Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Micor Pin Gunk

[TGundo 2003]

Thanks Lou, Bob, Eric, John and the rest!

I have a bunch of techs around here that all swear by Deox-it as long as its 
used sparangily, and Caig seems to hit all concern points in their website 
vs.22.

Has anyone had any specific issues directly related to using Deox-it? I want to 
do the right thing and will order the 22 if necessary, but not only because it 
is what Circle M recommends...maybe Deox-it was not around when they made the 
recommendation? From reading the Caig website I think it may be a better 
choiceI worry a little about the 22 drying into a rigid form. What happens 
over time as the pins heat up and expand/contract, especially in a non-climate 
controlled environment?

Tom
W9SRV

--- On Sat, 9/4/10, wa6epd lme...@cox.net wrote:

From: wa6epd lme...@cox.net
Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Micor Pin Gunk
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, September 4, 2010, 10:57 PM

Bob, NO6B, wrote:-

This looks like the same stuff:

http://www.micro-tools.com/store/P-22/Stabilant-22-5ml-Kit-Makes-30ml-Of-22a.aspx

The description of how Stabilant 22 works reads very similar to the Caig Labs 
DeOxIt products.  A performance comparison between the 2 products would be 
interesting.

Bob NO6B


Take a look at:-

http://store.caig.com/s.nl/ctype.KB/it.I/id.1977/KB.215/.f

The do the comparison.

-Lou-  WA6EPD









Yahoo! Groups Links






  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] UHF Circulator

[TGundo 2003]

I would first make sure the stock Micor antenna network is tuned properly. 
There is an article on doing this on the Repeater Builder website.

Tom
W9SRV

--- On Fri, 9/3/10, Tim Sawyer tisaw...@gmail.com wrote:

From: Tim Sawyer tisaw...@gmail.com
Subject: [Repeater-Builder] UHF Circulator
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, September 3, 2010, 8:56 PM

I'm looking for a UHF circulator to buy (or borrow). I have a mix that involves 
our transmitter but I'm not sure it's in our transmitter. We have a Micor 
repeater with the built in circulator but some feel an outboard two port is 
required for our nasty hill. It would be good if I could test one and not spend 
money on something that won't help. 

Aside from the the borrow request what do others think about this. Is more 
circulator than the stock Micor necessary?
--
Tim
:wq







Yahoo! Groups Links






  

{Direct Reply}Re: [Repeater-Builder] Service Manuals

[TGundo 2003]

John-

i am looking for a SpectraTAC Voter manual and a manual for a Micor 250W UHF 
PA- May be from a PURC station manual (Sorry, don't have the exact model # in 
front of me). Let me know if you might have either of these.

Thanks!!


Tom
W9SRV


--- On Tue, 7/27/10, La Rue Communications laruec...@gmail.com wrote:

From: La Rue Communications laruec...@gmail.com
Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Service Manuals
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tuesday, July 27, 2010, 1:21 PM












 
 









Gentlemen (And Ladies) -
 
I will be listing some service manuals over the 
next few weeks to months on our eBay store. If there is any interest in a 
particular manual (Mostly Kenwood and Motorolas) for the archives here, please 
feel free to let me know. I wanted to give the group exclusive notice so those 
that need them, can procure them.
 
Cheers!
 
John Hymes
La Rue Communications
10 S. Aurora 
Street
Stockton, CA 95202
http://tinyurl.com/2dtngmn




















  

Re: {Direct Reply}Re: [Repeater-Builder] Service Manuals

[TGundo 2003]

Sorry that was supposed to be direct..

Tom



--- On Tue, 7/27/10, TGundo 2003 tgundo2...@yahoo.com wrote:

From: TGundo 2003 tgundo2...@yahoo.com
Subject: {Direct Reply}Re: [Repeater-Builder] Service Manuals
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tuesday, July 27, 2010, 1:29 PM






















John-

i am looking for a SpectraTAC Voter manual and a manual for a Micor 250W UHF 
PA- May be from a PURC station manual (Sorry, don't have the exact model # in 
front of me). Let me know if you might have either of these.

Thanks!!


Tom
W9SRV


--- On Tue, 7/27/10, La Rue Communications laruec...@gmail.com wrote:

From: La Rue Communications laruec...@gmail.com
Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Service Manuals
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tuesday, July 27, 2010, 1:21 PM











 
 









Gentlemen (And Ladies) -
 
I will be listing some service manuals over the 
next few weeks to months on our eBay store. If there is any interest in a 
particular manual (Mostly Kenwood and Motorolas) for the archives here, please 
feel free to let me know. I wanted to give the group exclusive notice so those 
that need them, can procure them.
 
Cheers!
 
John Hymes
La Rue Communications
10 S. Aurora 
Street
Stockton, CA 95202
http://tinyurl.com/2dtngmn




















  

















 




  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Need Help Locating Connector, Micro N Female Chasis Mount Crimp On

[TGundo 2003]

I would leave the BNC's and use RG400 or 1/4 superflex or similar within the 
cabinet. Not sure how much advantage 1/2 would have inside the cabinet, and 
may be tough to make the real tight radius bends.

Tom
W9SRV

--- On Wed, 7/21/10, kg4ogn kg4...@yahoo.com wrote:

From: kg4ogn kg4...@yahoo.com
Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Need Help Locating Connector, Micro N Female Chasis 
Mount Crimp On
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, July 21, 2010, 3:32 PM

  I am needing to replace the receive connector on a Kenwood TKR-750 repeater. 
The existing connector is a Female BNC Chasis mount. I am doing away with the 
LMR400 interconnects inside the cabinet and upgrading to 1/2'' Superflex. Since 
no one makes a BNC connector for 1/2 hardline I would like to swap the RX BNC 
connector out with an N connector. I've been searching the web for the last 40 
minutes and can't seem to find a Micro N Female Chasis mount crimp on 
connector (I say micro because the current connector is a BNC with a very small 
flange on it and a standard flange on an N Connector is too large and I don't 
want to get into drilling new holes on the repeater)
  I'm not sure if such a connector even exists, but I figured I would ask the 
experts and see if anyone could point me in the right direction. Thanks for the 
help guys...

                           Alex N4TIA







Yahoo! Groups Links






  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Simulcast Information on-line

[TGundo 2003]

Were there specific UHF MICOR components that suited themselves to Simulcasting?

Tom
W9SRV

--- On Thu, 6/24/10, Kevin Custer kug...@kuggie.com wrote:

From: Kevin Custer kug...@kuggie.com
Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Simulcast Information on-line
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, June 24, 2010, 3:50 PM

skipp025 wrote:
 For those of you who'd like to see a few different examples 
 of various Simulcast Systems explained. 

 http://www.simulcastsolutions.com/case-studies.htm

Another explanation is available here:
http://www.repeater-builder.com/k7pp/index.html

Kevin Custer






Yahoo! Groups Links






  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: What have I got?

[TGundo 2003]

Thanks for the info Joe- I will check it out.

Tom
W9SRV

--- On Mon, 6/21/10, burkleoj joeburk...@hotmail.com wrote:

From: burkleoj joeburk...@hotmail.com
Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Re: What have I got?
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, June 21, 2010, 12:56 AM

Tom,
We have several of these 225 watt units in operation 440 MHz.

The correct PA is the 20 watt unit. It looks identical to the 75 watt chassis, 
just has fewer circuit boards on the inside. Yes it is overkill for this much 
heatsink for 20 watts output power, but one needs to remember that these radios 
were not only designed to, but were very capable of running key down 24/7.

Before I got all excited about having the wrong PA being used as a driver, I 
would pull the cover off of the solid state PA unit and see what it has for 
parts on the inside.

You may have a 75 watt unit that has been modified by either removing or 
bypassing the high power driver and PA boards.

The 20 watt chassis will have two circuit boards on the right side of the PA 
chassis (the end with the input cable) and the left side of the chassis (the 
end with the output cable) should be empty of circuit boards and transistors.

I do not have my manual handy, but most of the Micor UHF station manuals should 
have the part number for the 20 watt PA chassis. 

If the unit actually has a 75 watt PA that has been used to drive the tube, 
about the only damage I would expect would be to the grid circuit. The use of 
75 watts of drive may have shortened the life of the tube due to over driving 
the input.

These PA decks will move to 440 MHz with some work and retuning of the tube 
cavity plates on each side of the PA deck. What you are looking when tuning the 
PA cavity is max power out at minimum plate current.

If you are not familiar with High Power transmitters, please be careful of the 
1500 volt plate supply. It will knock you on your A** or worse. Make sure all 
of the interlocks work and you have a good way to bleed the high voltage off 
before getting to carried away working on the PA deck or power supply.

Good Luck,
Joe - WA7JAW


--- In Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com, TGundo 2003 tgundo2...@... wrote:

 Thanks for the Replies so far-
 
 I have found a little info on the unit. It appears to be a 225-250W 450-470 
 PURC amp. It is supposedly 20-25W in, but I have not found what PA would be 
 the correct IPA. In the cabinet I found that the amp was bypassed, the unit 
 was using the 75W pa as the final. I found the motorola manual numbers for 
 this unit, so now begins the search for one. 
 
 Hopefully the Tube in this puppy is still ok. If anyone has any more info on 
 this unit PLEASE feel free to pass it along.
 
 Thanks!
 Tom
 W9SRV









Yahoo! Groups Links






  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: What have I got?

[TGundo 2003]

Thanks for the Replies so far-

I have found a little info on the unit. It appears to be a 225-250W 450-470 
PURC amp. It is supposedly 20-25W in, but I have not found what PA would be the 
correct IPA. In the cabinet I found that the amp was bypassed, the unit was 
using the 75W pa as the final. I found the motorola manual numbers for this 
unit, so now begins the search for one. 

Hopefully the Tube in this puppy is still ok. If anyone has any more info on 
this unit PLEASE feel free to pass it along.

Thanks!
Tom
W9SRV



  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Mitreks as UHF Repeaters?

[TGundo 2003]

I ran a Duplexed 50W UHF mitrek @30W with a Fan on the heat sink for 5 years 
without a problem. I Upgraded that site to a full blown UHF Micor Repeater 
that is 75W. As expected on the TX the range is better, but the Micor is also a 
slight bit better on the RX as well. I will probably re-use the mitrek radio in 
a future RX site since I have it and the channel element.

That being said, the Mitrek served me well and was a great way to get the 
repeater going. If I did Mitreks again I would use two radios, not because I 
had any problems, but because of the redundancy it would offer. TX or RX dies, 
just swap radios and your back on the air.

As a side note to running a single duplexed radio, I never had any measurable 
de-sense, but I did get spurrs and crap when I tried setting the TX power too 
low. Its happiest at 50-75% of its rated power. 

Tom
W9SRV



--- On Mon, 4/26/10, Paul Plack pl...@xmission.com wrote:

From: Paul Plack pl...@xmission.com
Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Mitreks as UHF Repeaters?
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, April 26, 2010, 3:07 PM












 








Ken, 
 
Thanks, appreciate the link. This document adds a few details 
to what I had on hand. Good to know the high-split Mitreks weren't prone to the 
spurs when duplexed.
 
Also encouraging to read that the 30w radios will run 100% at 
20w with the smaller heatsink. That's probably all the power I'd need in my 
application.
 
73,
Paul, AE4KR
 

  - Original Message - 
  From: 
  Ken Arck 
  To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com 
  
  Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 1:09 
PM
  Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Mitreks 
  as UHF Repeaters?
  
  
  
  At 11:47 AM 4/26/2010, Paul Plack wrote:

   

Ken,
 
Correct, of course, but I'm 
assuming that in a 30w PA, smaller components not somehow directly sunk to 
the main chassis heatsink will reach their max operating temps in a very 
few 
seconds of key-down, and therefore have to be spec'd the same for 
intermittent duty PAs as if they would if they were in continuous 
duty.

---There are several components that are 
  common failures in Mitreks used in duty cycle apps greater than it was 
  designed for. 

One should read the following:

www.ecso.com/ srca/modmitrek _files/mitrex_ mod.pdf 



Just 
  sayin' 

   - - - - - - 
- ---
  President and CTO - Arcom Communications
  Makers of repeater controllers and accessories.
  http://www.arcomcon trollers. com/
  Authorized Dealers for Kenwood and Telewave and
  we offer complete repeater packages!
  AH6LE/R - IRLP Node 3000
  http://www.irlp. net 
  We don't just make 'em. We use 'em!
  




















  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: LOOONG audio runs

[TGundo 2003]

Skipp-

They make Shielded Cat 5  6, as well as shielded RJ45 ends. Takes a special 
crimp tool but it is available. 

Also, Belden and other wire manufactuers are making special series of Cat 
cables with low-skew design specifically for the purposes of sending Audio  
Video down the Cat cables.

We're using baluns all the time for av purposes these days. Can go 1000ft over 
cat 5 for standard analog audio and baseband video with no significant losses, 
and we don't use shielded in most cases, never had any interference. Hi-def 
video formats are shorter distances, passive VGA baluns usually call for 
shielded cat5 or 6 where as active do not.

Tom
W9SRV

--- On Sat, 2/27/10, skipp025 skipp...@yahoo.com wrote:

From: skipp025 skipp...@yahoo.com
Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Re: LOOONG audio runs
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, February 27, 2010, 9:43 PM

 Joe k1ike_m...@... wrote:
 I wonder if CAT 6 would be better than CAT5 due to the 
 difference in twist?
 Joe 

A number of different items in the specifications would be 
worth examining... like how much C per foot and I don't 
believe CAT network cables are shielded. 

s. 

  Oz, in DFW wrote:
  Make sure you use twisted pair.  Station wire like that use to wire 
  houses is often not twisted. Ethernet cable is good and has a high 
  twist pitch - better for this application.
 









Yahoo! Groups Links






  

RE: [Repeater-Builder] Seeking recommendations for 2 Meter repeater antenna

[TGundo 2003]

 either way im no longer a user of the DB224 or folded dipole systems. 


Why would you no longer use folded dipole design antennas just because of one 
manufacturer having a quality control problem? Other manufactuers make folded 
dipole design antennas if you no longer wish to use DB.

I'll take my folded dipole any day over a fiberglass antenna when my site is 
paid a visit from Mr. Lightning Strike, not to mention no performance changes 
due to down tilt. YMMV.

Tom
W9SRV 



  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Motorola Quantar 2M UHF Repeater Ordering Questions

[TGundo 2003]

 
 Frankly, I would likely tell him to go pound salt. He needs
 a RALY 
 good reason to force you to change out perfectly good
 equipment. 


I was thinking the same thing. Did they give you a reason they wanted you to 
change? A properly set up Micor is as good and clean as anything new out there, 
and in some respects can argue better. Is it a power consumption issue? Maybe 
you can agree to settle on replacing just the Micor power supply (I am assuming 
that's what you have in there) with a new more efficient good quality switch 
mode?

Tom
W9SRV


  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] battery

[TGundo 2003]

In the past, I have used marine type battery boxes for radio installations 
and I usually vented it outside by cutting a hole in the battery box top and 
affixing a flexible vent line to the outside.  



This is what I was thinking of doing. Glad to see someone else had the same 
idea. 

Thanks!

Tom


  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Batteries for Backup- Methods

[TGundo 2003]

Thanks to everyone for the feedback so far!


So here is what is bothering me this afternoon. Maybe someone here can shed 
some light on this for me.

The battery I am thinking about using was one I bought a while ago for my boat, 
but I didn't use it because it was too big for the battery box in the boat 
(don't ask). I kept it knowing full well I had other uses for it.

Thinking about this some more, by law any wet cell battery on a boat must be 
contained in a battery box. Thinking more about this, I realize that the 
standard plastic battery box is not really vented, nor completely sealed. In 
the case of my boat (24' pontoon)has two such batteries, one under the seat in 
the rear for the motor and the other under the seat in the front for the 
trolling motor. The compartments under the seats are enclosures in and of 
themselves. The rear one is charging off the engine during run time. On an 
afternoon cruise it could run for several hours charging the battery the whole 
time.

So the wet cell battery, in the box by law, is charging in a box with little 
ventalation. Are boat owners everywhere sitting on ticking hydrogen bombs? 

Tom
W9SRV



  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Micor repeater audio

[TGundo 2003]

I know no one cares to see my graphs... But I posted another one anyways.

Thank you for this little nugget! I suspected the PL filter as well

Threw those resistors on tonight, and while the difference in response measured 
is not that great, the difference to the ear is huge! This really cleaned up 
the audio on my box on the bench. Measuring a pure sine wave will probably not 
show the real effects the ringing has on speech and other complex waveforms, 
likely validating my observation that the speech is significantly cleaned up.

Thanks again for the great experience shared with the group!

Tom
W9SRV



Jeff is right on the nose here



I have swept the MICOR and MOTRAC PL filters and there is a defined
peak around 400 Hz.  It is likely caused by the self resonance of the 6
Henry chokes and associated support components which create the tuned
network used in the filter.  This can be tamed down (filter made to be
flatter in response) to some degree by placing a 220K resistor across
the choke(s).



See Here:

http://www.repeater-builder.com/rbtip/plf.html



Kevin Custer



















 



  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Micor repeater audio

[TGundo 2003]

Yes, I just measured mine out last week (again) and I believe I have the same 
thing. I will measure it exactly tommorow and post my findings.

Tom
W9SRV

--- On Mon, 11/16/09, wd8chl wd8...@gmail.com wrote:

 From: wd8chl wd8...@gmail.com
 Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Micor repeater audio
 To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
 Date: Monday, November 16, 2009, 11:55 PM
 mzfb2001 wrote:
  I was looking in the files section and may have missed
 it, but I am
  looking to improve the transmit audio quality on my
 UHF transmiter.
  I've noticed that the audio is lacking in lows its not
 tinny but its
  not what I would call normal audio from a Micor. The
 audio levels and
  on frequency adjustments have made and to seem to be
 on the money.
  This is an unmodified repeater station using stock
 cards and no
  controller. The receiver is stock and the frequency
 has been changed
  to the 440mhz band. The audio coming out of the
 receiver has fine
  audio quality. Just looking for your thoughts or
 ideas. Thanks for
  your input Mike
  
 
 I don't have a real answer for you, but it's interesting
 that I have had 
 the opposite experience with the two most recent Micor UHF
 stations I 
 put on-line. Both have a peak very near to 400 Hz, and roll
 off several 
 dB/octave above that. Setting for 3 in/3 out @ 1KHz, I get
 abt 4 out @ 
 400 hz, and abt, oh, 1.5 or so at 3K.
 Anyone else noticed a peak around 400 Hz on a UHF Micor
 station?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Yahoo! Groups Links
 
 
     repeater-builder-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com
 
 
 


  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Micor repeater audio

[TGundo 2003]

I stand corrected.

I just checked mine on the bench. Injected signal from my audio generator into 
the Exciter (pin 24 on the TX interconnect board). Set the output of the 
generator to acheive 3k deviation at 1k. Then checked the 1/3 octaves from 160 
to 6300. I posted the graph in the files section of the group, but I found the 
peak at 1600Hz. I suppose I could do this again into the PL input to go around 
the stock audio processing, but this is the way I am going to use it..

However, I believe the audio tailoring I am hearing is actually caused on the 
RX side of things. The other file I posted in the group a few weeks ago (When I 
was checking adm vs non-adm) was measued by outputting a constant 3k dev on the 
service monitor at multiple audio frequencies and measuring the audio input 
going into the exciter thru the RX and 7K controller with an AC voltmeter. You 
will see on that graph there is most definatly a bump at 200-400Hz. I can 
double check, but the last time i swept a straight 7k it was pretty flat in 
audio response, so the tailoring must be caused by the RX or the AS board and 
the PL filtering (Which I am using).

I'm sure Kevin or someone else out here smarter than me has a logical 
explainationI'll wait to read it.

