First and foremost, I owe everyone on the forum an apology, for my rant and ill place remarks posted yesterday! 48 hours and 5 hours sleep, and then another 20 hr run with 4 hours sleep toady, is not conducive to making good decisions and conversations!
To WD8CHL especially, I mistook some of your comments about the ham gear, and should not have posted that publicly, especially with lack of sleep! As far as our repeater council, that is a whole nother can of worms we will not go into! The band spectrum in Texas is not as congested as in some other areas, and we have few closed systems, unlike California and a couple of other states! For my personal purpose, purchasing a bunch of purpose built or specialized equipment was what I was trying to a avoid, the main use occurs once a year, with possible use a couple of other times besides that! Although it would be nice to have available, if a Search and Rescue operation needed to occur in that or similar area! In other areas and events, we usually have the use of one or more of the many wide area coverage repeaters located throughout the area and state! I had seen a set-up similar to what I was interesting in building, and everything fit in a small pelican case! The big problem was I cannot remember who had it! It used a crystal based HT for receive and the FT-2800 for transmit! Did not have the opportunity to see how else it was assembled! I can only assume it used some sort of crystal ladder in the HT for isolation, not sure. The rig worked well for about a 10 mile square area, although not as rugged a terrain as our event is in! Was hoping someone on this group had knowledge of the set-up! Guess I will work at saving up some spare change and find some sort of commercial radio (possibly one suggested) that can be converted to a portable UHF rig! Seems that is much easier to accomplish! Again, thanks to everyone for their advice and wisdom! And please except my apology for being a jerk! Now, I am going to bed, since I have to be on the road again tonight at 2200! 73 Louis - K1STX --- In [email protected], wd8chl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Robert Pease wrote: > > Ok since we made it back to the original question. Here are my > > thoughts on it. 1st. Ham rigs are a bad choice for any type of > > repeater, I would look hard for used commercial rigs, especially if > > you want to transmit from the recieve site. > > That's what I said, but he took offense to that. Well, sorry, it may not > be what you want to hear, but it's the truth. No, I obviously DON'T have > anything against ham radio, or I wouldn't be here. But I DO have > something against using made-for-ham equipment in a repeater > environment, because they just don't work. At best, not for long. Broad > receivers prone to intermod/desense, dirty transmitters that cause > desense and intermod, poor PA's that just don't hold up to long > transmissions, etc. We are trying to warn you that you WILL have > problems using that equipment for a repeater. > > You can find some really > > cheap commercial gear and some people on this list and other lists I > > am on have been known to donate to the right cause. 2nd I understand > > the budget problem and only working with what you have. So here is an > > idea I have used before since you mentioned that there are dual band > > HT's out there. I have set up 2 dual band HT's on buildings several > > hundred feet apart. 1 cross band from 2 meters to a specific 440 freq > > and the other cross band from that 440 freq to your 2m freq. > > Depending on power and spacing you may even get away with 600 khz > > offset. I realize you probably don't have buildings at your site but > > hills will work also. Even the same hill if you can get them spaced > > far enough apart. Ours ran on a gell cell charged by solar. > > > > Yeah, a split-site arrangement like that is a REALLY good idea for this > app. Although again, I wouldn't use made-for-ham handhelds for this. > Find some commercial-grade gear. Part 90 commercial MUST narrowband in a > few years, and older radios that won't narrowband will start showing up > DIRT cheap, since it can't be used there after 2012. > Good suggestions? Syntor X is a great radio, lots of info on it, > synthesized, clean, rugged, etc. GE Phoenix-S or SX, smaller > (dash-mount), everything you need is on the rear connector, no mods! > 2 VHF Phoenix-S with power turned down to about 10W, and a pair of UHF > -S's like wise turned down to ~5W, spaced about 3/4 to 1 mile apart, or > less depending on terrain between the two, a simple control package with > ID and time-out-timer, and you're good to go! >
