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 aren’t 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!

On with the Update

First - the financial bit. We’ve 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, we’ll make the goal so…

PLEASE DONATE!

Milestone 1

Goal 1

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. It’s 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.

Goal 2

While we haven’t 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 couldn’t promise it would work down to the Ham Bands, so they’d give it to me for $40. I’ve 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 they’d throw in a couple Kenwood UHF TKR-820 repeaters for free, since they weren’t 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, we’ll be able to get a proper used machine back on the air if nothing else.

My dead GR1225, and one of the newly acquired Kenwood’s:

A second Kenwood, and a Motorola CDR500 sitting on a shelf in my utility space:

Goal 3

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 2

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. I’m hoping though to be able to do something a bit better than that, depending on how this equipment and future donations work out.

Milestone 3

While nothing official has been decided, I’ll probably start looking in ernest into what comes next while we’re 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 I’ve 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, that’s the update for now! Thanks for stopping by!

Before I get started, I’m going to throw out 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!

Net Control for the NARS Club Net

Last night was my first time ever being net control! I volunteered to host a monthly net for the Narwhal Amateur Radio Society (NR7WL), of which I am a proud member. The Pride Radio Network graciously has allowed us to connect our hub to their network, so that our members (and non-members!) can connect via the plethora of bridges they have set up (DMR, YSF, D-Star, P-25, NXDN, Allstar, Echolink, etc.)

Because I figured we’d probably only have a handful of check-ins for this first time around, I decided to do the net “E-Cars” style, where as net control, I’m on for the hour, and just put out periodic calls for check-ins. I felt like that went very well, and it made me wonder why more repeater-based and network-based nets don’t run in that style, instead of the “be here at the exact right moment” variants.

I felt like it makes it easier for participants, because they can show up whenever they want during the hour, and it takes the pressure to feel like the airtime has to be filled up, off the net control and other participates. Instead, it makes it a time where you just kind of hang out, call for check-ins periodically, and either chit chat with folx who checked in, or wait quietly while multi-tasking between check-ins, based on whatever the net control, participants, and vibe for the net seem to dictate.

Anyway - I had a blast! If you’re potentially interested in checking in in the future, here are the net details:

Narwhat Amateur Radio Society Monthly Net Details

Check out the Narwhal Amateur Radio Society, and our Nets Page (details coming soon, if they aren’t already there!) for more info.

Net details as follows:

Narwhal Amateur Radio Society Monthly Net

Time: 1st Tuesday of Every Month at 7pm Pacific, 10pm Eastern

Location: Hosted on the NR7WL Allstar Node (61672), the N3VEM Repeater (Allstar 56001 & Echolink 994842), and the Pride Radio Network.

We’d like to specifically thank the Pride Group for allowing us to connect our hub to their system - The Pride Radio Network enables club members and non-members wishing to check in to connect via DMR, System Fusion, D-Star, IRLP, Echolink, M-17, NXDN, P-25, Hams over IP, Hamshack Hotline, plus some others. Be sure to check out the Pride Radio Network site as they regularly make updates and improvements to their network.

If you want to join the net via Allstar, you can simply point any Allstar enabled repeater, hotspot, or VOIP application at node 61672 during the net. If you’d like to connect via any of the other modes mentioned, please visit the Pride Radio Network Information Page for details on node numbers etc.

The NARS Club Net is a directed net, and also serves as a 1 hour time slot where net control will be monitoring the hub even if there are no check-ins. This means that folx can feel free to check in at any point during the hour that works for them; just tune in and listen for the preamble and call for check-ins which will be repeated periodically, or throw out your callsign if a few minutes goes by and you don’t hear anything.

When checking in, feel free to share your name and location as you are comfortable (or not), answer the net question, and/or share anything else that is on your mind. We strive to be welcoming and accommodating, so don’t worry about whether or not you are ‘doing it right’ - with us, you’re always doing it right as long as you’re following the guidelines of your license and having fun!