Tom
W9SRV

--- On Tue, 11/17/09, TGundo 2003 tgundo2...@yahoo.com wrote:

 From: TGundo 2003 tgundo2...@yahoo.com
 Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Micor repeater audio
 To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
 Date: Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 12:04 AM
 Yes, I just measured mine out last
 week (again) and I believe I have the same thing. I will
 measure it exactly tommorow and post my findings.
 
 Tom
 W9SRV
 
 --- On Mon, 11/16/09, wd8chl wd8...@gmail.com
 wrote:
 
  From: wd8chl wd8...@gmail.com
  Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Micor repeater audio
  To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
  Date: Monday, November 16, 2009, 11:55 PM
  mzfb2001 wrote:
   I was looking in the files section and may have
 missed
  it, but I am
   looking to improve the transmit audio quality on
 my
  UHF transmiter.
   I've noticed that the audio is lacking in lows
 its not
  tinny but its
   not what I would call normal audio from a Micor.
 The
  audio levels and
   on frequency adjustments have made and to seem to
 be
  on the money.
   This is an unmodified repeater station using
 stock
  cards and no
   controller. The receiver is stock and the
 frequency
  has been changed
   to the 440mhz band. The audio coming out of the
  receiver has fine
   audio quality. Just looking for your thoughts or
  ideas. Thanks for
   your input Mike
   
  
  I don't have a real answer for you, but it's
 interesting
  that I have had 
  the opposite experience with the two most recent Micor
 UHF
  stations I 
  put on-line. Both have a peak very near to 400 Hz, and
 roll
  off several 
  dB/octave above that. Setting for 3 in/3 out @ 1KHz, I
 get
  abt 4 out @ 
  400 hz, and abt, oh, 1.5 or so at 3K.
  Anyone else noticed a peak around 400 Hz on a UHF
 Micor
  station?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Yahoo! Groups Links
  
  
      repeater-builder-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com
  
  
  
 
 
       
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Yahoo! Groups Links
 
 
     repeater-builder-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com
 
 
 


  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Radio for repeater use Response to Tom's comments

[TGundo 2003]

Well, you don't really need my input, you certainly have gotten plenty of 
quality responses tonight...

Don't let the flurry of ideas overwhelm you. Take it one step at a time. You 
still might be too low on the power output. I had a transmitter
that didnt like to be turned down less than 2/3 rated power, at 1/2
power it would create problems on the reciever, its spurs would mix
with some local 2-way stuff and come thru on the receiver from time to
time, had me convinced it was local interference and I needed
filtering. Turning up the power solved the problem. KISS method is
always a worth a try. There are way more qualified guys on the list here to 
help you, but here is what I would do (without having a spectrum analyzer to 
look at your output):

1. Terminate the TX into a dummy load. Turn the power up to 80W. Key the 
transmitter for a good long time and get it warmed up. Keep your wattmeter in 
line and watch it, make sure it stays stable at 80W. If you notice it acting up 
then you have a problem in the radio. If not- go to step two. 

2. Once the transmitter is nice and warmed up have someone with a weaker signal 
start giving you a signal on the input. Leave the transmitter hooked up to the 
dummy load for this test and the reciever hooked up to the antenna system. 
First, disable the transmitter and have them continue transmissions while you 
monitor the input. It may take several tests like this if it is outside 
interference, since it's likely not consistent. Try and notate any particular 
times of day the noise happens to get a better clue into this. If you do hear 
the noise, then you know its interference or something in the antenna system. 
If not, then move on to step three.

3. With your friend still sending a signal on the input enable the transmitter 
into the dummy load. If the noise appears then something in the radio is amiss, 
like the PA is going spurious or there's a bad jumper or connector somewhere . 
If not- move onto step four.

4. Reconnect everything back to normal. Leave the power level at 80W. If the 
noise re-appears then you still need to look into the antenna system. The G7 
could have a problem, or something in the feedline. If all is well then it was 
likely the power level of the PA was still too low. Problem solved!

Hopefully one of these steps without the proper test gear will get you pointed 
in the right direction. Let us know your findings!

Tom
W9SRV

--- On Mon, 10/5/09, W3ML w...@arrl.net wrote:

From: W3ML w...@arrl.net
Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Radio for repeater use Response to Tom's 
comments
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, October 5, 2009, 7:33 PM

Hi Tom,



I did crank up the power to 55 watts out of radio and that gives me 45 out of 
the duplexer.  Decided on this wattage until I can figure the problem better. 
It is working better than before, but still having trouble.

So from what you said about power coming out duplexer, the duplexer must still 
be okay.

However, during the day today there were 3 hams talking and they said (later) 
that all of them were loud and clear. But, when I got home and tried to call 
one of them, he was covered in noise.

Later one of the others called in and he would be clear, then the repeater 
would cut out and his signal would be gone, then it would come back with noise 
on his signal and then clear again.

Then the other one came in with a lot of noise, then he would come in with a 
little noise and then no noise at all and then back again through this cycle.
 
This cycle of noise and then no noise is driving me crazy.

The set up is this:

GE Mastr II VHF mobile running into a 6 cavity duplexer set to our freqs with a 
service monitor prior to bringing it here. 

There is a bandpass filter on the receive side after the duplexer and before 
the radio.

We have used 1/2 inch hardline going up to the used G7-144.

Then only thing I can think of is the radio is bad, the antenna is no good and 
the coax is shot.

Now, the radio was given to us by a group that had used it, but decided to 
replace it with a Kenwood.

I am thinking that they had the same problem and that is why they gave it away.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. 

73
John, W3ML


- In Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com, W9SRV tgundo2...@... wrote:

 Ok-
 
 1. Where are you checking the swr at in the chain? Make sure you bypass the 
 duplexers to check the antenna, the cans can throw off the reading on some 
 meters like you describe using. If you are less than 1.5:1 I would not worry 
 too much more about it, any reflected power will get eaten up back in the 
 cans. If you are really concerned about protecting the TX put a circulator 
 in-line with it. 
 
 2. Make sure all the interconnecting cables are good shielded and not foil/ 
 braid type. RG-213 and RG-400 are good choices, though there are a few more.
 
 3. Terminate into a good dummy load. Set you output power to 80-90W. Then run 
 thru the duplexer and check the 

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Controller Recomendations

[TGundo 2003]

I have a similar setup, two UHF repeaters linked and an optional third link to 
a VHF repeater. I have the S-Com 7330. You cant beat it for the money, and the 
latest firmware release makes the controller Ideal for what you are looking to 
do. Have not had a hiccup yet, and I have recently bought a second one to use 
on another repeater. Bob, Dave, and all the guys at S-Com are great and you are 
Never left hanging on any questions you have. Past S-com products (5K, 6K, 7K) 
have set a track record of very dependable operation, I'm sure the 7330 is 
following in their footsteps. 

Plus the 7330 has wonderful blue LED's, you can't beat a product with the Sexy 
blue lights! (Sorry, electronic retailers joke)

My 2 cents.

Tom
W9SRV
www.waldofar.net


--- On Wed, 9/16/09, ve6sar ve6...@rac.ca wrote:

From: ve6sar ve6...@rac.ca
Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Controller Recomendations
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, September 16, 2009, 12:47 AM

I'm working on a project for the local ham club to build and install a UHF 
linking hub repeater and down the road add a low power vhf repeater to the site 
that's linked through a controller. 

I've used the Link Comm RLC-4's and CraField CD-3 controllers before I'm 
looking for an inexpensive solution that still is a quality product. Nothing to 
fancy is required.

What are people using for similar set ups?

Sean
VE6SAR  







Yahoo! Groups Links






  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] S-COM 7330

[TGundo 2003]

I have been using one for well over a year- no failures at all and no goofy 
glitches to report either. I have it set up to control one repeater and two 
link radios. Audio quality is excellent. Like it's predacessor the 7K, so far 
it seems to be a very reliable piece of hardware.

Still waiting for some of the software features to be developed, like message 
routing, DVR function, etc, seems like there's lots of potential yet to be 
unleashed! Dave, Bob, and the gang at S-Com promise more to be released soon.

I will hopefully be putting in a second one soon (As soon as the finance 
committe approves ;) ) on another repeater project.


Tom
W9SRV
www.waldofar.net



--- On Mon, 8/17/09, James Adkins adkins.ja...@gmail.com wrote:

From: James Adkins adkins.ja...@gmail.com
Subject: [Repeater-Builder] S-COM 7330
To: repeater-builder Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, August 17, 2009, 10:23 AM





















Anyone out there using an S-Com 7330?  Looking for any input on their 
reliability and operation.
Thanks,

-- 
James Adkins, KB0NHX





















 




  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Repeater Antenna Recommendations?

[TGundo 2003]

Can't go wrong with an exposed dipole array. There are several manufactuers out 
there with similar models, and I'm sure you'll get many different opinions out 
here, but I'm partial to the DB-420. I have heard stories the newer ones may 
have some manufacturing issues, so other brands might be worth a look. 
Unfortunatly, my pocketbook doesn't allow for brand new ones, so I'm happy with 
re-furbing used ones ;)

I have two used ones in service, they probably had 10-15 or more years on them 
when I put them on the air, 5 years for me so far without a hiccup. Don't worry 
about the bandsplit on the DB's being for 450-470, they are really broadbanded. 
I have a 450-470 in service on 441.300 and it's less than 1.3:1 that far down. 

Exposed dipoles are much better than fiberglass with lightening as well. I know 
I saw 2-3 pitt marks on the top of one of my 420's from past lightening 
strikes. That same one is now mounted on a water tower, and appearantly  that 
site took a lightening hit not long ago. I would have never known except for 
the fact I bumped into a maintence guy there who was replaced a pump motor that 
got blown out by the strike. Happily my equipment survived untouched. :)

YMMV

Tom
W9SRV

--- On Wed, 7/15/09, Tony L. railtrailbi...@yahoo.com wrote:

 From: Tony L. railtrailbi...@yahoo.com
 Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Repeater Antenna Recommendations?
 To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
 Date: Wednesday, July 15, 2009, 9:41 PM
 I'm giving serious consideration to
 replacing my 17-year old Radio Frequency Systems (Celwave)
 1151, 8db Station Master type antenna with a brand new
 colinear or exposed dipole model.  The antenna is being
 used for a 70 cm repeater.
 
 Any recommendations?  Should I just buy a new 1151, or
 are there manufacturers/models more suited to repeater use
 (e.g., low noise, more durable, etc.).
 
 I chose an 1151 over a 455 (10db model) because I heard the
 the longer model flexes too much in the wind. 
 Comments?
 
 Thanks.
 
 
 
 Tony
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Yahoo! Groups Links
 
 
     mailto:repeater-builder-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com
 
 
 


  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Repeater Insurance?

[TGundo 2003]

Yes- thru the ARRL, I believe it's thru Marsh insurance. I think its @ $330/yr 
for a general $2 Mil liability policy.

Tom
W9SRV


--- On Fri, 4/24/09, georgiaskywarn kd4...@juno.com wrote:

 From: georgiaskywarn kd4...@juno.com
 Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Repeater Insurance?
 To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
 Date: Friday, April 24, 2009, 8:51 PM
 Good Evening Folks,
 How many of you have repeater insurance?  With our new
 installation, we thought this might be the next step.  How
 much are you paying and who do you have the insurance with?
 Thanks,
 Robert 
 KD4YDC
 http://disneycrazy.smugmug.com/gallery/7943953_gF4Q3
 (Hope to get some more pictures up this weekend.) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Yahoo! Groups Links
 
 
 

  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Moto Max Trac 300

[TGundo 2003]

What your looking for is here:

http://www.repeater-builder.com/maxtrac/maxtrac-interfacing.html

And as the article mentions, Maxtracs are mobile radios, so they are not 
designed for heavy TX use. Build accordingly!

Tom
W9SRV

--- On Mon, 4/20/09, Rick Szajkowski va3r...@gmail.com wrote:
From: Rick Szajkowski va3r...@gmail.com
Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Moto Max Trac 300
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, April 20, 2009, 1:10 PM





















Hello to the group ..

Has any one used a Max Trac for link radios 

It only has the 8 pin ( I believe ) connector 1 row of pins

I see some one on the Raduis has brought COS out to the front mic Jack but 
there is no docs on what was there 


I just need to do a temp link from 1 repeater system to another until we can 
get some good link radios and I can put my Max Trac's back in service 

Thanks for any and all help

and yes I looked on the website but only found do's and dont's ... :)






















 




  

[Repeater-Builder] Scanning Recievers (Was Remote Receiver)

[TGundo 2003]

While were talking about remote receivers- I have a question for the group. 
What do you use for remote receivers that scan? I have a system with multiple 
talkouts and there are a few potential sites for extra receivers that could 
cover both talkouts. I was thinking about a Maxtrac  finding some way to lock 
it into scan? Anyone have a different Idea?

Tom
W9SRV


  

RE: [Repeater-Builder] Remote Receiver

[TGundo 2003]

Many systems will use a different PL for different receive sites to get around 
the need for a voter. It requires more education for the users to know where 
they are  which receiver they get into better, but its a simple setup that 
works.

Tom
W9SRV


--- On Wed, 4/15/09, John Transue jtran...@cox.net wrote:

 From: John Transue jtran...@cox.net
 Subject: RE: [Repeater-Builder] Remote Receiver
 To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
 Date: Wednesday, April 15, 2009, 12:45 PM
 Lance, Mark, Cort, Butch, Bob, Chris, and others,
 
 Thanks for the good advice and quick response. I will
 follow up on the
 suggestions, and get an idea of the cost. 
 
 It hadn't occurred to me that I would need a voter.
 With only this one
 remote receiver, I thought I could just rely on the
 controller (ACC
 RC-850) to accept the audio in accordance with the -850
 priorities. Is
 this not suitable? 
 
 I have a UHF Mastr II. I guess one approach would be to
 swap out the
 receiver for a VHF receiver and use the UHF as the link.
 One of you has
 done this with good result. 
 
 I also have an ACC RC-85 controller. I could use this with
 a VHF RX, a
 UHF TX, and have a UHF RX at the base.
 
 Does the link TX have to identify (amateur service)? I
 believe it does
 have to. Is there a way to avoid having extra IDs when the
 link is
 active? Well, I guess once every ten minutes isn't much
 of a problem. 
 
 Thanks again. More suggestions are welcome.
 
 John Transue AF4PD
 
 
 
 __ NOD32 4010 (20090415) Information __
 
 This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system.
 http://www.eset.com
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Yahoo! Groups Links
 
 
 

  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re:Anyone have this happen?

[TGundo 2003]

I have a UHF Micor repeater in a Facility that is not heated, Could see my 
breath last couple times I was there. It has been there for almost 3 years, and 
for a year before that it was in another non-temperature controlled environment 
(Just south of Chicago, so winters get cold). I have not had to touch the 
channel elements since the first time I set them during the initial tune-up.

I also have a Mitrek repeater in a somewhat-controlled environment, but not 
really. Temps get cold in that one too. Its been there for 4+ years. Only had 
to re-adjust whan I had a radio go bad. 

The Crystals were both done at ICM. For the few $$$ more, seems worth the while.

Tom
W9SRV



  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: OT- Digital TV converter box issues

[TGundo 2003]

As a Sony, LG,  Samsung Dealer I can tell you none of these have a current 
high End' Model HDTV tuner box. Was a different story a couple of years ago 
when no one was really looking for a tuner, and we still sold a ton of them. 
Have not been any replacements for a while. YMMV.

Tom
W9SRV


--- On Fri, 1/9/09, Dan Cation dan...@ckt.net wrote:

 From: Dan Cation dan...@ckt.net
 Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Re: OT-  Digital TV converter box issues
 To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
 Date: Friday, January 9, 2009, 12:45 PM
 As for higher end converter boxes, there are some HDTV tuner
 boxes -
 most of which are aimed at the HDTV market and have either
 Component
 Video or HDMI outputs - I know I have seen LG and Samsung
 models at
 Best Buy, and I think I also saw some from people like
 Sony. These are
 generally considered tuners and not converter boxes by
 their
 manufacturers.   www.solidsignal.com has a comparison chart
 of
 features of all of the coupon eligible converter boxes (not
 the
 tuners) that makes it pretty easy to see what is out there
 in that
 class.  I noticed a Zinwel and the DTVPal that both have
 some sort of
 timer for recording, with the DTVPal getting the best
 reviews.  For a
 really nice box, check out the DTVPal DVR at DTVPal.com -
 dual tuners,
 built in hard drive recorder, HDMI and Component output as
 well as
 modulator and composite video out for $249. You can record
 two shows
 on different channels and watch a recorded show all at the
 same time.
 Makes fooling with a MythTV box a lot of trouble, by
 comparison. 
 
 73 - Dan
 
 --- In Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com, Mark
 n9...@... wrote:
 
  Joe,
  
  Can you provide manufacturers and/or model numbers so
 I can research
 further
  on these higher-end boxes??
  
  Also, in regard to Chuck's comment about stations
 staying on their UHF
  allocation freqs, WBBM - the CBS affiliate in Chicago
 - is on Ch 2
 analog
  and Ch 12 digital for now.  WBBM will revert to Ch 3
 for digital
 once the
  migration is complete.  The coverage maps obtained
 from the link
 provided
  earlier does *not* indicate this future frequency
 change data... you
 need to
  check the FCC for these eventualities.
  
  WBBM-TV   IL CHICAGO   USA
 (Digital)
  
Licensee: CBS BROADCASTING INC.
Service Designation: DT   Digital television station
  
Channel: 3   60 -  66 MHz   Licensed
File No.:   BLCDT-20050623ABL Facility ID
 number: 9617
CDBS Application ID No.: 1069502
  
  Mark - N9WYS
  
  -Original Message-
  From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
  [mailto:repeater-buil...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
 MCH
  
  Only some are made low cost (and coupon
 'eligible'). There are a lot of 
  models that are not eligible for the coupon that have
 more features
 than 
  the basic models - such as 1080p support. I have not
 seen any with any 
  scheduling features, either, however.
  
  Joe M.
  
  From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com  On Behalf Of
 Chuck Kelsey
  
  Almost all of the stations will be UHF in my area when
 all is said
 and done.
  
  Check your region on this map to be sure. It shows
 what channel the
 stations
  
  will use after cutover.
  http://www.fcc.gov/dtv/markets/ 
  
  Chuck
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Yahoo! Groups Links
 
 
 

  

[Repeater-Builder] OT- Digital TV converter box issues- You can stop the thread now

[TGundo 2003]

Insider info- Just got done talking with someone with some intresting inside 
info...


The certainty that the DTV cutoff date is HIGH (I would put your money on it). 
And, I hear the word on the street is they are going to push it back 3 years

Why, you ask?

Because not enough people have converter boxes...No

Because they ran out of money for people to buy them.No

Because of the high level of confusion out there..No


Use common sense again. When they turn off the analogs Spectrum goes up to 
auction. Given the current state of the economy, what they would get for that 
10 year licence would only be a fraction of what they projected and based the 
numbers on. Top that off with no one is likely to LEND the money to Motorola, 
Google, or whoever wants to buy it. 3 years is what they are hoping will be 
enough time to get the economy back to where they will get what they thought 
for the spectrum AND have someone with the money to pay for it.

All about the money. 


Tom
W9SRV


  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] OT- Digital TV converter box issues- You can stop the thread now

[TGundo 2003]

My statement was mis-worded a bit. I apologize for that Chuck, was busy at the 
office...rush rush  type. Didn't proof read that one well.

I agree it will cost a lot to keep two on the air and they will not be happy 
about it... But who will want the bad PR of shutting down analog first and not 
caring about the lower class who cannot afford new tv's or converter boxes??? 
You know the press  local politicians would have a field day with that.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still all for shutting down the analogs. Let's turn the 
page. If I had to guess, If it came down to it I could see Fox shutting it down 
first.

And don't put it past Congress to mandate they keep both on the air. I'm here 
in Illinois   have yet to be suprised what Government will do (Look at our 
Governer... Though it is fun to watch, you couldn't make this stuff up. Sad, 
But fun.)

