Thanks to all those that have contacted me directly or through the newsletter about our repeater project. I am updating the webpage that goes along with it, but to give some of you that have asked and those that haven't an idea of what we are doing.
The 1st repeater (the one I talked about in the 1st post) is going to be a 2 meter ham system using commericial grade equipment. In fact, you can view the equipment information at the bottom of this post, I have included it, for those that are interested. Here locally, we don't have many repeater guru's per-say, though I have met a few in surrounding areas that have offered to help with advice when they can. In fact, one has just done the same project in a county over from us for his ARES program (1st repeater for him). Unlike some people out there, I knew, from other projects I have done, that if you use poor or lower quality items, the project will turn out to be poor, though this does not mean that a low cost/cheap repeater will not work, it just means, that I want to put the best foot forward in taking care of this. I researched a lot about repeaters online and in some cases found a lot of useful information, while in others, nothing but junk. No this is not going to be two mobiles wired to worked together or work on a cross-repeat option like some people have done in the past, though that option may be used in our mobile command unit for on site communications at a disaster to remove the traffic from the main repeater(s). I looked at several companies and decided that I liked the options given to us by Pacific Research (if any one has dealt with them or know them, please feel free to relay your exp.), which does both commericial and amateur repeaters. The main setup that we received a quote for is the follow: 1 TKR-750 VHF Kenwood Repeater - $1350 1 KPG-91D Repeater Programming Kit - $119 1 TKR-PS1223 Kenwood Internal Power Supply - $169 1 PC24-NN Patch Cable (Repeater TX to Duplexer) - $31.50 1 PC24-NB Patch Cable (Repeater RX to Duplexer) - $26.35 1 PRD-1556 6 Cavity Pass-Reject Duplexer - $1859 1 PC95-400-NN Patch Cable (Duplexer to Polyphaser) - $54 1 IS-50NX-CI Polyphaser (Lighting Protection) - $62 100 feet of LMR-400 Feed Line $82 2 CC4-NM Coax Connector Type N Male - $25 1 ANT150D6-9 VHF 4-Bay Folded Dipole Antenna - $995 1 Setup, programming, and bench testing before shipping - $105 Total For Project - $4877.85 Serving Our Community - Priceless (sorry, couldn't resist) The remaining of the funds that we listed on our page we are seeking are to be used to obtain the last section of tower that we need, on site setup, power connection, etc. The price listed above is not bad, when you understand that we were offered a repeater from the person that originally held the frequency coordination for the pair that we know have. We offered to sell us his "system" for $2500, and it did not include the duplexer, power supply, feed lines and the radio needed to be repaired to make it 100% operational again. I know that $4877-5000 is a lot of money, but the fact that we can get a system online that is NEW and matched, and we will be better able to serve our community, it really does make sense. We have applied for a grant and "hopefully" will hear something back soon, but we just need to find all the sponsors that we can, as time is running out to get this online and operational, as the time limited granted by the frequency coordinators to get it up is running out. Hopefully, someone will see this email and say hey, here's $5 dollars to help make a difference. After being in emergency services for 16+ years, I have learned that there are a lot of people out there that are willing to help make a difference no matter how small. That is part of the reason why I decided to get in on the ARES program and more. If I did not have to make a living, I am one of those that would do this fulltime. Please feel to contact me anytime at my email address or through the newsletter here. Thanks to all. 73's Chris Kaufman County ARES, Inc.
