On Jul 27, 2008, at 3:05 PM, Dave Gomberg wrote: > At 12:10 7/27/2008, Alexandre Souza wrote: >> "How to build a small group repeater in a very tight budget?" > > Listening to all your restrictions, Alexandre, I would try to get > access to two towers at least a couple of kilometers (5-10km would be > even better) apart and put in a 1.2m or 70cm link between them.
Go with 70cm. More hams in a financially troubled place are likely to have "test gear" for 70cm in the form of dual-band radios. If you suspect a problem with a 1.2 GHz link, you're going to have to find the "techies" with 1.2 GHz radios... if they even have them. On 70cm, more people will be able to help troubleshoot. From a "maintainability" standpoint, a 2m transmitter/70cm receiver at one side, and a 2m receiver/70cm transmitter at another is very easy to maintain. A 70cm link between two sites is the way to go. We ran our 6m repeater that way here for years, and people even found the link frequencies and would talk on them if all they had was 70cm gear, so they could reach their buddies on 6m. The people doing this understood that the link was on yagis, ran only exciter power from a MASTR II on transmit, and not optimized for "user" access, and we never had any complaints that the "70cm repeater" wasn't working well enough for anyone. The only reason we switched it to a "traditional" duplexed 6m machine was that our lease came up for renewal at one of the sites, and having the extra antenna there for the low number of users wasn't fair or cost-effective to the rest of the club's members -- we also had a 6m duplexer already in storage. So it made financial sense to change it. -- Nate Duehr, WY0X [EMAIL PROTECTED]