Tom
W9SRV


--- On Fri, 1/9/09, Chuck Kelsey wb2...@roadrunner.com wrote:

 From: Chuck Kelsey wb2...@roadrunner.com
 Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] OT-  Digital TV converter box issues- You can 
 stop the thread now
 To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
 Date: Friday, January 9, 2009, 6:20 PM
 The certainty of pushing it back is high? Your post is a bit
 contradictory.
 
 Unless Congress mandates that broadcasters keep both analog
 and digital 
 active, my money is going to be on analogs shutting down
 voluntarily as a 
 cost saving measure. It costs a lot of money to keep a full
 power TV 
 transmitter running.
 
 They can auction whenever they want.
 
 Chuck
 WB2EDV
 
 
 - Original Message - 
 From: TGundo 2003 tgundo2...@yahoo.com
 To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
 Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 2:49 PM
 Subject: [Repeater-Builder] OT- Digital TV converter box
 issues- You can 
 stop the thread now
 
 
  Insider info- Just got done talking with someone with
 some intresting 
  inside info...
 
 
  The certainty that the DTV cutoff date is HIGH (I
 would put your money on 
  it). And, I hear the word on the street is they are
 going to push it back 
  3 years
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 Yahoo! Groups Links
 
 
 

  

RE: [Repeater-Builder] OT- Digital TV converter box issues

[TGundo 2003]

The bain of my existance the last few weeks.DTV.

Several Points of order: DTV Myths, Comments, QA:


I hear once a day: DTV doesn't work as good as analog.

My Response (based on experience): Does not work as good is from a point of 
view. The fact is DTV is more effiecnt, the stations are typically running a 
fraction of the output power and achieving the same footprint of coverage. It 
takes far less signal to noise to pull out a clear, high quality picture than 
it does with analog. Can you make out an analog station with a ton of snow, 
lines, sparkles, etc when you might not pull in a DTV Station? Sure! Do you 
enjoy watching a crappy picture? Do you like to listen to the guy on his flea 
power portable noisy into the repeater or the guy on a good mobile who is full 
quieting?



I hear once a day: The antenna in my attic/ my old antenna system does not get 
the DTV stations that I get in analog.

My Response: Well, this is a technical group with a high level of RF knowledge. 
How well does your 440 antenna (or any band) work in the attic compared to on 
your roof or tower?
There is some implied responsibility on the part of the end user to ensure that 
their equipment is optimized for the best performance. That being said, I have 
many many clients with antennas in the attic that work just fine. 
What I do find to be the typical problem is that most people with antennas in 
their attics have an amplifier installed to make up for being in the attic. I'm 
sorry to say that the $15-20 amplifier you pick up at the hardware store sucks, 
to prove that just bench test it on your specturm analyzer  look at a DTV 
signal. They typically distort the waveform badly and that is more common a 
problem why you can't tune the DTV station. I have pulled those from an antenna 
system that were receiving analog but not digital. Once out of the system, 
while the analog was virtually unwatchable now (which the amp had boosted 
enough to tolerate), the DTV signal suddenly came thru with flying colors! 
Would you put a crappy preamp on your repeater receiver?


I hear once a day: My converter box does not seem as sensitive as my new DTV 
set in the other room.

My Response: Let's use some common sense here. The government mandated that the 
LOWEST COST possible converter boxes be made available for people to convert 
their OLD analog TV's. The bottom line: You get what you pay for. 
Was not that long ago a wise jedi master here on RB posted findings on PL 
circuits in radios with his test equipment and found that the cheaper radios 
did a poorer job. Your $50 converter box is not going to have as good of DTV 
tuner in it as your new $5000 Sony HDTV. This difference existed in analog 
tuners as well. Nuff said.
*A side note: We have found that there are huge differences in converter boxes. 
For what it is worth the Zenith model seems to be one of the best, in case your 
shopping. I would stay away from brands you have never heard of at the big box 
stores.

I hear every day now: The government screwed up  is running out of money for 
the program.

My Response: We knew 3 years ago they only had so much money set aside for 
this. What did everyone think would happen? There are a ton of unclaimed cards 
out there right now, and as they expire they will put that money back in the 
pot. However, it was always first come, first serve, and the government should 
not be there forever to make sure you can still use your dads 40 year RCA TV. 
And, it's $50-70 for a typical converter box. Holy cow. If the $40 coupon makes 
the difference for you of eating or not that week, I think TV should be less of 
a priority for you. (Sorry for the social commentary)


I hear every day now (This one is yours Mark;) ): Leave it to the government to 
make the change in Feb instead of June.

My response: If I remember correctly the orignal cutoff date was in a June, but 
the lawyers fought  fought and got extension after extension. DTV has been 
around for 3-4 years now in most markets, and we have known this date was 
coming for roughly the same time. It's like high school: we knew for 2 weeks 
our paper was due, but still blamed the teacher when we were really tired on 
the due date because we stayed up really late the night before doing the paper. 
;)


Finally- I cannot speak for all the markets out there, but here in Chicago the 
DTV stations for the most part are at their full licensed power now, only 
changes left to come are some channel re-assignments when the switch happens. 
So go to work on your antenna that has been up for 30 years and get it in shape 
again!

Tom
W9SRV


  

RE: [Repeater-Builder] OT- Digital TV converter box issues

[TGundo 2003]

: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
 [mailto:repeater-buil...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
 TGundo 2003
 
 The bain of my existance the last few weeks.DTV.
 
 Several Points of order: DTV Myths, Comments, QA:
 
 
 I hear once a day: DTV doesn't work as good as analog.
 
 My Response (based on experience): Does not work as good is
 from a point of
 view. The fact is DTV is more effiecnt, the stations are
 typically running a
 fraction of the output power and achieving the same
 footprint of coverage.
 It takes far less signal to noise to pull out a clear, high
 quality picture
 than it does with analog. Can you make out an analog
 station with a ton of
 snow, lines, sparkles, etc when you might not pull in a DTV
 Station? Sure!
 Do you enjoy watching a crappy picture? Do you like to
 listen to the guy on
 his flea power portable noisy into the repeater or the guy
 on a good mobile
 who is full quieting?
 
 
 I hear once a day: The antenna in my attic/ my old antenna
 system does not
 get the DTV stations that I get in analog.
 
 My Response: Well, this is a technical group with a high
 level of RF
 knowledge. How well does your 440 antenna (or any band)
 work in the attic
 compared to on your roof or tower?
 There is some implied responsibility on the part of the end
 user to ensure
 that their equipment is optimized for the best performance.
 That being said,
 I have many many clients with antennas in the attic that
 work just fine. 
 What I do find to be the typical problem is that most
 people with antennas
 in their attics have an amplifier installed to make up for
 being in the
 attic. I'm sorry to say that the $15-20 amplifier you
 pick up at the
 hardware store sucks, to prove that just bench test it on
 your specturm
 analyzer  look at a DTV signal. They typically distort
 the waveform badly
 and that is more common a problem why you can't tune
 the DTV station. I have
 pulled those from an antenna system that were receiving
 analog but not
 digital. Once out of the system, while the analog was
 virtually unwatchable
 now (which the amp had boosted enough to tolerate), the DTV
 signal suddenly
 came thru with flying colors! Would you put a crappy preamp
 on your repeater
 receiver?
 
 
 I hear once a day: My converter box does not seem as
 sensitive as my new DTV
 set in the other room.
 
 My Response: Let's use some common sense here. The
 government mandated that
 the LOWEST COST possible converter boxes be made available
 for people to
 convert their OLD analog TV's. The bottom line: You get
 what you pay for. 
 Was not that long ago a wise jedi master here on RB posted
 findings on PL
 circuits in radios with his test equipment and found that
 the cheaper radios
 did a poorer job. Your $50 converter box is not going to
 have as good of DTV
 tuner in it as your new $5000 Sony HDTV. This difference
 existed in analog
 tuners as well. Nuff said.
 *A side note: We have found that there are huge differences
 in converter
 boxes. For what it is worth the Zenith model seems to be
 one of the best, in
 case your shopping. I would stay away from brands you have
 never heard of at
 the big box stores.
 
 I hear every day now: The government screwed up  is
 running out of money
 for the program.
 
 My Response: We knew 3 years ago they only had so much
 money set aside for
 this. What did everyone think would happen? There are a ton
 of unclaimed
 cards out there right now, and as they expire they will put
 that money back
 in the pot. However, it was always first come, first serve,
 and the
 government should not be there forever to make sure you can
 still use your
 dads 40 year RCA TV. And, it's $50-70 for a typical
 converter box. Holy cow.
 If the $40 coupon makes the difference for you of eating or
 not that week, I
 think TV should be less of a priority for you. (Sorry for
 the social
 commentary)
 
 
 I hear every day now (This one is yours Mark;) ): Leave it
 to the government
 to make the change in Feb instead of June.
 
 My response: If I remember correctly the orignal cutoff
 date was in a June,
 but the lawyers fought  fought and got extension after
 extension. DTV has
 been around for 3-4 years now in most markets, and we have
 known this date
 was coming for roughly the same time. It's like high
 school: we knew for 2
 weeks our paper was due, but still blamed the teacher when
 we were really
 tired on the due date because we stayed up really late the
 night before
 doing the paper. ;)
 
 Finally- I cannot speak for all the markets out there, but
 here in Chicago
 the DTV stations for the most part are at their full
 licensed power now,
 only changes left to come are some channel re-assignments
 when the switch
 happens. So go to work on your antenna that has been up for
 30 years and get
 it in shape again!
 
 Tom
 W9SRV
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Yahoo! Groups Links
 
 
 

  

[Repeater-Builder] OT- Digital TV/ New War Story

[TGundo 2003]

Ok, I promised not to post anymore on this, but you'll like this one.

I said in a previous post I was going to a potential client to look at a job 
today where they have tennants who are plugging their DTV converter boxes into 
the house antenna system and not receiving the channels, and another company 
recommended a digital amplifier to solve the problem.

Well, I went. Here is a photo of the head end of one of the 88 unit buildings:

http://www.waldofar.net/88_unit_head_end_web.jpg

I believe the appropriate caption is Well, there's your problem!


Fun Fun. Notes on this- 

1. Its a VHF only in house antenna system with 2 UHF channels re-modulated on 
to channels 4  8. Wonder why DTV didn't work?

2. See the tan box on the wall with the red/black sticker- an amplifier-? You 
are tempted to think this is hanging by one mount. I will tell you the reality 
is it is mounted securely at that angle.


My guess is our proposal will be too much..

Enjoy!

Tom
W9SRV  


  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] OT- Digital TV converter box issues

[TGundo 2003]

There is a Sony DVD Recorder/VCR with a built in ATSC tuner that can record DTV 
onto either DVD or VCR, but that model has been discontinued and what's in 
stock at Sony it whats left. I have not seen any DTV converters that can do 
what you ask for. Remember- Made to be the least cost to the publicThat 
would have added $5

Tom
W9SRV


--- On Thu, 1/8/09, Nate Duehr n...@natetech.com wrote:

 From: Nate Duehr n...@natetech.com
 Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] OT-  Digital TV converter box issues
 To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
 Date: Thursday, January 8, 2009, 4:07 PM
 Here's something interesting I noticed.
 
 If the consumer (we're not people you know,
 we're consumers now...) 
 had any type of Standard Def recording device that had its
 own tuner...
 
 It could ostensibly be set permanently to channel
 3 (or whatever the 
 RF output of the DTV converter box is) to handle making
 recordings...
 
 But, I haven't seen any DTV tuner boxes with clocks
 and/or scheduling 
 capabilities to tune the correct channel prior to the
 recording device 
 starting up.
 
 Has anyone else seen one of those?  (Other than building a
 home-brew DVR 
 with MythBox or buying a similar commercial product...)
 
 Nate WY0X
 
 
 
 
 
 Yahoo! Groups Links
 
 
 

  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] OT- Digital TV converter box issues

[TGundo 2003]

Model Number: RDR-VXD655

Still available on sony style, as a dealer were having a hard time getting 
them. This model does not have a hard drive, I know the one you have and it was 
great...


Tom


--- On Thu, 1/8/09, Dave Gomberg da...@wcf.com wrote:

 From: Dave Gomberg da...@wcf.com
 Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] OT-  Digital TV converter box issues
 To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
 Date: Thursday, January 8, 2009, 6:32 PM
 At 14:39 1/8/2009, TGundo 2003 wrote:
 There is a Sony DVD Recorder/VCR with a built in ATSC
 tuner that can 
 record DTV onto either DVD or VCR,
 
 Maybe you are thinking of the Sony DHG-HDD250 and 500?  If
 so, I have 
 one, they won't record a DVD but otherwise they are
 great   Too 
 bad they are gone
 
 but that model has been discontinued and what's in
 stock at Sony it 
 whats left. I have not seen any DTV converters that can
 do what you 
 ask for. Remember- Made to be the least cost to the
 publicThat 
 would have added $5
 
 Tom
 W9SRV
 
 
 --- On Thu, 1/8/09, Nate Duehr
 n...@natetech.com wrote:
 
   From: Nate Duehr n...@natetech.com
   Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] OT-  Digital TV
 converter box issues
   To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
   Date: Thursday, January 8, 2009, 4:07 PM
   Here's something interesting I noticed.
  
   If the consumer (we're not people
 you know,
   we're consumers now...)
   had any type of Standard Def recording device
 that had its
   own tuner...
  
   It could ostensibly be set permanently to
 channel
   3 (or whatever the
   RF output of the DTV converter box is) to handle
 making
   recordings...
  
   But, I haven't seen any DTV tuner boxes with
 clocks
   and/or scheduling
   capabilities to tune the correct channel prior to
 the
   recording device
   starting up.
  
   Has anyone else seen one of those?  (Other than
 building a
   home-brew DVR
   with MythBox or buying a similar commercial
 product...)
  
   Nate WY0X
  
   
  
  
  
   Yahoo! Groups Links
  
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Yahoo! Groups Links
 
 
 
 
 No virus found in this incoming message.
 Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com
 Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.2/1876 -
 Release Date: 
 1/5/2009 9:44 AM
 
 
 -- 
 Dave Gomberg, San Francisco   NE5EE gomberg1 at wcf dot
 com
 All addresses, phones, etc. at
 http://www.wcf.com/ham/info.html
 -
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Yahoo! Groups Links
 
 
 

  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] WAS EF Johnson, Now Icom

[TGundo 2003]

Please See responses below:

 

 Quantar seems to do pretty well for those I've
 listened/talked  
 through.  The analog audio is distinctively
 Motorola though, highly  
 compressed and if you swept it, there's no way it'd
 be flat in-to- 
 out.  Moto sure likes their compression. 

Yes- New moto compresion is pretty heavy (and to me sounds like crap)


 Oh before I forget to joke about it... of course you could
 always give  
 the grant money back and ask that they return it as a tax
 refund to  
 those who are really paying for the repeater.  :-)  (Heh
 heh.   
 Nothing's really FREE!  Someone paid for it.)

I'm in Illinois- If we don't use the money it will end up in the back pocket of 
the politicians..It's the requirement of the state ;) (Obama fans should 
remember he is from Illinois)



  You
 didn't say  
 specifically that it was a ham repeater, 

Yes, a Ham UHF Machine.


 and  
 nothing to worry about, turn on your CTCSS decoder, etc...
 this always 

The users of this particular system are pretty advanced and already have P25 
Radios. I think this would be a minimal issue.
 


 Amateur P25 has a lot of hurdles to jump through before
 systems can  
 even think about doing that.

I Agree. However the requirement for this opportunity is that the equipment be 
P25 capable/compliant.


 
 So... seriously... think about going D-STAR.  Amateur P25
 is fun/ 
 good... I won't knock that... but D-STAR is light years
 ahead of it in  
 functionality... I'm not saying everything's
 perfect, there are  
 glitches to all this new stuff... but dollar for dollar,
 the D-STAR  
 gear is doing a lot more already.


Not to knock D-Star, but I am personally tired of being beat about the head 
with D* D* D* every five minutes on both groups, the air, and at Hamfests. I 
made the mistake of joining a Digital ham  D-star yahoo group (just trying to 
stay up on things) and my inbox was never the same.


That being said- again the requirements of the opportunity is P25 capability. 
Along with that all the users of the system have P25 rigs and are itching for a 
good P25 Capable repeater around here too.

I would not consider any digital right now if it was not an requirement of the 
opportunity. My feelings are most Ham repeaters are made up of surplus 
commercial grade equipment of the past, so in 10 more years you will not find 
any commercial D* equipment floating around, but P25 will be abundant.

Also, if Icom was so sure of the format why would they not offer it 
commercially along with or as an alternative to P25? Other manfactuers are 
introducing their own formats besides P25. I am hesitant that D* has a shorter 
lifespan than P25 just due to the fact the commercial world is P25 and that 
equipment will be around a while.

 
 --
 Nate Duehr, WY0X
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Thanks Nate as always for the great comments!!!


Tom
W9SRV



  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] WAS EF Johnson, Now Icom

[TGundo 2003]

Thanks for all the Opinions on the EF line!

How about the DRB-25 series Icom Mixed Mode Stuff? Good, Bad, Indifferent?


As long as were at it, I'll pose this question: Your mission- Spend grant money 
on a brand new repeater with the requirement it needs to support P25 but 
operate mixed mode. What would you use?

Thanks Again!

Tom 
W9SRV


  

RE: [Repeater-Builder] Measuring Desense

[TGundo 2003]

Here now- In downtown Chicago Comcast is all-digital now. No analog to be found 
on the pipe.

Tom
W9SRV

--- On Fri, 7/11/08, Richard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
From: Richard [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [Repeater-Builder] Measuring Desense
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, July 11, 2008, 7:04 PM







 
You're right, I think the majority of cable providers will 
be dumping analog within a few years in order to free up bandwidth for more 
digital channels.
 
Richard
www.n7tgb.net
 



From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Gerald 
Pelnar
Sent: Friday, July 11, 2008 4:38 PM
To: 
Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] 
Measuring Desense





- Original Message - 
From: Dave Gomberg [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Repeater-Builder@ yahoogroups. com
Sent: 
Friday, July 11, 2008 1:23 PM
Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Measuring 
Desense


 DTV is the new millennium. Those who miss it get to 
buy cable forever.

 NE5EE with 39 digital channels over-the-air, 
most HD. And HDTV for 2 
 years.


Not exactly. Cable here 
is only going to keep analog for three years after 
the switch to 
digital.

Gerald Pelnar
McPherson, Ks






  

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Measuring Desense

[TGundo 2003]

Probably a multi-path problem hurting the reception to the people close in. I 
have seen better distance out of digital, but multi-path problems  
destructive interference can kill someone anywhere.

Look at a DTV station on a spectrum analyzer and a yagi- turn the antenna and 
watch all the fun. Then multiply x 20 stations or more in a metro area and try 
and find the best comprimise..can be a hair puller. THEN add in the fun of 
stacked channels, for example here in Chicago we have 52, 53, and 54 
co-channeled at the same time... whole different set of problems. We had to buy 
a spectrum analyzer just to go tweak out antenna systems for digital, a real 
time saver to see it real time. (Another upside is I can tune my duplexers ;).)

As for picture quality- If it's an SD program it may look the same on analog vs 
digital, but if your HD looks the same then something is wrong. Period.

We constantly follow up cable guys here who STILL hook up HD cable boxes on Ch 
3 RF out to our High end TV's (I know, here comes the a TV is a TV thread). Of 
course the customer thinks the TV we sold them must be bad, because the 
digital picture looks worse than our old TV.

FYI- My neighbor receives ALL the Chicago DTV stations on a 20+ year old 
antenna (and nothing special at that) 20' up on a tower next to his house, 
THROUGH some evergreen trees, without any problems whatsoever. Most of the 
analog stations come in a bit snowy. Oh yea- did I mention we are 47 miles away 
from downtown Chicago where the TX are? Don't predict doom and gloom until you 
try it- or save yourself the trouble, throw away the TV and just read books.