Please refer to the Narwhal Code of Conduct, which governs our behavior during the net.

It’s been a busy few months, and the folx who I interact with on Mastodon already know that I’ve got lots of irons in lots of fires. I figured it’s probably time for me to do a quick ‘state of the shack’ post to give a quick highlight on where all my various projects and activities stand, in case anyone has been wondering about the status of any particular item.

So, in no particular order, here we go:

Repeater

Check out the Repeater Page and posts tagged repeater for more details.

The quick summary here, is that my Motorola GR1225 died, so I currently have a machine on the air using a pair of Kenwood TK840 radios, the duplexer from the Motorola, and a new USB interface from Repeater-Builder to connect it to the computer that runs the Allstar software. After some very positive feedback on the post I wrote as I was trying to get the machine running again, I decided to start a fund-raiser to support some upgrades to the repeater, and to also help repair and get some additional repeaters on the air, which brings us to the next project…

r4e

Check out the r4e project pages for more details.

r4e is an acronym for Repeaters 4 Everybody.
As a way to support upgrades on my repeater and some additional repeaters that are operated with a purposeful mission of openness and acceptance, and to help bulk up the RF side of the Pride Radio Network, I’ve started the r4e project which some of you may have stumbled across already in the header of my site. If you’re willing to help support some repeaters financially, or with donations of equipment, or to just connect an existing repeater to the pride network, those gifts and actions can go a long way towards our roadmap!

Subversive Radio

Check out the Subversive Radio Shop for details, and to buy cool stuff!

This project is an offshoot of the r4e project, and is a way to raise additional funds for those projects by selling radio merch that (I hope) is unlike most of the stuff already out there. Buy some cool stuff to support the project!

Radio Rocket

Check out the Radio Rocket Page and the Radio-Rocket Tagged Posts for more details.

Version 3 of the rocket (Ponzu) had some body tube damage during its first flight, which is now repaired, and it’s ready to fly again. I also built a new ground station that is an all-in one unit with the single board computer, LoRa receiver, an RTL-SDR dongle for receiving APRS packets, touchscreen for launch control and data display, etc. Motors are ordered for the next launch, which will be on June 13th or 14th, as weather permits.

Club Net

Check out the Narwhal Amateur Radio Society, and our Nets Page (details coming soon, if they aren’t already there!) for more info.

A while back I joined the Narwhal Amateur Radio Society (NR7WL) - they’re a relatively new club, but have values that I dig. We had kicked around the idea of a club ‘network’ to be able to connect via digital modes, and potentially a club net. That idea sat for a little bit, but bubbled back up recently, so I took the initiative to set up an Allstar node for the club (61672) which will serve as our hub, and the location for our first club net, for which I’ll be serving as net control!

Net details as follows:

Narwhal Amateur Radio Society Club Net

Time: 1st Tuesday of Every Month at 7pm Pacific, 10pm Eastern

Location: Hosted on the NR7WL Allstar Node (61672) and the Pride Radio Network. The Pride Radio network has bridges that will allow you to connect via DMR, IRLP, System Fusion, M-17, NXDN, P-25, D-Star, Echolink, Hamps Over IP, Hamshack Hotline, plus others!

Shack

Check out posts tagged shack for more details.

I haven’t made any major updates to the shack recently, but I have moved a few things around. In the utility space behind the operating position I added a DIY rack made from lumber to move the various computer and network bits and bobs into. My next project in the shack is related to re-doing some of the audio routing - I have designs drawn up in KiCad for an interface device that will sit beside my mixer and convert all the audio to the OHIS standard. The basic reasoning behind this for me, is that by converting the audio to OHIS, I can leverage an existing standard to run a single shielded cat6 cable to each radio and device, instead of the 3 or 4 audio and PTT cables that run to each radio now. I currently have some bursting-at the seams cable management, and doing this should reduce the mess in there quite a bit. The plan is also to eventually replace my aging mixer, and build a new rack mount arrangement to the left of my operating position to house the mixer, interface, and some other related shack equipment.

