Dakota... Can your operational requirements be met by a station in a parked vehicle, or does it have to be operational while in motion?
Can your 2m repeater requirements be filled by a single channel solution? Twenty years ago when UHF was not in use locally by the average ham we had a portable 2m repeater that in the first incarnation was made usable by two notch cavities - one for RX and one for TX. The radios then were 30 or 40w (I forget which) Motorola Motran mobiles, which would survive continuous duty at the 10w level. With the cavities in line the antennas could be as close as 20 feet. Later on we needed to use it and the cavities were not available, so we tried it anyway and by placing the RX radio and it's antenna 75 to 100 feet away it was usable with careful placement of the RX and TX. In one case we put a full-size RV between the two and grounded the metal skin of the RV. In your situation, if an im-mobile solution would work, I'd put a 2m antenna on a tripod mount coupled to an RX powered by a gellcell (maybe even with a solar panel plugged in). A 100' cable would carry audio and PTT to the vehicle where the 10-30w TX would be. And without cavities it could be frequency agile. If you could scare up a couple of cavities you would limit yourself to one frequency but the performance would go up tremendously. I could build it with stuff on the shelf - a Motrac M-series receiver, and a split winding audio transformer would fit into a 50-cal ammo box. If the Motrac RX was used (it has a passive front end and for a 20+ year old RX is really, really, really overload resistant) the biggest expense would be the crystal. For the TX I'd use a GE MVP, Mastr II or Exec II. How much of a controller do you need? You could probably get by with an ICS Basic at about $80.... See http://www.ics-ctrl.com Mike WA6ILQ At 01:45 PM 1/3/05, you wrote: >Cant drop the 2M side of things as a lot of hams don't >have 70CM around here and 2M will do what 70CM wont >in the mountains when runs and races require 2M am >looking at a few suggestions for the van right now that >might work. >Couple of emails on Motorola gear, either one or two >channel radios and a controller and duplexer for the >rigs that I need. >Thanks for all the help! >Dakota > >-----Original Message----- >From: Jim B. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 1:50 PM >To: [email protected] >Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Mobile Repeaters? > > > >Dakota Summerhawk wrote: > > > Is the best way to have a mobile repeater up and running with two > > mobile radios and a duplexer? Looking for a way to be able to run a > > couple of repeaters, one VHF, one UHF for a mobile communications van. > > Can anyone recommend ways to cut down on weight and space? Thanks > > Dakota > > > >Best way to cut space-forget about the VHF unit. For UHF, get a Kenwood >TKR-850 and a mobile duplexer. Keep the transmit power down to 20W or >less, more then that will cause problems with other radios in the van, >and get the antenna as far away from other antennas as possible, >preferably on a 30' or more mast. > >-- >Jim Barbour >WD8CHL > > > > > > >Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > >-- >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. >Version: 7.0.296 / Virus Database: 265.6.7 - Release Date: 12/30/2004 > > >-- >No virus found in this outgoing message. >Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. >Version: 7.0.296 / Virus Database: 265.6.7 - Release Date: 12/30/2004 > > > > > > > > >Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Repeater-Builder/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