Tom
W9SRV



 
 I live about 30 miles west. I don't expect to be able
 to see anything
 watchable over the air, even with a good antenna. Digital
 pixelation is
 overwhelming now even for people close in.
 
 


  

RE: [Repeater-Builder] HELP!!!!

[TGundo 2003]

Thanks-

Found one more tail i missed on one machine- all good now!!!

Tom
W9SRV

--- On Fri, 6/20/08, Robert Pease [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
From: Robert Pease [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [Repeater-Builder] HELP
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, June 20, 2008, 4:24 PM

RE: [Repeater-Builder] HELP







Set the tail time to 0. They are seeing each others tails. You could set the 
repeaters connecting to port 1 and 2 to PL on COR then set the half duplex 
link radios to pl decode.



Rob. KS4EC



Sent by Good Messaging (www.good.com)





 -Original Message-

From:   tgundo2003 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Sent:   Friday, June 20, 2008 05:16 PM Eastern Standard Time

To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com

Subject:    [Repeater-Builder] HELP



In an effort to expand radio coverage for an event coming up- we have

done the following:



System is a 7330



port 1- Local Micor repeater



port 2- Link radio half duplex to another repeater



port 3- link radio half duplex to another repeater





System is normally port 1  2 and it works great.



Port 3 is the new addition.



No matter what I do- kerchunk delay, anything I try I cannot get 23

to stop bouncing between them. Both systems on 23 are running real

minimal, no ID's, no curt beeps, 1 sec hangtime.



I would write a macro to turn off rx3 for 4 sec after rx1 or 2 unkeys,

but I wold need the Pause feature of a macro which does not exist yet

according to the manual.



I'm out of ideas- anyone have any?



Thanks!!



Tom W9SRV  Brian WD9HSY








 
Since 1974, the award-winning Alpert JFCS has helped families of all faiths 
throughout most of Palm Beach County , FL , via counseling, seniors services, 
residences for the disabled, mentoring children, support groups and a lot more. 
SOLUTIONS FOR LIVING (R)
www.JFCSonline.com
 
Please take note of our new website and E-Mail Addresses.
Please update your contacts ASAP.
 

 
  
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Cooling fan

[TGundo 2003]

I use the System 3 fan kit from Active Thermal Management:

http://www.activethermal.com/System_3.htm

Power it with a separate power supply (the included wall wart, though I will be 
changing that someday when I ) and have never had a problem. I mount the 100 
degree thermal switch to the heat sink of the PA and call it a day. Using this 
arrangement on a UHF Mitrek mobile converted repeater and on a CDM 1550 being 
used as a link radio.

Tom
W9SRV 

--- On Sat, 4/26/08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Cooling fan
 To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
 Date: Saturday, April 26, 2008, 10:49 AM
 At 4/26/2008 02:48, you wrote:
 
 Hi,
 
 Have tried a few ex equipment and CPU cooler fans on a
 p/a heatsink
 but all generate a noise (light buzz) on the
 transmitted signal.
 
 Can anyone suggest the correct choice of fan (or what I
 am missing) to
 stop the buzz on the transmitted signal?
 
 RF choke? Tried cap up to 4700uf little change?
 
 I've started using PTT-switched CPU fans on G.E. MVPs
 for cooling.  On the 
 VHF MVP they are quite effective, allowing full power
 continuous duty 
 operation.  On UHF the thermal margins are a bit thin due
 to the lower 
 efficiency of the UHF RFPA.  I have noticed the same noise
 you 
 observed.  At first I keyed the fans off the PTT line,
  I found that by 
 providing a separate dedicated switched voltage the noise
 was greatly 
 reduced.  I suspect adding the L-C or R-C filtering to the
 supply side of 
 the switch would probably knock out any remaining noise.
 
 Bob NO6B
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Yahoo! Groups Links
 
 
 

  

Be a better friend, newshound, and 
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.  
http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Breaker (Was the beat to death ID Thread)

[TGundo 2003]

Some workers at the site were painting the chain link fence with a bright shiny 
silver paint, and they ran an extension from the circuit to their big 
commercial paint mixer. Guess there was not enough headroom left in the circuit 
for a giant motor!

As for the drive, its a killer! 5 minutes from the office ;)

Tom
W9SRV

tallinson2 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 
breaker on the circuit powering the repeater.

I wonder if someone tripped the breaker or if it's just getting tired?
 If it trips again, it's probably time to replace it.  Hope it isn't a
long trip out to the site.
Tom 



 __
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Motorola Micor VHF 1/4 Kw Repeater Available

[TGundo 2003]

I would be intrested in the UHF micors. What do you want for them?

Tom
W9SRV

r_s_s_i [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 
Hello,

Help me CLEAN out my garage !

I have a very, very clean Motorola Micor VHF (currently in 154.xxx 
TX / 155.xxx RX - Range) 1/4Kw repeater available for sale. It is in 
the 6 ft tall cabinet with meters, and has always been in a dry 
clean environment. It was removed from service about a year ago, and 
was working well when removed for system upgrade. Repeater is 
located in Sycamore IL about 60 miles West of Chicago. Anyone 
interested??? I would except a fair offer for this unit. I can 
photograph if necessary. 

I also have 2 UHF 406-430 range 13 watt Micors I would like to part
with, They were being used as link packages, and are not in cabinets.

Please contact me (OFF LIST) directly.

[EMAIL PROTECTED]







Yahoo! Groups Links





   
-
You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total 
Access, No Cost.

Re: [Repeater-Builder] A little off-topic but may be of intrest to the group

[TGundo 2003]

http://www.fireengineering.com/display_news/159642/25/none/Firefighters'_distrust_of_digital_radio_system_grows

Copy this link and it should workSorry

Tom
W9SRV

tgundo2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Firefighters' Distrust of Digital Radio 
System Grows
 
http://www.fireengineering.com/display_news/159642/25/none/Firefighters'_distrust_of_digital_radio_system_grows
 
 






Yahoo! Groups Links





   
-
You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total 
Access, No Cost.

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Off Topic (but with on topic questions):NTIA propaganda

[TGundo 2003]

Your sources are mis-informed. If your too close to the transmitter than likely 
your fighting multipath which is more harmful to DTV than analog, but it 
absolutly requires less signal to noise to get the DTV signal than analog. I 
have expierenced many times first hand. Also reflected in the fact most 
stations DTV counterparts run at a fraction of the power as the analog and 
cover the same, if not more, area. Lets embrace DTV so leff rf across all the 
frequencies is being produced- Couldn't hurt your radios or repeater recievers! 
(That was to get this post on topic ;) )
   
  As for display technologies- records sound better than CD's too And the 
Drake TR7 sounds better that an Icom 7800. 
   
  Watch what your happy watching but don't judge flat panel technology on the 
crappy sets you see showing crappy distributed signals at walmart or costco. 
Yes- there can be problems with motion but done right it still looks good. Give 
them a chance- we have had 50+ years to perfect the CRT technology, and flat 
panel is-6 to 8 years at the most. Good luck showing a 1080p24 BlueRay on your 
Tube!
   
  

wd8chl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Ben wrote:

 If you haven't tried to rx DTV yet it's time you did. I can watch 
 channels now in studio quality that in analog are almost unwatchable 
 by todays standards. HD signals are very nice too! It's easy to pick 
 these channels up with the antenna you have up now and the cost is 
 just going to do down from here. All TV's sold today are required to 
 have DTV tuners. Go to Walmart and look.
 

The experience I have heard from everyone else is just the opposite. The 
DTV signal requires much more antenna then analog. A station only a mile 
or two away that is perfect in analog is unwatchable in DTV. And even 
when it is watchable by putting up an antenna outside, it's not any 
better quality then analog on the same size TV.
One issue I see is people are NOT comparing apples to apples. You can't 
compare a 20 analog to a 36 flat panel. My 27 analog TV at home has 
as good a pic from DirecTV as any ~27 flat panel I've seen, and better 
then most. Flat panels distort when there is movement in the video. It 
gets a 'smear' that makes it hard to focus.
I'll keep my CRT, thank you very much.





Yahoo! Groups Links





   
-
Looking for last minute shopping deals?  Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Off Topic (but with on topic questions): NTIA propaganda

[TGundo 2003]

LG will have a model 1st quarter this year with an MSRP (right now) of $50.00, 
and the scuttlebutt is that it will drop to $40 when it ships, making it free 
for those who have coupons. Keep an eye on CES this week, you will probably see 
it displayed there (Somewhere far away from the Laser TV mitsubishi is showing).
   
  Tom
  W9SRV

Ron Wright, Skywarn Coodinator [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  hi all,

Feb 29, 2009 is the date.

Here in Tampa Bay, FL, area we have a number of independent and of
course the regular affiliates. Ch 10 NTSC has ch 24 for HDTV, but
near the 2009 date they will replace the Ch 10 with a NTSC/HDTV (quick
mod for going to HDTV) and turn off the Ch 24. They spent over
$1,000,000 on 24 and it will be turned off and I assume for sale to
someone somewhere needing a 24 HDTV tx. The FCC required them to do
this to keep Ch 10 license.

The converter boxes will be needed by the 14% over the air NTSC TVs
viewers. The gov is giving up to two $40/house hold coupons for the
purchase. You can apply at www.dtv2009.gov for the coupons. They
have link to sources for the converters, but as of now there are no
listings. They predict the boxes will go for $50-70, but I have not
seen any for less than $170. You will need a converter for each TV
unless you watch the same on all of what you have.

Most of the TV stations here do not have HDTV cameras and other studio
equipment. One does and brags about its remotes are HDTV equipped.

For us who have cable and sat we will not be affected at least for now.

73, ron, n9ee/r




--- In Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 At 1/6/2008 09:10, you wrote:
 
 Broadcasters are really wanting this mess to be over. My former
station, 
 KVOA is spending more than twice as much on elect, cooling etc
running two 
 transmitters. One on 4 and one on 23. The stations all want to stop
the 
 bleeding of money.
 
 I thought that the broadcasters would actually fight this, as there
will 
 definitely be a reduction in OTA viewership (hence ratings, hence
advert. 
 $$$) the second the analogs are switched off. I own 5 non-DTV TVs (not 
 including an old Watchman),  since satellite TV is unaffected I will 
 probably forget the mostly useless OTA programming (I don't/won't
pay for 
 locals via the dish)  continue to watch std. def. TV via the dishes.
 
 Bob NO6B








Yahoo! Groups Links





   
-
Never miss a thing.   Make Yahoo your homepage.

Re: [Repeater-Builder] RPT Antenna trimming -Length to RX or TX freq?

[TGundo 2003]

I vote for the TX freq.

Peter P J [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 

Our new Diamond F22 antenna elements to be trimmed as per the enclosed
cutting chart for the 145.650 with -600 shift.

What length is best from the cutting chart is in doubt.

Whether it should be the length for the Tx freq-145.650 or for
145.050-the Rx?

Peter VU2PJP





 
Yahoo! Groups Links





   
-
Looking for last minute shopping deals?  Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.

Re: [Repeater-Builder] fs; RG-400/U

[TGundo 2003]

HOW MUCH YOU GOT?
   
  TOM
  W9SRV
   
  

Ted Bleiman K9MDM - MDM Radio [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  FS:
recent aquisition Dearborn rg-400 double shield
silver plated coax. N.O.S. (Motorola)
40 cents a foot . + post

Perfect for duplexer links, Interconnecting Rf
circuitry in your newly built repeater or ??.

Brand new stuff. Very dense braid. MIL-C-17 spec.

MDM RADIO
773 631 5130

OR EMAIL TO
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

See sample at www.mdmradio.com



Ted Bleiman K9MDM
MDM Radio  If its in stock...we've got it!
P O Box 31353
Chicago, IL 60631-0353 
773.631.5130 fax 773.775.8096 

web http://www.mdmradio.com - 
email - [EMAIL PROTECTED]  DIRECT ALL EMAIL 













Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. 
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs





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-
Looking for last minute shopping deals?  Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.

RE: [Repeater-Builder] Re: TPL amplifier - aka repeater operation at the 250 watt power lev

[TGundo 2003]

Yea- Here in the flat lands we get excited about bieng on a tower or structure 
300-500ft! Obviously the big buildings in the city are the tallest places 
around- but they are RF nightmares and usually have high $$$ price tags for 
rent. Most of the systems with tx on those buildings have multiple reciever 
sites because the noise floor in the city makes rx not as good as it should be 
(fun just to drive around downtown with an icom mobile- the s-meter is always 
pinned from the junk floating around and the crappy rx design of the non-moto 
or ge radio) So the rest of us poor hams settle for water towers, apartment 
buildings, things like that. 
   
  Then again, if your lucky enough to land a 300-500 ft tower site you have the 
joy of the hardline expense!
   
  I have two UHF systems. Both are balanced in my opinion, maybe a little on 
the elefant side if anything. One is at 130' agl on a water tower, DB-420 on 
top fed with 7/8 hardline and the TX set at 18 watts into the duplexer- 10 
miles for portables and 25-30 for mobiles is what we get typically. The other 
is at 320' AGL on an old microwave tower. It's also a db-420 on top, 7/8 
hardline (for now- it's what ma bell used on the orignal install) and a 75W 
micor pa. it gets 15-20 miles for protables and 30-50 miles for mobiles. As I 
said before- it's out in the cornfields and plays better away from the city 
than to the city. The other box is in the suburbs.
   
  Only mountains around here are the landfills;). However- I can be to one of 
my sites any time of year from work in 5 mins and the other from home in 10. No 
4WD required!
   
  In summary- I would estimate systems here, and others can chime in with there 
observations- the better ones get 30-50 mile radius for a good mobile, and the 
average ones get 10-20 mile radius for the same. Onlytime we get 100 miles is 
during a band opening.
   
  Which opens up another can of worms. On VHF, coordination gets you 120 mile 
protection. Most systems cannot do half of that, and here in the northern part 
of the state 2m pairs are full. The IRA has done a great job in the past few 
years of getting everyone taken care of and utilizing the spectrum more 
efficently by working out short space agreements and utilizing full time PL. 
Debate it as you may, the PL requirement DOES help the situation and gives 
everyone a chance to play.
   
  Tom
  W9SRV

Keith McQueen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  I guess it's a different world out here in the wild wild west.  Very few 
machines run more than 30 watts.  Of course with our 10,000+ foot granite 
towers we don't need any more.  Some machines have 100+ mile (radius) coverage.
   
   
  Keith McQueen
  801-224-9460
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   

  -Original Message-
From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of 
TGundo 2003
Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 8:08 PM
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: TPL amplifier - aka repeater operation at 
the 250 watt power lev


  Imagine the fun we have at the Illinois Repeater Association meetings 
between the Chicago and Downstate guys? It's the same with politics too ;)
   
  Well, the last few meetings have been good, thanks greatly in part to the 
supurb job the IRA has done.
   
  Anyways, I a downstate Chicago guy, I live in the farmfields 45 miles south 
of the city. While I will not argue that there are some alligator systems in 
the city...and suburbs
   
  Be careful of acousing any of those machines of being gluttons. I'm not 
sure which machines you had in mind, but probably the widest coverage 2m 
machine in the city is CFMC on 146.76. They have several reciever sites, and 
run modest power off one of the tallest buildings in the city- 45 miles away 
here at my qth running around mobile they are usually between 1/2 and full 
scale on an icom with a 5/8 nmo on the roof of the surburban. Of course I can 
access the system full quieting, so it's bretty balanced for the users in the 
greater metro area.
   
  Now- during a band opening I'm sure it can put out a good footprint. FYI- 
during an average opening in the morning or evining during the summer we can 
hear the downstate repeaters just fine as well. The corn fields don't stop 
much, the city is a different story. One of my uhf systems is in the cornfields 
south of the city, and it plays much farther to the south than it does to the 
north into the city. (omni antenna on top of a 300' tower) 
   
  In comparason- one of the largest UHF systems in chicago, 16 recieve sites 
last I heard, is on one of the tallest buildings as well, and for the last few 
years has been running on exciter power (4-5 watts) that is being divided to 
three panel antennas (to put the footprint away from the lake), and on 1/3 or 
exciter power at that height from the panel antenna in any given direction it's 
very common to hear the output 70-80 miles away on a mobile with average 
conditions. Im

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: TPL amplifier - aka repeater operation at the 250 watt power lev

[TGundo 2003]

Imagine the fun we have at the Illinois Repeater Association meetings between 
the Chicago and Downstate guys? It's the same with politics too ;)
   
  Well, the last few meetings have been good, thanks greatly in part to the 
supurb job the IRA has done.
   
  Anyways, I a downstate Chicago guy, I live in the farmfields 45 miles south 
of the city. While I will not argue that there are some alligator systems in 
the city...and suburbs
   
  Be careful of acousing any of those machines of being gluttons. I'm not 
sure which machines you had in mind, but probably the widest coverage 2m 
machine in the city is CFMC on 146.76. They have several reciever sites, and 
run modest power off one of the tallest buildings in the city- 45 miles away 
here at my qth running around mobile they are usually between 1/2 and full 
scale on an icom with a 5/8 nmo on the roof of the surburban. Of course I can 
access the system full quieting, so it's bretty balanced for the users in the 
greater metro area.
   
  Now- during a band opening I'm sure it can put out a good footprint. FYI- 
during an average opening in the morning or evining during the summer we can 
hear the downstate repeaters just fine as well. The corn fields don't stop 
much, the city is a different story. One of my uhf systems is in the cornfields 
south of the city, and it plays much farther to the south than it does to the 
north into the city. (omni antenna on top of a 300' tower) 
   
  In comparason- one of the largest UHF systems in chicago, 16 recieve sites 
last I heard, is on one of the tallest buildings as well, and for the last few 
years has been running on exciter power (4-5 watts) that is being divided to 
three panel antennas (to put the footprint away from the lake), and on 1/3 or 
exciter power at that height from the panel antenna in any given direction it's 
very common to hear the output 70-80 miles away on a mobile with average 
conditions. Im sure on a good base 100+ miles is pretty easy, and during an 
opening, well, who knows. Does that make them a glutton? If you could put your 
antenna at 1300' AGL with a relativly short feed line, wouldn't you?
   
  There are issues in the metro areas  city with building penetration, 
intermod  general high levels of rf garbage,  topography around the city with 
a few holes and river valleys where it can be hard to recieve the talkout 
from the city. Skipp covered the rest well in his response. If there are 
specific machines you notice, please contact me directly, I would like to know 
which ones. I have a pretty good knowledge, and know people who have more 
knowledge of many of the boxes here, maybe I could help research this for you.
   
  I would just be careful of the glutton accousations, that's all.
   
  73
  Tom
  W9SRV
   
   
   
   
   
  

Al Wolfe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  
 Having a very high-level flamethrower repeater around is not only
 a great communications resource... if the hardware operates well
 it's also impressive on your technical resume and a lot of fun to
 operate.

So in other words, it's just an ego trip. These repeaters are commonly 
known as Alligators.

We in downstate Illinois suffer from the two meter glut of RF out of 
Chicago. There they have repeaters there with dozens of receiver sites and 
multi-kilowatt ERP transmitters, usually running about half scale 150 miles 
away. But we cannot get into their systems running legal power. But they say 
they have balanced systems? What a crock!

If a repeater is full scale and I can't get into it with 150 watts then 
something is very wrong!

Al, K9SI 






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RE: [Repeater-Builder] AC Line Conditioner

[TGundo 2003]

I have to agree and disagree.
   
  I agree there are many gimmick line conditioners out there.
   
  ! agree the utility should provide a proper distribution system.
   
  I somewhat agree that converting to 14VDC and floating a battery should help. 
The big transformer on the power supply should do a nice job with that.
   