ARIP

Check out the ARIP website for more info.

Diversity is something important to our hobby. If you disagree, or think this statement is somehow political, you’re part of the problem in the hobby, and I won’t engage with you on the subject. If you do feel the same way I do however, the ARIP is one of my projects that is essentially a tool that clubs, individuals, or other organizations can use as a way to show their commitment to inclusion in the hobby. The most recent update on this effort is some changes to the website and methodology to make it more of a self-serve tool. There is more information about that available on the ARIP Website

Radio League of America

Check out the Radio League of America website for more info.

Currently, the Radio League of America (RLA) is little more than an idea. That idea being that the amateur radio community is too large and diverse for everyone to have their voices heard by a single national organization. There are many amateurs who have voiced a desire for something different to be available, and the RLA is just one of many potential avenues as that movement takes life. I have committed to at some point in the near future getting together an initial presentation of what that might look like, and setting up a recurring (probably quarterly) series of meetings for people who are interested to see if it is something worth fleshing out in more detail and organizing around.

Many of you are aware that I run a repeater based in Witmer PA.

The repeater recently had a yet to be determined malfunction, and it was only putting out a few milliwats of power, instead of its normal 25 watts, meaning RF coverage dropped from its respectable footprint detailed on the page linked above, to only covering a mile or so.

I have started working on repairs, and hope to get it up and running quickly, but I decided to sit down and write this blog post because I’ve been ruminating on a few things related to the repeater, and thought this would be a good way to collect my thoughts, while I work through the mud.

Mission

The mission of my repeater is very near and dear to my heart - it is basically my way of creating a space on the air that has the same values I do - openness, inclusion, and welcoming to every type of individual who is interested in amateur radio. With that said, having a repeater on the air, connecting to nets that align with the repeater’s mission, and being part of the Pride Radio Network, is very important to me. The trouble is, keeping a repeater on the air takes both labor and money. So far I’ve managed to keep the machine on the air using only my own labor and money (I’ve managed to keep it frugal so far, so it’s been mostly an effort of my own labor.)

The repeater currently being offline however, is bumping into the limits of what I’m capable of accomplishing with my labor, and I’m starting to worry that getting it back on the air may end up involving more financial resources than I can muster quickly.

Options for the Most Immediate Need

So Priority 1 right now is getting something back on the air. Right now I’ve got a short list of choices:

1. Repair the current machine myself
   • This is what I’m currently working on. I’ve only got a few dollars worth of parts in it. I’m waiting for one more to arrive, and crossing my fingers that it will be the magic bullet that gets me back on the air.
2. Replace the current machine with a new one made of essentially 2 commercial radios and the duplexer from the current machine.
   • I have 2 radios that can be used, but this option will require a little more money for a new controller, bits to make some new harnesses, and misc. hardware- no biggie, it would just have to wait a few weeks because I do keep a pretty small/tight hobby budget so that we can sock away for education and stuff for our kids.
3. Pay someone else to repair the current machine?
   • I have zero idea what this would cost, or who I would take it to (there is a commercial shop locally that used to service this model when it was in production, so they might still be willing). I suspect it would cost more than my plan B, but I imagine it couldn’t be too bad. It would also be a way to be more confident in getting the current machine back on the air, instead of having it become more e-waste, so I’m inclined to shop around a bit if I can’t get it working myself.
4. Figure out how to scrounge up a little more money and buy a mostly direct replacement
   • This specific model can sometimes still be had for a fairly reasonable amount, and there are other comparable out of production repeaters from other companies that are similar in features and cost, if you can sort out the programming.
5. Figure out how to scrounge up a larger amount of money and buy a ‘proper’ replacement -
   • i.e. something either still in production, or in production recently enough that parts, service, programming software, etc., are actually available without having to go through dubious methods to make it happen:-) This could be big $$$, but Yeasu does have that program on their repeaters that makes the price of a new repeater not much more than buying a used one.

