higher antennae with high-quality feed-line (cable). Often they are on water towers, high buildings, or the usual sort of steel tower. Generally in radio, higher is better - much better. In short, these are superior radios with superior antennae. They cost a hell of a lot more than your BaoFeng hand-held, too, and have costs for tower leases and electricity that your hand-held (HT) doesn't have. That's why they are usually operated by ham radio clubs, so that this cost is spread over a number of people.

Now, you can also link repeaters. This means that whatever one repeater hears will also be sent to another repeater to transmit, and vice versa. It's kind of a meta-repeater. Typically, you can expect about 30 miles range - a circle with a diameter of 30 miles - so that anyone 15 miles away or less from the repeater should be able to talk to someone 15 miles away directly opposite for a total of 30 miles. Obviously, that's the ideal, and people seldom are exactly opposite you with respect to the repeater. Some powerful VHF repeaters can reach 40 or even 50 miles, but that isn't common. These ranges are assuming that you are using something similar to a BaoFeng or PuXing HT with 5W and a standard mobile antenna. If you are using a 50W VHF mobile, of course, your range increases substantially and your signal quality will be excellent. By connecting the one repeater to another, say 15 miles from the first, you now have a maximum of 60 miles.

In actual practise, it isn't practical to dot the countryside with towers and repeaters every 15 miles. Some repeaters use "remote receive sites", which are just receivers that link back to the repeater. This allows lower-powered radios to still reach the repeater, because the repeater can transmit farther than your 5W can. As you would venture away from the multiple repeaters of the city, coverage usually gets spotty - especially with a 5W HT. If you just using the short antenna that comes with the radio ("rubber duck"), then all bets are off and you need to be about five miles or less from a repeater.

Even with other repeaters outside of the city, you will still only be able to communicate with the people in that repeater's local range - unless it is linked back to the city, for example. With fewer people in the rural areas to begin with, there are fewer people to talk to - assuming that they are even on the radio at all. By linking a rural repeater with another rural repeater, for example, you increase the number of people and area covered. This, in theory, creates more of an incentive to actually talk and allows people to talk to people much further than their particular County.

As I said before, a lot of States have a network of linked repeaters that cover most of that State. In Wisconsin, for example, you can be in Hudson and talk to someone in Madison as if they were local. Minnesota doesn't have a linked repeater network like that. Sure, HandiHam links across the metro to Rochester, Albert Lea, and even South Dakota, but it's not continuous coverage. That network is also experiencing the loss of some repeaters on the fringe of the metro. There has been some effort to create a smaller linked UHF network in the west-central, from Glencoe up to Mille Lacs, but that's had trouble, too. It also doesn't reach the Twin Cities very well, and the links between repeaters are often down.

Once upon a time, about a fourth of the State was pretty much continually covered by a mix of UHF, VHF, and 6 meter repeaters known as the Lake Superior Amateur Coalition (LSAC). It was put together by just  two hams: Pat Wilmers and Randy Haglin. Over the years, links in the chain broke and the system remained, but separated. In a recent email from Randy, I learned that there is now a "south end" and a "north end" that aren't connected to each other, along with a few scattered machines operating independently.

With my new 3-element Yagi, I can reach the southernmost repeater of the "south end" in Itasca very well from here in Plymouth. This opens me up to scattered areas in the north central part of the State, which should improve when Aitkin is linked to the rest of the network. I suspect that it's all more complicated than Randy made it sound, but once the "south end" can be linked again to the "north end", it would possible for me to set up my UHF Yagi and use my PuXing HT to talk to someone in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan or in the remote reaches of the MN northern forests! There are several repeaters in Duluth (900 MHz, 440 MHz, 2 meter, six meter), with a new spot 500' up on a tower there for the (147.330+) 2 meter repeater. That's something that could reach well into Lake Superior, maybe as far as Cloquet, and cover some of the northern reaches of Wisconsin that WINET doesn't even get now...just with that one machine.

According to Randy Haglin, these are commercial grade repeaters. The problems, as I gather, haven't been with the hardware as much as the linking, sites, and security for the machines. And, of course, a shortage of free time to tackle these problems.

Another thing that is really special about LSAC is the variety of cross-band options. I've heard rural hams bitterly complain (especially in Wisconsin) that they don't have the equipment for UHF, for example, so these repeaters are useless to them. Well, that's the beauty of the cross-band linking, like we have here in the metro with HandiHam. Your VHF mobile will be repeated on UHF, without getting UHF equipment. Suddenly, I don't need to get a 900 MHz radio to work that band; it's linked! My UHF PuXing could work 900 MHz, six meters, and two meters. Conversely, with a six meter radio out in the middle of nowhere, you can talk to your friends on a boat with a UHF HT near Brainerd.

I'm looking forward to using LSAC when I go hiking in Superior National Forest, or talking to other people that are doing things like that from here at home. There's a lot of work that needs to done by only two people, and that tempers my enthusiasm somewhat. It's going to take time, but I can be patient. Still, it's staggering how two men have established and maintained such a huge linked network, especially when you look at how many people that we have here in the metro and how we are without a solid linked network. Too much petty in-fighting, turf battles, egos, and prickly personalities here, I guess. Still, I support HandiHam, TCRC, and WINET with monthly donations so that we will have something here.

We don't need twelve VHF repeaters duplicating coverage in the metro. That's just wasted resources. This should be a hub connecting to various linked networks that reach out into remote areas of the State. We already have a repeater connecting to WINET and Wisconsin. We could easily link one VHF repeater here to the fledgling west-central network and expand it out to Willmar. We could have another VHF repeater link to Isanti and LSAC. HandiHam already connects to Rochester and Albert Lea. We should at least have the repeaters along I-90 from Wisconsin to South Dakota linked to each other, if not the metro. This wouldn't take hardly any money. It could be done with UHF links or the internet. I don't have the technical ability to do that, nor the money on my own. But once it's established, it shouldn't be an enormous effort to maintain it. Other States certainly seem able to do it.

Who am I kidding? We can't even keep our repeaters logged into EchoLink here in the metro.

Anyway, if you use LSAC in your travels - or from your home through the Isanti repeater - it would be nice of you to let Randy Haglin know that you enjoyed it. He's not going to harass you for donations if you send him an email at the address on the LSAC website - xmitr5 @ aol dot com to thwart the spam-bots. He was reluctant to accept my donations in the first place. But if you could send him even ten bucks a month to help finance the resurrection of the links and restore the repeaters, I think it would be encouraging to him and Pat. Or ask about donating equipment. Or just thank him, like a considerate, polite person would .