   
  Here's where I disagree:
   
  There are many different levels of power conditioning. Don did not ask for 
just a straight surge protector. He asked about a power conditioner. While most 
power conditioners have some type of surge protection, surge protectors do not 
do anything in the way of line conditioning.
   
  I'm not going to pretend to be smarter than I am, but one of the most 
important things I have experienced that good power conditioners do is 
filtering of noise and stray voltages that often get sent to ground by poorly 
designed equipment and crappy power supplies (Typically switchers) somewhere on 
the local power grid. The noise and voltages can really hose things up with 
many of todays sensitive microprocessor based equipment, where ground is 
supposed to be a clean and absolute reference. Thru expierence I have had 
control and pc based equipment be very flaky without good power conditioning. 
Add a good power conditioner and it works very stable.
   
  I also work with very high resolution display devices, and the differences a 
good power conditioner can make with those is very noticible to even an 
untrained eye. In fixed pixel devices like Plasma or LCD good line conditioning 
can reduce noise and grainyness VERY easily seen by the most basic grayscale 
test patterns. I cannot explain totally why, I'm not that smart (but I bet 
someone else on the list probably can), but I can say I have seen the 
difference on a daily basis.
   
  As for the surge protection component, you do not know where the surge or 
spike enters into the line. If it enters in on the users side there is nothing 
the utility can do about that. I have seen more than a fair share of instances 
where the local surge protector took the hit instead of the equipment. And the 
better surge devices use other methods than an MOV to do it now in much better 
fashions. Surge devices that only use cheep MOV's (the $10 hardware store type) 
do not suppress many of the smaller or quicker spikes that come down the line, 
and employing the MOV design itself has been proven to contaminate ground with 
noise and stray voltages, again screwing with those sensitive devices.
   
  As a side note- if there was something that the utility does not have right, 
good luck in trying to get them to correct it! You need to be a pretty big fish 
to get their attention, no matter how wrong they are! We had a client that was 
having all sorts of power problems. We rented a logging AC meter and plugged it 
in at his location, and there were periods in the summer where he would be at 
98VAC for periods of an hour or more! ComEd (our local utility) when presented 
with the evidence said unfortunatly sir, the feed to his area was not designed 
for the humber of houses there now, but since theres only 7 houses (There were 
7 10k+ sq ft houses, I would gress all with 400A service) it's not likely it 
will be changed. Not enough revenue to justify the infrastructure in their 
eyes. He screamed and hollered for more than a year, even took some legal 
action, but evantually gave up and moved.
   
   
  Now- How relavant any of this is to an amateur grade repeater, I don't know. 
Will any user notice any real difference? Probably not. But I would be willing 
to guess as controllers get more elaborate and microprocessor based it may come 
into play at some point. I just think simply dismissing powerconditioning in 
general as a gimmic is an incorrect statement.
   
  Tom
  W9SRV

Eric Lemmon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Don,

Thanks to some advertising hype being spread by manufacturers of so-called 
surge suppressors, one might think that some kind of a surge suppressor is a 
must-have accessory. Not! A properly-designed electrical distribution system 
does not need such pathetically inadequate gimmicks. As a power engineer for 
Boeing, I see many instances of our IT people being pressured to install surge 
suppressors where they are completely unnecessary.

It is the responsibility of the utility to provide an AC power source that is 
appropriately protected with fuses and surge arrestors at the distribution 
level- usually 12kV or 22kV. Once inside the radio shack, each station should 
have a properly-grounded 120 VAC feed, along with appropriate protection of the 
antenna feedline. The highest priority should be to ensure that every conductor 
that enters each radio equipment cabinet has the *SAME* ground reference for 
protection.

If you are converting the incoming AC to nominal 14 VDC floating on a battery, 
you should be okay.

73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY




   
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Lightning Damage, new UHF antenna needed

[TGundo 2003]

DB-420 is the way to go, DB-408 second chioce. 450-470 version will go in the 
ham band no problem. Thats my vote.
   
  Tom
  W9SRV

   
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Lightning Damage, new UHF antenna needed

[TGundo 2003]

I should add unless your obsessed you dont need to re-tune. My 2 uhf machines 
are using second-hand 450-470 DB-420's, each site is 1.2:1 or less on the ham 
band (441.300 on the lowest output).

TGundo 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:DB-420 is the way to go, 
DB-408 second chioce. 450-470 version will go in the ham band no problem. Thats 
my vote.
   
  Tom
  W9SRV

-
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Check out fitting gifts for grads at Yahoo! Search.  

   
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] WX Radio w/ S.A.M.E Revisited

[TGundo 2003]

RS 12-251 
   
  It's an older disco'd model, a few float around on Ebay and a few guys out 
here have them to. It shuts down at the end of the message. I have one sitting 
here on the desk at work(waiting for conversion for my repeater) and it works 
just dandy. I believe it's one of the models listed on the RB website with a 
conversion.
   
  Tom 
  W9SRV

Ron Wright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Tom,

I have 3 Radio Shack SAME receivers, 2 base type, and recently a HT type. I 
like the HT type for it displays time and temp...helps in some of my out door 
activites.

Most of the SAME receivers I see, including the RS, the open audio is timed, RS 
to 5 minutes. Initially the FCC stated the message was to be limited to 2 
minutes, but this might have changed. However, most messages are much shorter 
than 5 minutes. The NWS when it sends an alert also sends end of message 
command which could be used by the rcvrs.

Have you seen any rcvrs other than the $1500 professional type that terminate 
the audio on the commands???

73, ron, n9ee/r



From: tgundo2003 
Date: 2007/08/02 Thu AM 08:34:49 CDT
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Repeater-Builder] WX Radio w/ S.A.M.E Revisited

 
I was wandering thru Farm  Fleet (Actually there to buy food for the 
chickens) and I noticed in the small electrics dept that First Alert 
brand has NOAA WX radios with SAME- and they look to have the 
individual LED's for the different statuses. I would gather these 
would be modifiable for use with repeater controllers. There were two 
models:

WX-167
http://www.simaproducts.com/products/product_detail.php?product_id=599

WX-150
http://www.simaproducts.com/products/product_detail.php?product_id=598

Now- I believe the pricing was 39.99 for the 150 and 59.99 for the 
167, but the website info does not correspond with that. I opened up 
the 150 and read thru the manual (d*mn shoppers) and it does not 
mention wether it runs on a 5 min timer when a message comes thru or 
if it shuts back down when the message is over. I noticed on the 167 
there is already an external connector (F type) for an external 
antenna as well as an alert out jack (1/8) for external signaling 
devices, so if someone wanted an easy no frills accy for their 
repeater you could probably adapt that with no modification.

I know some people were looking for options last time we discussed 
this so I figured I would pass this along.

73's
Tom
W9SRV 

 


Ron Wright, N9EE
727-376-6575
MICRO COMPUTER CONCEPTS
Owner 146.64 repeater Tampa Bay, FL
No tone, all are welcome.







Yahoo! Groups Links





   
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Re: Re: [Repeater-Builder] WX Radio w/ S.A.M.E Revisited

[TGundo 2003]

All the new RS models are on a 5 min timer too. I don't know why there were a 
few in-between that go off at the end of message command, probably the bean 
counters got involved, a timer circuit is cheeper I would guess. One of these 
days I am going to get this interfaced to my 7K.
   
  73
   
  Tom

Ron Wright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Tom,

I have the RS 12-259, an HT type. Bought used and no manual. Took a while to 
figure out the programming. I don't know if it turns off with command.

My two RS 12-249, the first ones they sold, base type, go for the 5 minutes.

73, ron, n9ee/r



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: 2007/08/02 Thu AM 11:46:17 CDT
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] WX Radio w/ S.A.M.E Revisited

 
 RS 12-251 Â  It's an older disco'd model, a few float around on Ebay and a 
 few guys out here have them to. It shuts down at the end of the message. I 
 have one sitting here on the desk at work(waiting for conversion for my 
 repeater) and it works just dandy. I believe it's one of the models listed on 
 the RB website with a conversion. Â  Tom W9SRV
Â
 Hi All! For what its worth, I have 2 Radio Shack 12-250 (they turn off after 
the message, not 5 minutes!  When you find them on ebay, they go for $10-15. 
 Yes, they have the 3 lights that stay on for the duration of the alert. 
Brian Your kid may be an Honor Student,
Your Kid may be a Great Athlete,
Your Kid may be a Doctor or a Lawyer,
But My kid is in the Air Force  plays with ICBM's Inter Continental Ballistic 
Missiles, .

So, what were you saying?



Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL.com. 


Ron Wright, N9EE
727-376-6575
MICRO COMPUTER CONCEPTS
Owner 146.64 repeater Tampa Bay, FL
No tone, all are welcome.







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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Interference and t-1504 questions

[TGundo 2003]

Can you see if you can find your drawings on the loops?  need to make up a 
couple.
   
  Thanks!!
   
  Tom
  W9SRV
  

skipp025 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Hi Tom, 

The bp loops are pretty much just an SO-239 and the matching metal 
loop if you wanted to build some. I probably have diagram'd out the 
demensions of both the loops and bpbr probes if you end up having to 
roll your own. 

Contact the Railroad to see if you can find a warm body to work 
with. The remote controls boxes have an interesting failsafe to 
prevent runaway locos. Re-synce of the control boxes can be 
cumbersome with distant yard located engines so maybe working 
with them to avoid same frequency problems might save everyone 
serious travel time. Some of the control boxes I've seen have 
frequency agile settings. 

Just as a tongue in cheek comment... you could operate your own 
box and play train-set with the real deal. 

cheers, 
skipp 


 tgundo2003 wrote:

 1. Anyone have an extra set of loops of a T-1504 can? I have a spare 
 can that has probes and I need to flip it over.
 
 2. Has anyone had any problems with interference from the Railroad 
 Locomotive Remote control and telemetry systems? They are on 452. 
 and 457.. I have a UHF repeater near a railyard and they are 
 clobbering the input at times. I had a DB products notch style in place 
 and today I swapped it out for a T-1504 hoping to improve isolation 
 from it. I have an extra can that if I can find some loops I can put on 
 the reciever as well. Time will tell if it solves the problem, but I 
 could still slightly hear it on weak signals into the repeater. Are the 
 transmitters they are using sloppy? They have strong signals listening 
 on a scanner and seem to be going 24/7. I wonder if anyone else has had 
 to deal with this.
 
 Thanks!
 
 Tom
 W9SRV








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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Acronyms-a little OT

[TGundo 2003]

As PSK31 and other digital modes evolve in Amateur Radio, any guess as to how 
long it will take for the FCC to put this into the exam pool? And you thought 
morse code was tough- at least that was only 26 characters + numbers and some 
punctuation!
   
  And then in 50 years a bunch of older hams will be upset when the FCC 
eliminates the IMing requirement and thus ruining the hobby. ;) (The latest 
Icom BW-1000 All-Band fully digital synthesized thought implant chip will be 
all the rage, except for the guys on the repeater builder site who still stand 
by the GE and Motorola Reed Brain chips that oscillate mechanically with your 
brain waves, because they are more stable and bulletproof, no matter how big an 
idiot you are! ;) )
   
   
  Going back to listening to mp3's on my wire recorder- Have a great Weekend!
   
  Tom
  W9SRV -(That's my call sign, not an IM abbreviation)
   
  
 
  At 06:54 AM 07/07/07, you wrote:
In the eight to nine years I've been involved with computers and
electronic mail and having been licensed since 1959, I have read [and
still read everyday] many a article generated here on the largest
Amateur Radio related Yahoo list, Repeater-Builder and other technical
resources. I even contributed the original Repeater Builders Check List
a couple of years ago to the RBTIP
http://www.repeater-builder.com/rbtip/ , and surprised I didn't use any
of the well known acronyms used today.

With over 3600 members on the Repeater-Builder list, its interesting to
see some of the acronyms used in the exchange of the many emails that
are related to the technical side of our great hobby. There is one
acronym that for the life of me, I just cannot figure out what it
means: AFAIK. I recently figured out the often used acronym, PITA,
pain in the ass, which has been thrown upon many a Ham Radio operator,
myself included.

No, I am not yet retired and do not have lots of free time on my hands
and, I even have an ongoing repeater related project [remote control of
a HF and repeater station via the Internet] to keep me out of trouble.
So here's the challenge. Do you know the meaning of the following
acronyms: FWIW, IMHO, BTW, FYI,YMMV, LOL.I am not going to touch the
Q codes!! Some answers can be found doing a Google search or hook onto
the Wikipedia library and see what happens. Good Luck and if there are
any others I may have missed, please forward so we all can be
enlightened...73!, my favorite acronym!!

Doug Fitts W7FDF
Vail, Arizona U.S.A.
927.850/R PL 114.8 hz
IRLP node 3850.since 2001

A very complete list of email, cellphone texting and IMing abbreviations
is at 
One that is like is CRTLA

I found out about that from another speaker at a local meeting
location... I was there to teach a tech session and got there
early, and killed the time until my time slot opened up by standing
in the corridor listening to the gentleman in an adjacent meeting
room... he was doing an overview of the internet for parents and
mentioned IMing and cellphone texting, and posted that web site
on the projector attached to his laptop as a resource for translation
of the chat logs...

Mike WA6ILQ






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Re: [Repeater-Builder] I'VE GOT A QUESTION FOR THE SEASONED PRO'S OUT THERE

[TGundo 2003]

Ok- 
   
  I think I may be expierencing this. I have a converted mitrek repeater with a 
T-1504 duplexer and an ARR preamp inserted between the radio and the duplexer 
on the RX side. I have not noticed a loss in sensitivity- but every once in a 
while were getting a strange, nasty sounding signal coming thru on the unkeys 
and occasionally you hear it mix in on the weaker signals (BTW- this is a 
different problem thatn the Railroad interference we had before). It sounds 
like a strange mix of intermod. I was just wondering if the preamp is the 
suspect here. I may go bypass it for a few days and see if it goes away.
   
  I would assume some sort of pad would be in order if this is the case the 
preamp is the problem. Any recommendations of pads to use? before or after the 
preamp?
   
  Thanks!!
   
  Tom
  W9SRV 

Ken Arck [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  At 10:05 AM 6/27/2007, you wrote:

What symptoms would one notice if a preamp is overloading the front end
of a reciever? Noises, quirks, wierd phonenomia?
---Overloading of a (pre)amplifier results in non-linear operation, 
which typically manifests itself as susceptibility to intermod and 
other interfering signals and perceived loss of sensitivity

Ken
--
President and CTO - Arcom Communications
Makers of repeater controllers and accessories.
http://www.arcomcontrollers.com/
Authorized Dealers for Kenwood and Telewave and
we offer complete repeater packages!
AH6LE/R - IRLP Node 3000
http://www.irlp.net
We don't just make 'em. We use 'em!






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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: I'VE GOT A QUESTION FOR THE SEASONED PRO'S OUT THERE

[TGundo 2003]

30W out of a 50w radio.

skipp025 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:  
How much tx power Tom..? 
s.


 TGundo 2003 wrote:
 Ok- 
 I think I may be expierencing this. I have a converted mitrek
repeater with a T-1504 duplexer and an ARR preamp inserted between the
radio and the duplexer on the RX side. I have not noticed a loss in
sensitivity- but every once in a while were getting a strange, nasty
sounding signal coming thru on the unkeys and occasionally you hear it
mix in on the weaker signals (BTW- this is a different problem thatn
the Railroad interference we had before). It sounds like a strange mix
of intermod. I was just wondering if the preamp is the suspect here. I
may go bypass it for a few days and see if it goes away.
 
 I would assume some sort of pad would be in order if this is the
case the preamp is the problem. Any recommendations of pads to use?
before or after the preamp?
 
 Thanks!!
 
 Tom
 W9SRV 
 
 Ken Arck wrote:
 At 10:05 AM 6/27/2007, you wrote:
 
 What symptoms would one notice if a preamp is overloading the front end
 of a reciever? Noises, quirks, wierd phonenomia?
 ---Overloading of a (pre)amplifier results in non-linear operation, 
 which typically manifests itself as susceptibility to intermod and 
 other interfering signals and perceived loss of sensitivity
 
 Ken

--
 President and CTO - Arcom Communications
 Makers of repeater controllers and accessories.
 http://www.arcomcontrollers.com/
 Authorized Dealers for Kenwood and Telewave and
 we offer complete repeater packages!
 AH6LE/R - IRLP Node 3000
 http://www.irlp.net
 We don't just make 'em. We use 'em!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Yahoo! Groups Links
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Ready for the edge of your seat? Check out tonight's top picks on
Yahoo! TV.








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Re: [Repeater-Builder] I'VE GOT A QUESTION FOR THE SEASONED PRO'S OUT THERE

[TGundo 2003]

I run one in the same fashion on my other UHF repeater, but there's 400+ feet 
fo 7/8 feedline so I figure thats enough of an attenuator by itself ;)
   
  Tom

Ken Arck [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  At 10:58 AM 6/27/2007, you wrote:

Ok-

I think I may be expierencing this. I have a converted mitrek 
repeater with a T-1504 duplexer and an ARR preamp inserted between 
the radio and the duplexer on the RX side 


I always shake my head when someone says they're using an ARR 
preamp in FM work. Don't get me wrong - ARR makes a fine, fine 
product but they typically have WAAAY too much gain for the 
typical FM receiver.

Yes, a pad would be a WONDERFUL idea in your case.

Ken 






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Re: [Repeater-Builder] I'VE GOT A QUESTION FOR THE SEASONED PRO'S OUT THERE

[TGundo 2003]

DB-420 at 325 ft and feedline were in place, we just moved in and hooked up. 
   
  Beggars can't be choosers!
   
  It actually hears pretty good, 40+ miles on average for a decent mobile. It's 
real problem is it hears beter than it talks (not really a problem I guess), 
that 75 watt micor PA going through the duplexer and feedline turns into a slow 
trickle by the time it reaches the antenna.
   
  Again- beggars can't be choosers!
   
  Tom
  W9SRV

Ken Arck [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  At 11:38 AM 6/27/2007, you wrote:

I run one in the same fashion on my other UHF repeater, but there's 
400+ feet fo 7/8 feedline so I figure thats enough of an attenuator 
by itself ;)

---Let's see.. Andrews 7/8 air dialetric is spec'd at .845 dB loss 
/100 feet at 450 mHz. That's over 3 dB loss and over 3 dB of noise 
figure added to the system for a 400 foot run.

Well, we all do what we gotta do 

Ken 






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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: I'VE GOT A QUESTION FOR THE SEASONED PRO'S OUT THERE

[TGundo 2003]

I don't pretend to hold a candle to the knowledge or expirence of the group- 
the light bulb over my head is illuminated with a half-dead AAA battery...
   
  I don't think the problem is desense in it's traditional form. I have done 
the desense tests and I have yet to realize any desense on the 50 watt radio 
even at full power output (If I remember correctly it was @ 57 watts out of the 
transmitter). Also- I had the duplexers on the bench about 2 months ago and 
peaked them up, all looked good on the spectrum analyzer. The output of the 
radio was clean as well.
   
  The noise is intermittant and to me sounds like intermod.
   
  Another observation:
   
  There was a little noise last night- and I noticed that VHF and UHF were 
sightly enhanced (Hearing some distant machines). There was no noise this 
morning and I noticed no enhancement, and tonight there was a touch as a few 
storms passed and there was enhancement again. Intermod mix enhanced/caused by 
the preamp?
   
  I am leaning towards the pad, or another cavity? I have a spare pass cavity 
(1504).
   
  I will try either bypassing the preamp first or a pad and see where I get. 
   
  If that does not work I'm shutting it all down, selling it all and getting an 
I-Phone. ;)
   
  Tom
  W9SRV

skipp025 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Please light the no free lunch rule lamp for the duration. 


If it's a converted Mitrek Repeater...running the same in cabinet 
transmit and receive sections..? I would suspect more in cabinet 
desense than most other people. The preamp simply brings the beast 
out of hiding.