The Wheels Have Started Turning

So, while I’m most likely to keep slogging away at some combination of the first 3 items above, (maybe, just maybe, jumping to the 4th) this is where my thoughts start to take a meandering path. If you’re still with me, thanks! If you bow out here, I won’t be offended, because I’m not 100% sure where this thought train is going.

Like many things, all of this would be easier if there were more $$$ available to throw at the problem.

I don’t like asking people for money, but I have considered setting up something to be able to take donations for the support of the repeater. I suspect doing so I’d maybe be able to look harder at option 3, or maybe even 4 eventually, but I’m not sure if I’m comfortable asking for donations, and I don’t know what kind of tax nightmare that might become.

The other things I’ve considered would be reaching out to one of the clubs that I’m a member of that is a proper non-profit, to see if they’d be willing to act as my ‘sponsor’ to apply for an ARDC grant, to enable me to skip right to the 4th option.

With the 2 money ideas, I then spiral into the next rathole of thoughts - if I could scrounge up some resources via a combination of donations/grants, it would be very satisfying to me to acquire and set up machines, and then ship them around to places where I can find people willing to put them up at their homes or club sites, to help add more machines with full time connections to things like the Pride Radio Network.

The thought above, surprise surprise, took me spiraling down yet another side-tunnel in this rat-nest of ideas… If money were not the hurdle, and I was helping to do this on a slightly larger scale, maybe the thing to do would be to stop operating my current repeater and any future repeaters under my own callsign, but instead maybe do it as a volunteer trustee for one of the clubs I participate in, so that the repeater network is ‘theirs’ instead of my own. Only catch there is getting into the volunteer thing can turn into a giant time commitment, which I’m not sure I could actually make (I had to drop some of my volunteer activities already, since I have a large family.)

So anyway, thats my crazy-train of thoughts for the moment. Real world, I’m most likely to focus on getting this machine fixed myself or by hiring it out, and then saving up over the long run for an eventual replacement, but it felt good to get all these thoughts out of the brain and into text.

If you have any input or suggestions I’d love to hear them - hit me up at my email (I’m good on QRZ) or via Mastodon.

I’ve been dabbling with AREDN the last several weeks. I’m not really an emcom guy, but I did want to dabble with the mesh stuff, and in my particular use case, it seemed like it might be a fun way to send my Radio Rocket’s data ‘back home’ instead of using a cellular hot spot and paying for data. I figure AREDN is a way I can do my dabbling, but maybe be of some use to the emcom folx by at least filling in a bit of a coverage hole if they need it, since there are no nodes around me, and I do have some limited emergency power at my disposal if needed.

Even though the mesh stuff is mostly line of site, I think I should still be in good shape, because of our 4 primary launch sites, one definitely has a line of site shot back home, one of them probably should, and one of them might. The 4th is probably a no-go for direct line of site, but I do have access to a TV tower on a family member’s property to add a relay node if needed…

Anyway, I haven’t done anything terribly exciting yet to really share, other then just getting my first 2 nodes set up. My only advice is to maybe avoid the TP-Link CPE210 devices. It may have been user error, but I fought with one until I gave up :-). For the 2 nodes that I got running, the GL.iNet AR300M16-ext device I got to be the mobile node was wild easy to set up, and the Mikrotik Basebox that I set up for my home node went pretty much according to directions, after being extremely careful about making sure I had the most recent nightly build of the firmware, and followed the directions exactly. (Imagine that!)

I may share more stuff on the project in the future, but for now I threw up a new static page with info on my nodes that folx can check out if they’re curious.

Thanks for stopping by!

The N3VEM Repeater

It’s dawning on me that I’ve never really written about the fact that for a few months, I’ve officially been a member of the ‘repeater owner’ club. The saga actually began a number of years ago, when one of the offices at my work was getting rid of a repeater. It’s a long story about how that came about, but at the end of the day, they were getting rid of it, so I saved it so it could see a second life on the amateur bands.

