Via AMSAT: ANS-217 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
![AMSAT](../themes/icons/grey.gif)
Hello fellow travelers!
I wanted to take a few minutes to give an update on the repeater projects, since another month has rolled over. As a refresher for those not in the know - the repeater that I run died not long ago (I wrote about that here.) When that happened a couple very kind individuals donated some money to help out, I started an official fund-raiser to fund repairing my machine, and some others as well, and I also opened up a shop selling merchandise to raise money for the same effort.
So first of all, the plugs - support some repeaters financially, or with donations of equipment, or by connecting an existing repeater to the Pride Network. Donations of cash, or commitments to connect existing repeaters to the Pride Network have the biggest and fastest impact!
if donations arenβt your bag, Buy some cool stuff to support the projects - the margins are smaller, but walking around town, going to club meetings, or heading out to a hamfest, while wearing the swag helps bring more attention to the effort, so can be very impactful in the long run!
First - the financial bit. Weβve got a couple hundred dollars socked away towards our stretch goal of acquiring a Yeasu DR2X via the Yeasu repeater program. if less than 10% of the folx who follow me on Mastodon donate 5 dollars each, or each purchase a clothing item from the shop, weβll make the goal soβ¦
I also wanted to share the update on what is currently on the air serving as the N3VEM repeater, since goal 1 in the effort was to just scrounge together whatever I could, really fast, to get back on the air. Itβs nothing fancy, but it has us operational in the meantime. What I scrounged together was essentially a pair of Kenwood TK-840 mobile radios that I already had, the small notch-type duplexer out of the dead repeater, the small PC that was running Allstar for the dead repeater, and a new RIM-Lite interface from Repeater Builder to allow me to use the PC and the Allstar software as the repeater controller.
While we havenβt quite reached the $ level for milestone 2, We are likely staged for success there, thanks to a recent ham-fest haul - I was looking at a Motorola repeater that a radio shop was getting rid of. The folx said it would be good for GMRS but they couldnβt promise it would work down to the Ham Bands, so theyβd give it to me for $40. Iβve been considering putting a GMRS repeater on the air for family use anyway, so I figured why not for that money. In the interest of them wanting to pack up for the day, while talking they said theyβd throw in a couple Kenwood UHF TKR-820 repeaters for free, since they werenβt having luck selling them. This model is old, and programming can be finicky, but for free, we can likely make it work. I also bumped into someone who works for that radio shop, who is willing to give me a direct replacement for my dead GR1225, so all I need to do is make arrangements with him to pick that up. So between the 2 Kenwoods, the Motorola that might tune down to the ham bands, and the promised GR1225, weβll be able to get a proper used machine back on the air if nothing else.
My dead GR1225, and one of the newly acquired Kenwoodβs:
A second Kenwood, and a Motorola CDR500 sitting on a shelf in my utility space:
This is the big goal! essentially raise a minimum of $700 to allow me to use that plus pitching in some of my own cash out of pocket to get a proper, modern repeater on the air. Did I mention that donations or shop purchases will help with that?!
Milestone two, the KJ7OMO Repeater, officially begins in September, but with the recent haul of equipment we should be off to a good start. At a bare minimum, I should be able to package up my current temporary machine into a nice little 4U or so sized box, and get it, along with a new antenna and some coax, shipped out to her to get her machine back up and running. Iβm hoping though to be able to do something a bit better than that, depending on how this equipment and future donations work out.
While nothing official has been decided, Iβll probably start looking in ernest into what comes next while weβre working on the KJ7OMO machine this fall. Again, it depends on how the equipment and donations work out, but I suspect one of these current machines can serve as the basis for whatever this ends up being. The NR7WL club has an Allstar node set up, connected to the pride network already, so something Iβve floated with the club already was that it might be nice to find a place to put up one of these machines so that that node has an RF side as well - TBD!
Anyway, thatβs the update for now! Thanks for stopping by!
Β
First - the plugs:
support some repeaters financially, or with donations of equipment, or by connecting an existing repeater to the Pride Network
Buy some cool stuff to support my passion projects!
Clubs that are so inclined, should use the opportunity to show that their club is welcoming to everyone, by flying the colors at their field day site! To encourage promotion of Pride at Field Day sites, Iβm going to do a little last minute contest!
To βenterβ send your pictures of your Field Day Pride Display to:
n3vem.radio@gmail.com
or post them to mastodon and tag me, @n3vem@mastodon.radio, in the post.
The winner will be chosen by a distinguished panel of judges (my family!), and will be able to choose any 3 clothing items from my Subversive Radio Shop to give to the members of their club or group that they think would most appreciate them!
fine print - winners will only be chosen from places I can ship too - see the shop for details on shipping locations for clothing items. All Items must be shipped to a single address, with the winner taking care of distributing the items to their club/group members on their own. Pictures should include enough in-frame to make it clear that the display is at an ARRL Field Day site.
I have a Tait TM8110 VHF transceiver that is destined for use on packet radio. This was sold as untested but appears to work fine. However, in testing I was concerned that the bench PSU I connected it to showed a current draw of 0A. The radio was making noise and, connected to the Bird and a dummy load was generating RF. Anyway, I programmed it with the various packet frequencies, power settings and ensured the bandwidth was 12.5kHz and tried it on air. It was working fine on both tx and rx. But still 0A draw. Hmmm.
I have two identical bench supplies, Lavolta BPS-305, 30V 5A units. One has a noisy fan so I use the other. I swapped to the noisy one and it shows reasonable current draws for rx and tx. And then the noisy fan decided not be noisy any more (still working though!) so perhaps the noise from this PSU was just it sulking from being ignored.