If you can... crank down the pa to 10 watts output and see if the 
desense goes away. Also check the Motorola BpBr Duplexer notches 
with a real spectral display to be sure they are properly placed. 

I know a lot of you say in cabinet desense is not a problem in 
Converted Mitrek, Micor and MVP mobiles... but I once measure 
in-cab desense starting about 13 to 18 watts output depending on 
the PA model and radio model/type. 

High Power Mitrek Repeater Operation should be done from different 
radios... the tx radio having a well made blower (not a cheap fan) 
moving air over the heatsink. 

cheers, 
skipp 

 TGundo 2003 wrote:
 Ok- 
 
 I think I may be expierencing this. I have a converted mitrek
repeater with a T-1504 duplexer and an ARR preamp inserted between the
radio and the duplexer on the RX side. I have not noticed a loss in
sensitivity- but every once in a while were getting a strange, nasty
sounding signal coming thru on the unkeys and occasionally you hear it
mix in on the weaker signals (BTW- this is a different problem thatn
the Railroad interference we had before). It sounds like a strange mix
of intermod. I was just wondering if the preamp is the suspect here. I
may go bypass it for a few days and see if it goes away.
 
 I would assume some sort of pad would be in order if this is the
case the preamp is the problem. Any recommendations of pads to use?
before or after the preamp?
 
 Thanks!!
 
 Tom
 W9SRV 
 
 Ken Arck wrote:
 At 10:05 AM 6/27/2007, you wrote:
 
 What symptoms would one notice if a preamp is overloading the front end
 of a reciever? Noises, quirks, wierd phonenomia?
 ---Overloading of a (pre)amplifier results in non-linear operation, 
 which typically manifests itself as susceptibility to intermod and 
 other interfering signals and perceived loss of sensitivity
 
 Ken

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Re: [Repeater-Builder] RE: VSWR Issues - Repairs Complete

[TGundo 2003]

Actually- I disagree. Ham or not- you should repair it the right way.
   
  At the very least you need to replace all the equipment, feedline, 
connectors, antenna, mounts, wireties, and anything else associated with the 
system. You do not want to take a chance on any of your equipment going bad at 
any point in the future.
   
  Second- I would approach the site owner about tearing down the water tower 
and rebuilding it. You wouldn't want to take any chances of the water tower 
causing any problems with your equipment, including becoming structurly unsound 
and falling down. You may want to push for a site study before they re-build it 
to see if that location is more prone to lightning strikes, and if that is the 
case work with them to relocate it at a more suitable location.
   
  Finally, I would push the local electric utility to bring in new lines all 
the way back to the closest generation station. You don't know if any of that 
strike got back in the ac mains and that there may be a potential problem lying 
out there.
   
  Best to do it right and cover all bases.
   
   
  ;)
   
  Just kidding. You fixed it like I would too- If it's working leave it alone! 
Congradulations on the good find!
   
  Tom
  W9SRV
   
  

Jim [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Mike Besemer (WM4B) wrote:
 This is a follow up to my original post. 

 Bottom line: Almost all the advice I got here was 100% on-the-mark. Thanks
 to all who contributed. and please don't shoot me for not replacing the
 hardline. I don't get to make those decisions!

I wouldn't worry about it-as you said, it's a ham project, and as long 
as it checks good, leave it.
I would've done the same thing on my system. Now-for a PS agency, no. It 
is actually cheaper in the long run to replace it then pay someone to 
splice the old, just to have a problem again in 5 years or so. But when 
you have to pay someone to do something, the cost of that is a HUGE 
factor, and frequently is the majority of the cost of whatever is being 
done.

-- 
Jim Barbour
WD8CHL






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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Interference and t-1504 questions- THE CONCLUSION!

[TGundo 2003]

If anyone is intrested...
   
  The noise came back again last night. One of our guys drove around and 
thought he may have a bead on it, so he gave me a locomotive number. Of course- 
I figured by this morning the noise would be gone, as usual...
   
  Not So! Well. I key'd up the system ant the noise was still there! 
Straight to the railyard I went, which is about a 45 minute drive for me.
   
  Let me interject a detail- the other day I met up with the radio guys at the 
yard, and the lead is a ham! He was sympathetic to the cause and offered to 
help in any way he could, if one of his radios was bad he didn't want to be a 
spectrum polluter either. He also clued me into what we were hearing. 452.9375 
is the frequency the locomotive uses to talk back to the FRED (Flashing Rear 
End Device- the blinky box on the back of trains that replaced the caboose). 
The Fred talks back on 457.9375. That means the haystack is big- every 
locomotive in the yard has a transmitter on 452, which makes it very small 
needle!
   
  Back to today. Of course- I get there and- as usual- the noise had stopped.l 
went in and takled to the radioman just to fill him in. He was of course 
frustrated as well that it stopped. So we agreed to wait til next time.
   
  As I'm walking out of the building- Poof- like magic I hear it on the 
portable!. I went back in and grabbed him and we proceeded to go for a walk in 
the yard.
   
  As were walking it's getting stronger and stronger- except were constantly 
changing directions so it wasn't like we were getting closer. It kept getting 
stronger- the strongest I've ever heard yet. He noticed that the activity was 
pretty hot and heavy. He told me the locomotives only poll the fred every 30 
seconds to a minute. This was constantly going. 
   
  This gave him the clue we needed- there is a digipeater in the yard for that 
service. The digipeater would be the only thing talking that much. We went up 
to the control tower where the box is- unplugged it- and bang- no more 
interference! Within 1/2 hour he changed it to a backup box and so far so good! 
The litttle black box digipeater must have been getting squirly off and on the 
whole time.
   
  So let's hope that's it. It's nice to find the needle.
   
  Tom
  W9SRV

TGundo 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Summary so far-
   
  That extra can did nothing for solving the interference. It still came 
through later that day. Here are the facts:
   
  1. I can hear the interference on the repeater reciever, an Icom 2710 dual 
bander, and a  Motorola GP-300 portable- all while the repeater transmitter is 
not keyed up.
   
  2. I ran all the possible frequencies in the area through the intermod 
calculator and came up with nothing.
   
  3. I watched the carriers on the railroad freqs with a spectrum analyzer on 
site several times. There is quite a bit of activity going on all the time 
across all the frequencies I listed in a previous post. I'm assuming all the 
locomotives have these tx's in them, and the yard nearby is a locomotive repair 
shop next to the main yard. At any one time there's 20-30 locomotives sitting 
around that part of the yard. I didn't see anything at the time spuring on my 
input frequency. It might have been just hard to see- they are quick bursts of 
data packets and the spur may have been down too far for my analyzer to recieve 
(Sencore). 
   
   What's intresting is that the interference disappeared all of the sudden 
that day. I went back over with the spectrum analyzer and basically saw the 
same pattern of activity, but no interference coming through on any recievers.
   
  It has been quiet ever since. Best guess I can come up with is that one of 
the locomotives has a bad radio and it has moved on down the line. It's hard to 
troubleshoot what's not there.
   
  So hopefully it's gone for good. If not, to be continued..
   
  Tom
  W9SRV
  

Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  
On May 24, 2007, at 8:40 AM, TGundo 2003 wrote:


 I tuned up the extra can I have as best I could with the probes I 
 have, figuring something is better than nothing). I could get abour 
 30dB of isolation through it with about 1db of loss on my RX freq. 
 I put it in-line after the rx cans on the duplexer and it seemed to 
 have stopped the interference (at least fot the 15 minutes I 
 listened afterwards). We'll see if this does the trick. I would 
 like to install an Advanced Receiver Reasearch preamp I have 
 sitting waiting for it, but I need to get this interference 
 resolved first.

Still quiet after a few days, Tom? Just curious how it worked out.

--
Nate Duehr, WY0X







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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Interference and t-1504 questions- THE CONCLUSION!

[TGundo 2003]

The box was not moto or anything normal- I believe the logo on the box was 
Railmaster or something like that. It was a wall mount box (That was sitting 
on a shelf) about 12 x 10 x 8 that was all black and had only a power cord 
coming out of it and a single N connector for the antenna. That's it, no other 
controls or anything that I saw. There were two of these sitting on the shelf 
next to each other, one for 452 and the other for 457, which is how they were 
labeled in black marker on the box. I saw two seperate antenna lines coming to 
them, so I assume there were two antennas up top- but I could not see them from 
where I was. Maybe there was a duplexer somewhere but I did not see one nearby. 
The tech actually came up on the repeater an hour later to check and make sure 
everything was ok. You're exactly right- It's good to have someone with a map 
and a magnet looking for the needle.
   
  Tom

Mike Morris WA6ILQ [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  At 07:29 AM 06/08/07, you wrote:

(big chunks cut out)

He also clued me into what we were hearing. 452.9375 is the 
frequency the locomotive uses to talk back to the FRED (Flashing 
Rear End Device- the blinky box on the back of trains that replaced 
the caboose). The Fred talks back on 457.9375. That means the 
haystack is big- every locomotive in the yard has a transmitter on 
452, which makes it very small needle!

(cut)

This gave him the clue we needed- there is a digipeater in the yard 
for that service. The digipeater would be the only thing talking 
that much. We went up to the control tower where the box is- 
unplugged it- and bang- no more interference! Within 1/2 hour he 
changed it to a backup box and so far so good! The litttle black box 
digipeater must have been getting squirly off and on the whole time.

So let's hope that's it. It's nice to find the needle.

It's even nicer to have a co-operative and helpful needle-finder... 
someone that knows where all the needles are, and has the keys to 
open the doors... (your railroad radio tech)

Tom
W9SRV

Let's hope the problem doesn't come back.

So was the digipeater an actual Moto product or something the railroad
guys tossed together? If it was Moto, what was their name for it?

Mike WA6ILQ






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RE: [Repeater-Builder] NWS SAME Decoder?

[TGundo 2003]

The new model RS radios work just like the Midland- Timer Based. You want to 
find the older model RS radios to have it actually shut off at the end of the 
message. Found that out the hard way.
   
  Tom
  W9SRV

Mike Morris WA6ILQ [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  I have no idea how the Softronics units work but
avoid the Midland branded SAME receivers in ham
radio repeater use.

The midlands have a design flaw that the Radio Shack
receivers don't have. The programmed SAME code
opens the squelch, but the midlands then start a timer
(built into the firmware), and shut the audio off when the
timer expires, even if it's in the middle of a weather alert
announcement. The same timer keeps the audio on for
no good purpose after an RWT (required weekly test).

On the other hand the Radio Shack receivers actually
listen for the SAME turnoff code and act properly on it...
they actually unmute the audio for the message, and
remute it when it's done... what a concept.

I was told that one guy modified the RS receiver to insert
audio from an external receiver into its decoder section,
but I've not tracked him down.
If I can, I'll get enough info for an article for the RS page
at www.repeater-builder.com

Mike WA6ILQ

At 05:49 AM 06/04/07, you wrote:
These may still be available:
http://storefront.midlands.net/msftrncs/products/nwsamd/default.htm
They work well. There are a couple in use in this area.

Ralph W4XE


-Original Message-
From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of crackedofn0de
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 1:29 AM
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Repeater-Builder] NWS SAME Decoder?


I'm looking for a SAME decoder to interface to my repeater controller
via TTL outputs. It'll be taking audio from a UHF receiver tuned to a
link frequency, so a product with a built-in VHF receiver is not what
I'm looking for. The CAT WD-100 would do (and then some), but is there
another similar product out there right now?

James K7ICU






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Re: [Repeater-Builder] FS: UHF Deltas - Chassis Only

[TGundo 2003]

I'm normally a motorola guy- but I'm having a hard time finding low split 
radios. I would be using these for link radios, I would assume they would fit 
the bill nicely when the time comes. What is used for burning the prom? I would 
probably take a bunch with the proms if it's something I can get (or do myself) 
burned relativly easily. Is the channel guard programmable?
   
  Tom
  W9SRV
   
  

Tedd Doda [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Hi Guys, and sorry for the X-Post:

I'm in the process of moving my shop and came across
a bunch (6 or 8) of UHF GE Deltas in the two low split ranges.

From the Hall-Electronics site:

Wide Band 16 Channel Capacity with Channel Guard, NO UHS

403- 423 50W 5 PPM N3A133 N3RR2W050TB
and
410- 430 50W 5 PPM N3A139 N3SS2W050TB

They didn't come with the X2212 but I have a bunch of spare
eeproms, so I can sell them with or without.

US$20 without X2212 or $US32 with X2212 plus shipping (parcel post).
These are the main chassis only and are very easy to set
up for links, packet, or use two as a repeater.

Tedd Doda, VE3TJD
Lazer Audio and Electronics
Baden, Ontario, Canada

www.ve3tjd.com (personal)
www.eraradio.ca (Linked repeater system)






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Re: [Repeater-Builder] FS: UHF Deltas - Chassis Only

[TGundo 2003]

Sorry- that was supposed to go directly.
   
  On a side note- I have answered most of my own questions thanks to a quick 
little cruise throught the repeater builder site.
   
  Tom
  W9SRV

TGundo 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I'm normally a motorola guy- but I'm having a hard time finding low split 
radios. I would be using these for link radios, I would assume they would fit 
the bill nicely when the time comes. What is used for burning the prom? I would 
probably take a bunch with the proms if it's something I can get (or do myself) 
burned relativly easily. Is the channel guard programmable?
   
  Tom
  W9SRV
   
  

Tedd Doda [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Hi Guys, and sorry for the X-Post:

I'm in the process of moving my shop and came across
a bunch (6 or 8) of UHF GE Deltas in the two low split ranges.

From the Hall-Electronics site:

Wide Band 16 Channel Capacity with Channel Guard, NO UHS

403- 423 50W 5 PPM N3A133 N3RR2W050TB
and
410- 430 50W 5 PPM N3A139 N3SS2W050TB

They didn't come with the X2212 but I have a bunch of spare
eeproms, so I can sell them with or without.

US$20 without X2212 or $US32 with X2212 plus shipping (parcel post).
These are the main chassis only and are very easy to set
up for links, packet, or use two as a repeater.

Tedd Doda, VE3TJD
Lazer Audio and Electronics
Baden, Ontario, Canada

www.ve3tjd.com (personal)
www.eraradio.ca (Linked repeater system)






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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Do Anyone Use Their Repeater For This

[TGundo 2003]

We do that on our VHF and UHF systems- We have a two-tone page sequence in a 
macro and users with moto, kenwood, etc radios, and I suppose if you had a 
pager, can program the QuickCall into their radios. We use it for alerting when 
skywarn activity takes place. 
   
  I leave a GP-300 on the counter at home set to a channel with that programmed 
so the wife does not have to listen to regular chitter-chatter, but when we 
start spotting activities the tone sequence makes the radio beep and opens up 
the reciever for her to hear what's going on. When it's over she pushes the 
little gray button and it resets the radio back to standby until the next page. 
I would assume the right pager can be programmed that way too. We use S-com 7K 
controllers and its simple to set up- pick two frequencies and durations and 
program away!
   
  Tom 
  W9SRV

Christopher Hodgdon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  As I have stated before, our ARES program is in the process of setting
up a repeater for our emergency communications throughout our county.
It will also be an open repeater when not in use for emergency
communications.

What I need to know and can have some help on is the following,

Does anyone out there that is using their repeater to support
emergency operations, have it setup to also send out a page to pagers
that emergency operators may have.

Here is what we want to do, we wish to obtain some 2 meter voice
pagers, Minitors or similar, like those used by most volunteer fire
departments, and set them to receive on the same frequency as our
repeater, when they receive a proper 2 tone signal from the repeater.

We wish to do this so that we do not have to obtain a seperate
frequency just for our pagers, plus some members are not hams, but
they would be able to monitor communications during a disaster. I
have been told that we can reset such pagers to work on the frequency
that we have been coordinated.

We are interested in having such a setup, but need to know if anyone
else is doing it? If so, how are you sending the tones for the pager
and such. If someone has a white paper on their setup or a detailed
'instruction manual' on your setup and how you designed and operate
it, that would be great. In fact if someone has that and is willing,
we would like to use it to publish a story on our ARES site, about
such group that is using it and that we are trying to add it to our system






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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Interference and t-1504 questions

[TGundo 2003]

Summary so far-
   
  That extra can did nothing for solving the interference. It still came 
through later that day. Here are the facts:
   
  1. I can hear the interference on the repeater reciever, an Icom 2710 dual 
bander, and a  Motorola GP-300 portable- all while the repeater transmitter is 
not keyed up.
   
  2. I ran all the possible frequencies in the area through the intermod 
calculator and came up with nothing.
   
  3. I watched the carriers on the railroad freqs with a spectrum analyzer on 
site several times. There is quite a bit of activity going on all the time 
across all the frequencies I listed in a previous post. I'm assuming all the 
locomotives have these tx's in them, and the yard nearby is a locomotive repair 
shop next to the main yard. At any one time there's 20-30 locomotives sitting 
around that part of the yard. I didn't see anything at the time spuring on my 
input frequency. It might have been just hard to see- they are quick bursts of 
data packets and the spur may have been down too far for my analyzer to recieve 
(Sencore). 
   
   What's intresting is that the interference disappeared all of the sudden 
that day. I went back over with the spectrum analyzer and basically saw the 
same pattern of activity, but no interference coming through on any recievers.
   
  It has been quiet ever since. Best guess I can come up with is that one of 
the locomotives has a bad radio and it has moved on down the line. It's hard to 
troubleshoot what's not there.
   
  So hopefully it's gone for good. If not, to be continued..
   
  Tom
  W9SRV
  

Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  
On May 24, 2007, at 8:40 AM, TGundo 2003 wrote:


 I tuned up the extra can I have as best I could with the probes I 
 have, figuring something is better than nothing). I could get abour 
 30dB of isolation through it with about 1db of loss on my RX freq. 
 I put it in-line after the rx cans on the duplexer and it seemed to 
 have stopped the interference (at least fot the 15 minutes I 
 listened afterwards). We'll see if this does the trick. I would 
 like to install an Advanced Receiver Reasearch preamp I have 
 sitting waiting for it, but I need to get this interference 
 resolved first.

Still quiet after a few days, Tom? Just curious how it worked out.

--
Nate Duehr, WY0X







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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Interference and t-1504 questions

[TGundo 2003]

My receiver is a Morotola Mitrek (Converted mobile). My input freq is 447.3750
   
  We have heard the interference correlate with their freq 452.9375 (hear the 
signal coming through at the same time via a scanner on 452).
   
  This morning it was pretty bad again- I stopped by with a spectrum analyzer- 
the 452.9375 was definatly STRONG- but it looked clean. There were a few other 
carriers near it, but only half or less in amplitude. Other potential 
frequencies they may use (But we have not heard anything on a scanner, just on 
452.9375) are:
   
   UHF Frequencies
   Frequencies on the same line can be paired for possible full duplex or
   repeater use. 452.9375 is a common EOT device frequency in Canada.
  457.9375
   is a common EOT device frequency in the USA.
  
   452.3250 / 457.3250
   452.3750 / 457.3750
   452.4250 / 457.4250
   452.4750 / 457.4750
   452.7750 / 457.7750
   452.8250 / 457.8250
   452.8750 / 457.8750
   452.9000 / 457.9000
   452.9125 / 457.9125 Telemetry
   452.9250 / 457.9250 Remote Control/Remote Indicator
   452.9375 / 457.9375 Telemetry/Remote Control/Remote Indicator
   452.9500 / 457.9500 Remote Control/Remote Indicator
   452.9625 / 457.9625 Telemetry/Remote Control/Remote Indicator
   [edit] New UHF narrowband splinter frequencies
   452.90625 457.90625
   452.91875 457.91875
   452.93125 457.93125 Remote Control/Remote Indicator
   452.94375 457.94375 Remote Control/Remote Indicator
   452.95625 457.95625 Remote Control/Remote Indicator
   452.96875 457.96875 Remote Control/Remote Indicator
   
  I tuned up the extra can I have as best I could with the probes I have, 
figuring something is better than nothing). I could get abour 30dB of isolation 
through it with about 1db of loss on my RX freq. I put it in-line after the rx 
cans on the duplexer and it seemed to have stopped the interference (at least 
fot the 15 minutes I listened afterwards). We'll see if this does the trick. I 
would like to install an Advanced Receiver Reasearch preamp I have sitting 
waiting for it, but I need to get this interference resolved first.
   