The actual repeater in question is a Motorola GR1225 (UHF version), which were fairly common ‘desktop repeaters’ that were in use in quite a few businesses. As cell phones took over the niche they filled, they seemed to become readily available on the used market. Even if you don’t luck out like I did and save one that was bound for the trash, you can usually find them on Ebay for just a few hundred dollars.

Anyway, the repeater sat on the floor of my home office, unused, for a several years, because I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to press it into service. In our area, 70cm isn’t super popular, and most of the 70cm repeaters sit quiet, so I wasn’t in a hurry to just stick it on the air to add yet another unused 70cm machine.

Within the last year or so however, the Ham Radio Workbench crew started talking about setting up an Allstar hub, which they did (node 55915). It was at that point that I said - heck, I have an unused repeater sitting on my floor - why not put it on the air, add Allstar capabilities to it, and have it hang around connected to their hub?

And so the project began…

Repeater Coordination

Repeater coordination councils are all volunteer, so this takes some time! In my case it took about ~5 months from application, until I was assigned my frequency pair by the council that coordinates my area. While I waited, I did start ‘construction’ but just put the repeater on the air uncoordinated, with a low-to-the ground antenna, on a frequency pair that was unused in the area.

Construction

Since the machine is a desktop repeater, construction wasn’t too involved - just a few steps:

1. Tuning the duplexer, which I did twice - once while I was uncoordinated, and then once again when I was assigned my final pair. W2AEW has a bunch of great videos on his youtube channel. I don’t have a ton of fancy equipment, but I think I got pretty decently tuned with my nano VNA, following this video specifically, to guide me along the way. As a note, since this is a desktop repeater, it only has the notch-type ‘portable’ duplexer, which works fine running here at my house, since I’m the only source of RF :-)
2. Audio interface for Allstar - since this is a Motorolla repeater, I was able to use one of the RIM-lite interfaces from repeaterbuilder, which plugs directly into the back of the transciver, and in turn accepts the USB cable. I had to fiddle with some of the settings in the radio software, but it really wasn’t too difficult to get up and running.
3. Allstar Node - pretty straightforward stuff here too - Raspberry Pi3, running Allstarlink. There seems to be some contention in the Allstar world, between Allstarlink and Hamvoip. At the time I went with Allstarlink because it seemed like the one that was more “open” and it sounds like there is some stuff in Hamvoip that might be slightly borderline as far as software license legality goes (Although I was more concerned about openness that software licenses - In some cases I firmly believe that piracy is the moral thing to do). I didn’t dig deep into it though, so do your own homework:-)
   In hindsight, I’m glad I went with Allstarlink. This is because it runs on Debian, and I was able to fairly easily install node-red along side it. Hamvoip runs on Arch, which seemed way more fiddly when I played around with it recently.
4. Node-RED - as mentioned, I installed Node-RED alongside Allstarlink, and I’m using that to schedule and fire off announcements etc, instead of the macros and scheduler that are built into both Allstarlink and Hamvoip.
5. Antenna - Nothing too fancy here - jut a Diamond X50NA, on a mast at the eve of my house, with a fairly direct run of LMR400.

Future thoughts

I’ll dabble with this for a while on a small scale, and if I find I enjoy the whole repeater-ownership thing, I’ll probably start working on upgrading at some point down the road. Some of this would require re-applying for updated coordination, but the things I’d probably want to explore would be:

• Getting the Antenna higher, once I put up a proper antenna, or find a cheap/free place to move the machine too, instead of my house.
• Switching to hard line (les loss, etc. etc.)
• Getting my hands on some proper notch/pass cans for better filtering/isolation
• An external PA maybe - I have the machine on low power - it’s capable of more, but this model is known for blowing finals when run at any fairly high duty cycle on their high power setting.

Anyway, that’s the story for now, and I’m having fun dabbling around with it!

There is a page specifically with info on the repeater, so make sure to check that out as well!