  I would like to leave talking to the Railroad as a last resort. 
   
  Thanks!!
   
  Tom
  W9SRV

Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  
On May 23, 2007, at 8:48 PM, tgundo2003 wrote:

 2. Has anyone had any problems with interference from the Railroad
 Locomotive Remote control and telemetry systems? They are on 452.
 and 457.. I have a UHF repeater near a railyard and they are
 clobbering the input at times.

When you say clobbering the input have you looked at this signal 
with a spectrum analyzer? I doubt they're really on your input. 
What is your receive frequency?

You're more likely fighting a mix with something else or they have 
serious problems with that transmitter. If they're really on your 
input, which I assume is at least 3-5 MHz away... they gotta fix that 
if there's any reasonable amount of separation between you and them.

Would be best to know before you bug 'em, but if they're friendly -- 
they'll likely have the right test gear to find out what their 
transmitter is doing... if anything.

What kind of radio is your receiver, are there any other high-power 
transmitters in the area, and what frequency is your receiver on?

If their transmitter is on full-time, and it only clobbers you part- 
time, it's a mix... with something else that's going on and off the 
air... you need to find that signal and then do the math to see if 
the mix makes sense... etc.

--
Nate Duehr, WY0X







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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Interference and t-1504 questions

[TGundo 2003]

Think we can get Bob to put locomotive control macros on the new 7330?
   
  Yea- Dad would love that..Another christmas gift for the grandkids that 
he gets to play with!
   
  Tom

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
In a message dated 5/24/2007 1:33:13 A.M. Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL 
PROTECTED] writes:
  Just as a tongue in cheek comment... you could operate your own 
box and play train-set with the real deal. 

cheers, 
skipp 

  
  Skipp .
   
  You do not know how much fun Tom's dad would have with that idea.  You should 
see the train layouts!   I think Tom's old bedroom is now a model train layout.
   
  73, Brian, WD9HSY




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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: UPS

[TGundo 2003]

I know this has been discussed before-
   
  If you go the route of a 12 battery system tied to the power supply- what is 
the best way to handle the 9.6v on a Micor repeater?
   
  Tom
  W9SRV

Lee [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Don and all,

I work as a computer IT technician and have used older computer UPS 
supplies for a number of different applications. It's easy to hook 
up a couple of standard lead-acid batteries from Wal-Mart to these 
and gain extra run-time capacity than the original batteries 
provided. 

But a couple of things I've noticed. The charging voltage the UPS 
provides to the batteries is a bit higher than I like and usually 
slow-cooks the batteries giving a life expectency of about 3 years. 
Also, even when lightly loaded, the run-time of a typical UPS is not 
very impressive. 

I used one of these set-ups at my repeater site but found it didn't 
work as well as I hoped. I reasoned that if I ran the repeater and 
controllers on just batteries I didn't like what happened to 
the controllers as the battery voltage faded into the sunset - I 
wanted everything, especially the controllers to completly power off 
at a certain voltage - so I tried a UPS. Well, at the first power 
outage the controller and repeater ran a couple of hours and shut 
down as planned but when the AC returned it never came back up. A 
trip to the site found that the UPS was squaking its alarm. Hitting 
the power-up button brought everything up for a few seconds but 
everything shut back down when the UPS tried to do a self-test. I 
guessed that the batteries had not recharged enough to pass the self 
test. I bypassed the UPS to get everything back on the air. 

I've since gone back to having the 12v batteries connected directly 
to my repeater power supply but I've built a simple little 
comparator circuit that monitors the battery voltage and if it falls 
below 11.5 volts it removes the power to the controllers - 
effectively shutting down the repeater. I've also put relays into 
the repeaters power amplifiers that drop the PA from full power to 
about 1 watt output. These relays engage when the AC goes out and 
greatly reduce the current draw from the batteries when the AC is 
off. This works much cleaner than using a UPS and the repeater has 
run off of batteries for DAYS instead of HOURS with this 
configuration. YMMV

Lee

--- In Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com, Mike Morris WA6ILQ 
wrote:

 At 09:37 AM 05/23/07, you wrote:
 Hello all,
 
 I'm in the process of rebuilding one of my repeaters and I'm 
looking 
 to place a UPS in line for backup.
 
 I'm looking for information on make and models - what's good and 
 what to stay away from. The VA range is 1300 to 1500, and I'm 
 willing to spend no more than $200.00.
 
 Thoughts and comments appreciated.
 
 TIA,
 
 Don, KD9PT
 
 For a cheap UPS talk to any of your friend in the IT world. There
 are enough uninformed technicians (and it use that term 
generously)
 in the IT universe that have no idea as to which end of a 
screwdriver is
 the handle...
 When a UPS dies (at about the 3 years point) they just throw it 
away
 and buy a new one. In fact I just recently re-batteried a 
several APC
 Back-UPS PRO 1000 units for a client.
 
 Three comments of warning about APC:
 1) They pass all the AC line junk through the unit (via relay 
contacts)
 until there is a brownout (i.e. low AC voltage) or an outage (no 
AC voltage).
 Then the inverter fires up, and the relay switches over. You WILL 
have an
 outage as long as one to two tenths of a second. I've seen 
desktops and
 servers reboot under those conditions (usually mans that the 
computer
 power supply has dying caps, which is a whole 'nother problem).
 2) APC runs the batteries hard. Plan on replacing them every 3 
years.
 3) They over-rate their units. Rarely does any APC give you over
 25-30 minutes of run-time. They are designed to provide graceful
 shutdown time, not to ride out an outage of any length. Graceful
 shutdown means that the server power cord is plugged into the UPS,
 and a serial port is plugged into the DB9 jack in the back of the
 UPS (via a special cable they sell, one that has a transistorized
 circuit buried in one of the molded rubber shells). When the power
 fails the UPS sends a signal to the server over the serial port
 announcing power fail (they simply change the CD signal from
 active to inactive).
 In a properly designed network the server messages all the users
 and gives them 5 minutes to save the current work and log out.
 Then the server shuts down before the battery runs out (or in
 large data centers the generator starts up).
 
 The biggest problem with using an IT UPS in a solid state
 repeater environment is efficiency. You are running
 AC to 12 or 24 or 48V DC and then back to AC into the
 repeater power supply which makes 12vDC.
 
 The better way is to simply use the batteries directly on
 the repeater - just use a Absorbed Glass Mat battery
 (also known as an AGM battery) 

Re: [Repeater-Builder] DB420 performance?

[TGundo 2003]

I have 2 DB-420 on the air 450-470 split, Minimal SWR at 441.XXX and 442.XXX, 
works great. One of mine is at 150' on top of a water tower and the other is on 
top of a 322ft old microwave tower. The one at 322' has a 40+ mile range with a 
good mobile (Dependant upon terrain, of course). 

You will probably run into a few who will recommend a DB-408 over the 420 due 
to it's smaller size being more sturdy, Higher gain of the 420 creating an 
umbrella null (yet to realize that one) under the antenna, and its only 3dB 
less gain than the 420, and most users wouldn't notice the difference. I have a 
friend who has a 408 and it plays pretty good too. I had bought a 408 to use 
before I came up with the first 420, it was a brand new 450-470 split, and 
according to the printout that came with it (the VSWR test printout) showed it 
to be most resonant at 442.xxx, so I wouldn't worry too much about not getting 
the exact ham band split, they are really broadbanded! (Preparing for flame 
attacks)

I'll keep my 420's and be happy, you'll probably be happy with it too.

73
Tom
W9SRV


- Original Message 
From: kk2ed [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2007 9:20:47 PM
Subject: [Repeater-Builder] DB420 performance?


Good Evening,

I have a site with a PD455-5 at 400ft that has failed me after 10 
years of service. The reflected power has risen to about 10% of the 
forward power, and coverage is drastically reduced. 

Rather than installing another PD455-5 (which will most likely fail 
in another 10 years due to the fact that it is top mounted without a 
support brace at the top), I was considering a folded dipole array.  
I hear that the DB420 is no longer made for the 440-450 split.  Can I 
use a 450-470 split antenna at 443MHz without seeing any noticable 
performance degredation?

Is it worth the extra money switching to the DB420?   

Also, I have considered using a PD-1151.  Has anyone done any real-
world comparison between the 10db PD455 and the 8db PD1151?  


Thanks
Eric
KE2D







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Re: [Repeater-Builder] LMR feedline revisited and revised!

[TGundo 2003]

I prefer to use 300 ohm twinlead and connect it right to the screw terminals on 
the back of the repeater. No connectors, no dissimilar metals- and the taller 
the tower the larger the radiator!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
BTW- Relax- That was a Joke.
 
Tom
W9SRV


- Original Message 
From: Ken Arck [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2007 1:53:06 PM
Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] LMR feedline revisited and revised!


At 11:20 AM 3/22/2007, you wrote:

Yea, but dont you have that anyway? copper/zinc/tin/whatever pl259's and
2 piece N's are made of?

---Let's see here. The braid is aluminum, the foil is aluminum but 
the connector is copper/zinc/tin or maybe silver.

Sounds like dissimilar metal contact to me!

Ken
--
President and CTO - Arcom Communications
Makers of the world famous RC210 Repeater Controller and accessories.
http://www.arcomcontrollers.com/
Coming soon - the most advanced repeater controller EVER.
Authorized Dealers for Kenwood and Telewave and
we offer complete repeater packages!
AH6LE/R - IRLP Node 3000
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Effects of doubling RF output on UHF repeater?

[TGundo 2003]

I'm sure you will get a few more more educated replies than mine-
 
Here's my two cents.
 
Double the power, the most you would theoretically get is 3db more signal. Will 
the end users notice- probably not very significantly. I have heard and 
experienced systems that ran *high powered* amplifiers on their repeaters, one 
in particular failed but only the users 50 miles away noticed a difference (and 
that was on pure exciter power).
 
What are the downsides- consume more power, potentially introduce more 
de-sense. You will create more heat in the cabinet as well.
 
Is it worth it? You could probably argue it either way. If the money is sitting 
there to burn and it makes some people happy, what the heck, give it a shot and 
let us know your results. Is it going to make the machine full-quieting 60dB 
over S-9 OM everywhere it hears? Likely not.
 
Remember, the next complaint from the other people is  I hear it full scale 
but I cant get in! and your next post is about voters!
 
Tom
W9SRV


- Original Message 
From: Tony L. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, February 5, 2007 8:47:34 AM
Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Effects of doubling RF output on UHF repeater?


One of our 70cm Amateur Radio repeaters is currently outputting 50 
watts into the duplexer.  We're considering replacing the existing RF 
power amp with a 100 watt model.

Current draw on the 50 watt unit is 8 amps.  The 100 watt unit will 
draw 20 amps.  Our power supply is rated at 36 amps continuous, and 
the duplexer is rated at 250 watts.

Half of our users believe that the repeater's output power is 
perfectly matched to its receiver.  That is, users of high powered 
mobile radios generally lose repeater reception at about the same 
time the repeater's receiver loses them.

However, the other half of our users believe doubling the repeater's 
power output would generate increased activity since the repeater 
could be heard more comfortably.

We could upgrade without changing any of our other infrastructure.  
However, these questions arise:  1) Will the hundreds we pay to 
upgrade actually translate into significantly increased range?  2) 
Will we risk generating additional receiver noise by doubling our 
output power, thus losing coverage in the process?  3) Will using a 
higher power level shorten the life of other system components over 
time (e.g., power supply)?

By the way, our frequency coordination would be valid even if we 
doubled our output power.







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Re: [Repeater-Builder] FYI: FCC officially issues RO dropping code requirement today

[TGundo 2003]

Huh?
 
 
I know plenty of Long Time hams who know the code and were licensed back when 
the test was at the FCC field office who still can't draw a block diagram of a 
radio. I know plenty of Extra class operators who cannot program a simple HT. 
They can pound it out at 20 wpm, but forget trying to enable a PL on the HT for 
the local repeater. Morse code and technical competency (or even common sense 
as shown by some of the responses in this thread) do NOT go hand in hand. The 
FCC just lifted an outdated road block for some people who do not posses the 
ability to learn a new language (just like not everyone has the ability to be a 
musician) but may be VERY technically component and deserving of the Amateur 
Service highest license class. Good for them (IMHO).
 
How does dropping the code lead to more interference and the FCC auctioning off 
the bands?
 
Let's move on- Our repeaters can still send a CW id, enjoy
 
Please flame back directly, save the bandwidth for repeater building issues. 

And yes- I do know the Code.
 
 
Tom
W9SRV


- Original Message 
From: Glenn Little WB4UIV [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, December 16, 2006 12:50:22 PM
Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] FYI: FCC officially issues RO dropping code 
requirement today


It is now just a matter of time. The problems with hams not understanding 
what they are doing will increase. Interference will increase. Commercial 
interests will petition the FCC for the frequencies. The hams will not be 
able to defend their desire to keep the frequencies. Now the ham 
frequencies will be sold to the highest bidder.

The handwriting is on the wall.

Less that 10% of the newly licensed hams can draw a simple block diagram of 
the radio that they use.

Just my opinion, based on my observations.

73
Glenn
WB4UIV


At 11:25 PM 12/15/06, you wrote:
Is it a little early for April Fools jokes?
Will 10 meters become the next CB band?
I will wait and see what happens here...

  73
  Mike - N7ZEF

Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] FYI: FCC officially issues RO dropping code
requirement today


Oh well, the end of an era. Boo-Hiss.

Bob M.
==
--- Joe Montierth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 
 
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-269012A1.pdf
 
  Techs get tech+ privs, code test gone for general
  and
  extra.
 
  Joe

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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Need a GE Key

[TGundo 2003]

The cabinet in question is only about 3 ft tall.[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:   Ummm.. IIRC, isn't "DI" a Desk-mate (shorty) cabinet ?? Should take a BF10 /."Steve Bosshard (NU5D)" wrote: If the station is in a stand up cabinet with hinges on the door,   On 5/17/06, tgundo2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... his base station is a GE master seris model DI76EAU66A. 
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Co-Locating in an Elevator Room

[TGundo 2003]

I see nothing in the NFPA book about that, it just says the elevator stuff needs to be in a secure room. Don't know what good that would do ya, but thats what I see. I have heard of an elevator code somewhere before, but I wouldn't know where to find it, plus it is subject to local codes and enforcement.Good Luck!Tom  W9SRV  "Justin W. Pauler" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:  Hello Everyone...I got some news today regarding my repeater and I'm a littleconcerned... I think I'm getting the shaft on this deal.I signed a lease with a building to place an antenna on the roof and arepeater and cabinet inside of the elevator room for a said amount ofmoney. About 6 months ago I completed the install and everything hasbeen kosher
 since.Today I got a call from the Security manager asking me to meet up withhim and the elevator maintenance man regarding a problem with myequipment. This meeting was very simple, I was asked to remove myequipment from the elevator room, not because it is causing problems,but because it has the potential to cause problems.I was told the following things:440 Mhz is "too high" of a frequency to be in an elevator roomNFPA and the "elevator code" says that nothing can be stored insideof an elevator room other than equipment directly relating to the operationof the elevator systemEven if the unit is "just receiving", it is still building up"frequency" on the wallsof the room that will cause "bad things" to happen "eventually".While normally I would tell this fine maintenance man which door hecould use on his way out, he is pulling rank and telling me that ifthe unit stays in the room longer than 1
 month, his company will nolonger be able to honor it's service contract with the building.So Sounds like I'm up a creekThe fact still remains though, I've never heard of NFPA specifyinganything about elevator rooms and I've never heard of an "elevatorcode" (but that's not saying it isn't out there). I've also been inplenty of other elevator rooms in which radio frequency equipment washoused and transmitting sometimes in excess of 10 times my power withno issues... Why is this becoming an issue with me?Any suggestions? Anyone know of a good "waterproof" cabinet that cango outside? Is that a good idea? Help.Justin--Justin W. PaulerBaton Rouge, LAYahoo! 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
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] using two radios in tandem

[TGundo 2003]

The biggest and longest running net here in Chicago, which the NWS itself monitors and takes reports from, is done this way. Been running every Monday and every severe weather situation since I can remember. It is done over 3 or 4 repeaters,VHF and UHF,and a 2M simplex frequency at thesame time.Works for us.Spotters simply call net control and gives there report when acknowledged. We see plenty of tornados and have had no problems with reporting.A good net control operator can and *WILL*handle it, and no amount of radio linking or technology could overcome a bad net control.As for the legalities, this is not used for "broadcast" purposes, it is designed to further expand the ability to provide emergency communications, which I would argue *WOULD* hold up under any scrutiny.I say with the right audio mixer or D/Ayou can distribute one mic across as
 many radios as you need and set the levels right for each radio. Should be no problem and is done here reliably.Good luck Paul, and let us know how it works out!Tom  W9SRVNate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:  Paul Holm wrote: In this particular situation, the users don't need to hear each other. This  will be used for running a Skywarn net on two repeaters which are not  linked. Only the net control station needs to hear everyone. Users will be  trained to expect this format.If there's ever a situation where there's no one at all on repeater #2 and the Net controller is gabbering away at people on repeater #1...The Net Controller isn't communicating with anyone on repeater #2, thus making multiple one-way transmissions
 on Repeater #2... thus, illegal.Unless you're going to claim all of his half-conversation transmissions to people on Repeater #1 going out also over Repeater #2 are QST's...I don't think that'd hold up to any reasonable amount of scrutiny.I also wouldn't want to be out in the field watching tornadoes wondering if the Net controller was going to hear me or the other guy when two of us have emergencies on both repeaters at the same time.Run two proper Nets or link the repeaters. The other way appears to be both illegal and dangerous for your participants.Nate WY0XYahoo! 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
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Woohoo! The rocks are IN!

[TGundo 2003]

IL Is doing 440-442 now as well. The problem IL has, and IN I imagine, is that Michigan will not recoginize any new coordinations in the 440-442 band, and instaead of providing useful data to IL when a request is submitted for new coord., like MI had a link on that freq, they just say NO (or don't even respond from whatI have heard)with no reason explained other than they will not recoginize a repeater coordinated there because it does not fit the bandplan. I fell victom to that with my first pair. We are close enough in northern IL that it is important to know what is coordinated in Mighigan.From what I hear MI dosen't play well with others so IL and some other states are ignoring them now and just dealing with the problems after the fact. In my opinion thats BS, but such is life. Not to mention the extra $100 I had to spend to re-crystal because michigan could't just say "no, we have a link there" instead of the blanket No. I think theres a commercial on TV
 with David Spade working at the MI repeater council right now ;)Sorry for the rant, off my soapbox now.Tom  W9SRVKen Arck [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:  At 12:09 PM 1/27/2006 -0500, you wrote:Interesting that IN is assigning below 442. I was thinking about asking around why Ohio doesn't assign repeaters or links between 440 and 442...---Interestingly, Dave was assigned the same channel as one of myrepeaters here in Oregon. Which, of course means, OR uses  442 as well!Ken--President and CTO - Arcom CommunicationsMakers of state-of-the-art repeater controllers and accessories.http://www.ah6le.net/arcom/index.htmlAuthorized Dealers for
 Kenwood and Telewave andwe offer complete repeater packages!AH6LE/R - IRLP Node 3000http://www.irlp.netYahoo! 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/  
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RE: [Repeater-Builder] Woohoo! The rocks are IN!

[TGundo 2003]

This is from the March 2005 MIARC newsletter (I have *** the names to protect the innocent) available for public viewing on their website:  "* introduced discussion asking for a resolution on how to respond to surrounding states who are using frequencies that we coordinate as links as repeater frequencies.** has had some communication with surrounding states. The board has determined that requests for NOPC from surrounding  states for repeaters that fall outside of our repeater frequency guidelines will be answered with an objection to coordination."  Draw your own conclusions.Tom  W9SRVJeff DePolo [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:  The coordinator in MI shouldn't object to a coordination from an adjacentcouncil just because their bandplans aren't identical. For better or worse,there isn't a universal bandplan that satisfies the entire amateur communitynation-wide.If there is nothing coordinated in MI that is going to be adversely affectedby the neighboring coordinator's proposed operation, then they have noreason to object. If they do have something that would be affected (be itof the same operation type or otherwise), then that's a different story.That's the way we work here
 on the east coast among councils.And yes, we have repeaters in the 440-442/445-447 range. Our aux linksubbands are all below 440.--- Jeff -Original Message- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com  [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of TGundo 2003 Sent: Friday, January 27, 2006 12:44 PM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Woohoo! The rocks are IN!  IL Is doing 440-442 now as well. The problem IL has, and IN I  imagine, is that Michigan will not recoginize any new  coordinations in the 440-442 band, and instaead of providing  useful data to IL when a request is submitted for new coord.,  like MI had a link on that freq, they just say NO (or don't  even respond from what I have heard) with no reason explained  other than they will not recoginize a repeater coordinated  there because
 it does not fit the bandplan. I fell victom to  that with my first pair. We are close enough in northern IL  that it is important to know what is coordinated in Mighigan.  From what I hear MI dosen't play well with others so IL and  some other states are ignoring them now and just dealing with  the problems after the fact. In my opinion thats BS, but such  is life. Not to mention the extra $100 I had to spend to  re-crystal because michigan could't just say "no, we have a  link there" instead of the blanket No. I think theres a  commercia! l on TV with David Spade working at the MI  repeater council right now ;)  Sorry for the rant, off my soapbox now.  Tom W9SRV  Ken Arck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:  At 12:09 PM 1/27/2006 -0500, you wrote:  Interesting that IN is assigning below 442. I was  thinking about
 asking  around why Ohio doesn't assign repeaters or links  between 440 and 442...  ---Interestingly, Dave was assigned the same channel  as one of my repeaters here in Oregon. Which, of course means, OR  uses  442 as well!  Ken  --  President and CTO - Arcom Communications Makers of state-of-the-art repeater controllers and accessories. http://www.ah6le.net/arcom/index.html Authorized Dealer! s for Kenwood and Telewave and we offer complete repeater packages! AH6LE/R - IRLP Node 3000 http://www.irlp.net  Yahoo! Groups Links    Do you Yahoo!? With a free 1
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Mitrek Repeater Question 110 watts duplex in the same chassis?

[TGundo 2003]

No. Didn't know of anyone who had the problem either, but my experence is short.I only have played with the 50w mitreks and I know I can run them full tilt and have no in-radio de-sense. That being said, I like to run them at 1/2 power, will play fine even if the fans fail for some reason, so I figured the 110 watt at half would be 55 watts or so and at that power level I had no problem with de-sense. I'm about to do a 75 watt chasis, ill play with that and see what happens.Tom  W9SRVskipp025 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:  You know anyone who's been able to duplex a 110 watt mitrek at full output without getting something unwanted back into the receiver? Just curious... I wouldn't think the mitrek chassis even with the extra shielding kits would be
 that good? skipp  TGundo 2003 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: Any perticular reason why you want to run two radios instead of one?  You can do that just fine. Duplex both radios and tune them bothup for tx and rx. then use them one tx one rx, but now you have backupradios built in. If the pa dies on one radio you can just swap them inthe field and be up and runnng again!  73  Tom W9SRV  Alexander N Tubonjic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: Hello, I am going to be changing a repeater setup a bit and I think it will work, I would like to get some feedback from you guy's and see what yall think. Here goes: The current setup is as follws: Duplexed 110 Watt Mitrek into controller and Duplexer, Nothing really fancy. What I want to do: Add a second Mitrek in line and have the new one act as RX only and have the
 current 110 Watter act as the TX. Now my questions are, can you run the Mitrek with only one channel element in it (i.e. can I run the TX Mitrek with only the TX element and the RX Mitrek with only the RX element in it?) Will I be able to make the Duplexed Mitrek act as only the TX or would I have to undo the duplex mod?  Like I said, in my mind it should work but I am not sure. Any thoughts/comments would be appreciated. Thanks.  Alexander  Yahoo! Groups Links   -  What are the most popular cars? Find out at Yahoo! AutosYahoo! Groups Links* To visit your group on the web, go
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Off Topic Annoumcment

[TGundo 2003]

Congrats!I have 16 month old twin boys, know what you are going through! It's really not that bad so just enjoy! Our 5 year old son helps quite a bit. (Thats right- do the math, 3 Boys! No more chores for dad in about 7 more years! ;) )73Tom  W9SRV"Steaven Rogers, W4YI" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:  Sorry for the off topic post, but this is a one time post on the subject. Just wanted to announce that my wife gave birth to our expected twins on Friday 12/30/05. Name are Steaven DeWayne Rogers Jr. born at 8:12am 6Lbs and Emma Grace Rogers (Gracie) born at 8:15am 6Lbs 15oz. Mother and children are doing fine. Dad is still trying to recover. :)Steaven, W4YIYahoo! Groups Links* To visit
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: polyphaser Help

[TGundo 2003]

Laryn Lohman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:--- In Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com, TGundo 2003 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:  Stupid question: what about the ground on your power supply? Doyou cut that pin off to seporate your gear from the electrical systemground? I didn't. If you have a seporate ground system and you stillhave a tie to the electrical ground you have two different potentialsmeeting at your gear. Besides the ovious dangers, you could haveseveral volts difference being created on your ground potentiallycausing other fun problems.Tom, are you asking--SHOULD you cut off the 3rd pin on your AC plug? No, you do not. From a safety standpoint, a big no. I can explainfurther if you like.I was being
 sarcastic, I know better! :)As far as building tops, I put quality surge arrestors on ALLwires/cables leading in or out of the cabinet, and mount the arrestorson a separate single-point ground plate or bar. Ground the plate tobuilding structural steel with one or more heavy 6AWG cables, andbond the equipment cabinet to the plate. That's the simple version...I have done it very similar at a building site. Good Install!  Happy New Year!You too! Tom, W9SRVLaryn K8TVZYahoo! 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
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] polyphaser Help

[TGundo 2003]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but putting in your own ground rods and NOT tying them to the existing electrical ground system is a Bigger no-no. That would be creating a second ground system for the building and creating a potenital difference in grounds. That would be a bigger problem, and the local codes here require a bonding conductor of some sort. You can put in your own rods, which I agree with, but you must tie the two systems together and make it all one ground potential. It's all about equal potential, isn't it? If you don't get hit at all you don't have to worry about the voltages!How about the install on a all-steel mushroom type water tower? At the bottom the 1" threaded rods go in the ground and they are every foot around the perimeter. Makes a great ground plane for a DB-420!Someone please tell the cable guys to stop putting in the 4ft rods and creating ground loops! ;)   
 Tom  W9SRVDick [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:  Whatever you do, DON'T connect the polyphaser grounding lug to an AC outlet  ground lug!!! That would bring HUGE voltages and currents into the building  electric power system and expose everything on it to disaster!!! In which case  you'd do well to carry enough insurance to replace all of the electric and electronic  gear in the building.If you plan to connect it to the metal roof, make sure the metal roofing is securely  grounded via an 8-foot ground rod in the earth near the building. In fact, there  should be several such ground rods for a metal roof.The average frequency of a lightning discharge is around 125 KHz, so you can use  that to calculate lightning rod cable lengths, etc.You might do well to contact the other tenants in the building and see how they feel about  installing a proper lightning diversion system, including a proper lightning rod
 and  cable.Happy New Year,  Dick  - Original Message -   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]   To: repeater-builder@yahoogroups.com   Sent: 30 December, 2005 11:22  Subject: [Repeater-Builder] polyphaser Help 
   Replacing a small, rooftop (about 90ft) repeater setup. The prior system had no lighting protection, just straight coax from antenna to duplexer. I was looking into getting a polyphaser if needed but there is no way to ground it that I can tell. Two options I have would be to somehow tap into the metal roof and connect it to that? or at the radio-end of the coax attach it to a nearby AC outlet's ground?A grounding line/rods aren't a real good option since it is on another businesses property. Any suggestions?  
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] polyphaser Help

[TGundo 2003]

I don't know when to give up.Your lightning deversion system can run straight back to your own grown rods, but your ground rods need to have a bonding conductor to the electrical system ground rod. The lower impeadence path is still to your rod, but the entire site ground potential is equal. I know around here you can be fined heavily if you don't do that.Stupid question: what about the ground on your power supply? Do you cut that pin off to seporate your gear from the electrical system ground? I didn't. If you have a seporate ground system and you still have a tie to the electrical ground you have two different potentials meeting at your gear. Besides the ovious dangers, you could have several volts difference being created on your ground potentially causing other fun problems.At my site, a water tower, I have the mast bonded to the steelstructure of the tower (db-420 antenna),
 a polyphaser that's grounded via its own ground wire back to the ground rod or the electrical sysstem, which is also bonded to the steel structure of the tower. I have Furman A/C surge protection on the equipment.Someone on the list that deals with big commerical sites (sears tower, etc) should let us know what is done there. I would like to hear about that having no experience with those.The 800 pound gorilla is the truth, and it will do what it wants when it wants to!I've been to Florida and saw a relatives house under construction. Just bond to the plastic cold water pipe! ;)Awaiting my lashings.Tom  W9SRVDick [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:  Roger that, Mark.A
 lightning diversion system needs its own low impedance path to groundbecause the huge currents involved can do strange and unpredictablethings if they get into the building's AC power.A full threat lightning attachment has millions of volts before the air pathionizes. Once the air path ionizes, its impedance is essentially zeroand the current during the flash can reach 250 K amps. On average, theAC component of the lightning flash is around 125 KHz. You really don'twant that kind of energy running around the buildings AC power wiringbecause there will be arcing nasties along with induced currents that can,and probably will, fry stuff like computers, TV's, etc.After a lot of years at Lockheed designing lightning protection formilitary aircraft, I've developed a very healthy respect for the stuff.You can sit there and calculate impedances, etc., until the cows come home,but when lightning hits, it's still not all that
 predictable.Use a DC grounded antenna and a dedicated path to a dedicated ground rodto divert as much lightning energy as possible away from the building'sAC power system. Also, use the available braided lightning diversion cablefrom the lightning rod (in this case, your DC grounded antenna). ThePolyphaser (R) will help, but a direct lightning attachment to your antennawill most likely destroy it. But, IMHO, it's better to sacrifice the antennathan the repeater and associated electronics.Lightning is like the 800-pound gorilla. It goes wherever it doggone well pleases.Dick- Original Message - From: "N9WYS" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: Sent: 30 December, 2005 15:53Subject: RE: [Repeater-Builder] polyphaser HelpI think what Dick was getting at is that the Polyphaser grounding lug needsto have its *own* ground - separate from any other ground. If you tie
 thePolyphaser to the electrical ground of the building, you're defeating theentire purpose of having it. But then again, I've been wrong before.Mark - N9WYSFrom: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of TGundo 2003Sent: Friday, December 30, 2005 5:35 PMTo: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.comSubject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] polyphaser HelpSomeone correct me if I'm wrong, but putting in your own ground rods and NOTtying them to the existing electrical ground system is a Bigger no-no. Thatwould be creating a second ground system for the building and creating apotenital difference in grounds. That would be a bigger problem, and thelocal codes here require a bonding conductor of some sort. You can put inyour own rods, which I agree with, but you must tie the two systems togetherand make it all one ground potential. It's
 all about equal potential, isn'tit? If you don't get hit at all you don't have to worry about the voltages!How about the install on a all-steel mushroom type water tower? At thebottom the 1" threaded rods go in the ground and they are every foot aroundthe perimeter. Makes a great ground plane for a DB-420!Someone please tell the cable guys to stop putting in the 4ft rods andcreating ground loops! ;)TomW9SRVDick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:Whatever you do, DON'T connect the polyphaser grounding lug to an AC outletground lug!!! That would bring HUGE voltages and currents into the buildingelectric power system and expose everything on it to disaster!!! In whichcase you'd 

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Tune Procedure for Mitrek T43JJA

[TGundo 2003]

The Repeater Builder websitehas several great write-ups on the tune up. It's not that difficult. Just be patient when tuning up the transmitters and follow the procedure carefully as you can burn up the transmitter if your not careful.Good luck!Tom  W9SRVScott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:  Would anyone have the tune up procedure for a VHF T43JJA Mitrek, ormaybe want to part with a manual. Putting together an APRS radio, andneed it.Scott NA4ITYahoo! 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
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] WEATHER RELATED STATIC

[TGundo 2003]

hERE IS A SILLY QUESTION:

Where would you want to mount a static buster on a 4-bay antenna? On the top of the mast? I looked at the mounting instructions and that is the conclusion I have come too, but I could be way off.

Tom

W9SRVMike Morris WA6ILQ [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
At 02:31 PM 6/8/05, you wrote:Let's talk about static! Hi everybody!I'm experiencing high static levels in our repeater that appears to develop ahead and during serve weather outbreaks. Other times it seems perfectly fine.Could be precipitation static? Wind bouncing the antenna around? Internal grounding problems?A couple of weeks ago we found that water had gotten into the 1/2 hardline (Andrew) We replaced the heliax, and have a great standing wave on the antenna and are looking for some ideas on this.What do we got? 40 watt Micor Repeater, 4 pole antenna (yes, its getting old)! SCOM 7K, Sinclair hybrid ring duplexers.Any Ideas? Have any questions?Thanks All!Brian, WD9HSYFirst make sure that the antenna is bonded to the
 tower and the toweris bonded to the ground rod system and the repeater is bonded to theground system.Then go to and scroll down to "Antennas" and look at the article on precipitation static.A "static buster" might be just what you need.MikeYahoo! 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/
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] duplexer tuning question

[TGundo 2003]

Need to re-tune them would be my vote.

Tom
W9SRVdoug [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
ok guys - a question... and i am sure i'll get both sides of this one.i have a set of factory tuned tx/rx cans for a 2m machine (they are new, and not cheap)the frequency that the duplexers are tuned to could not be coordinated successfully.the freq i could get is only 15khz LOWER than the pair that the duplexer is tuned to.duplexer tuned to: 147.210 / 147.810 freq to be used 147.195 / 147.795SOQuestion is.. RETUNE...or leave them alone...dougYahoo! 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
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] A Good 440 Anttena-And a Big Thanks to everyone!!!!

[TGundo 2003]

Well, I finished putting up my system today, consisting of a converted motorola mitrek (that old junk I converted, not built :) oy!) and a DB-420 fed with 7/8" heliax. Its mounted atop a water tower at 150 ft, 130' haat. I have had portables up to 15 miles away getting in well, one was 10 miles away on the ht inside the car down in whats known as an rf hole and he was full quieting. A pleasant suprise.

So oviously the 420 works well. I had the choice of a 408, but Skipp has that one now. I got the 420 as a "gift" so I chose to go with that. I see a few around here that have been up for quite a while, no bends in them. We will see what happens to ours after a few chicago storm seasons and winters.

A BIG thanks goes out to all on the list who helped out our project. ALL of the advise here is priceless and really aids us first timers! Kevin, keep it up!

Thanks again to all!

Tom

W9SRVW8RIF [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I am looking for a good anttena for the 440 repeater. something with a lot of gain. any ideas.W8RIF 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/
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] info direct tv

[TGundo 2003]

The rule of thumb is 100 ft. In practice, 150 to 200 feet has worked for me in a pinch without any line amp. Have gone 400+ feet on RG-11 with no problem point to point. In large buildings in downtown Chicago we use stacker systems and RG-11 and line amps to go 50-60 stories. Also depends on which dish you use and how much gain it has to start.

tom

W9SRV"John J. Riddell" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:




The "rule-of-thumb" is 100 feet There are little amp's that you can get for use over 100 feet.
John VE3AMZ

- Original Message - 
From: Maire Company 
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, March 13, 2005 5:14 PM
Subject: [Repeater-Builder] info direct tv

I know this is a little off for here.

Does any know the max distance you can run RG6 Quad from the dish to the box?

thanks John

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Re: [Repeater-Builder] info direct tv

[TGundo 2003]

RG-11 is very close in size to RG-8. There are crimp F connectors (although I wouldnt recommend them), and Thomas and Betts makes Snap n seal augat style f connctors or it which work very well, but require a special tool.

The 10' dish is too focused for directv. You will only pick up one or two of the three sats in orbit at 101. 1 meter dish max is recommended, and Channel Master (Now owned by andrew so you get the cool lightning bolt sticker on it) makes a 36" oval dish called the Gainmaster that has the three LNB head on the arm so you can recieve all three locations, 101, 110, and 119, so you get all the local programming and HD stations available now. It does a good job.

You didn't here it from me ;) but very likely in the fall if you want all of the HD and locals you will probably need a second dish and new equipment. Not written in stone yet, but everything I hear seems to be going that way. They will be switching to MPEG-4 to accomidate all of the HD locals through a 4th satellite location.

Let the headaches begin.

TomMaire Company [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


I take it RG 11 is bigger that 6. is there fittings that will go on it for F connectors?
normal RCA dish. but I have a 10' C-KU dish I am not using at this time.

thanks John



- Original Message - 
From: TGundo 2003 
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, March 13, 2005 10:00 PM
Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] info direct tv

The rule of thumb is 100 ft. In practice, 150 to 200 feet has worked for me in a pinch without any line amp. Have gone 400+ feet on RG-11 with no problem point to point. In large buildings in downtown Chicago we use stacker systems and RG-11 and line amps to go 50-60 stories. Also depends on which dish you use and how much gain it has to start.

tom

W9SRV"John J. Riddell" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:




The "rule-of-thumb" is 100 feet There are little amp's that you can get for use over 100 feet.
John VE3AMZ

- Original Message - 
From: Maire Company 
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Sunday, March 13, 2005 5:14 PM
Subject: [Repeater-Builder] info direct tv

I know this is a little off for here.

Does any know the max distance you can run RG6 Quad from the dish to the box?

thanks John


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Re: [Repeater-Builder] MDM RADIO - Grand moving sale

[TGundo 2003]

HIGHLY RECOMMEND anyone who can should get out there! He has 10,000 sq ft of stuff crammed into his 3100 sq ft of space! Got myself some good stuff today.Thanks Ted! 

Make yourself a wishlish and/or shopping list and bring a truck!

Tom
W9SRV
Ted Bleiman K9MDM - MDM Radio [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


MDM RAdio Ltd will be moving from our present location in Melrose Park,il. in approximately 70 days. We would rather see this collection of equipment go to a good home rather than wind up as scrap. We have 3100 sq ft of stuff stacked on shelves 12 ft high. its a lot of stuph. We encourage anyone interested to make an effort to get here a.s.a.p. and grab the good stuff while the gettin' is good. if you need a reminder visit our website www.mdmradio.com and get an idea of the kind of material we have here. and the webiste is not a complete accurate inventory. certainly we understand that locals have an advantage but, we feel we should make the offer to all. If the weather is good its the perfect time of year for a road trip.
we will be available to accomodate your time schedule. that means evenings if necessary and weekends if that works for you. We hope to see many of you soon.
THE BIGGER THE PILE THE CHEAPER IT GETS.
BRING LARGE VEHICLES AND PLENTY OF HELP PLEASE. 708-681-0300 to schedule a visit if other than mon- fri 0900-1800 cst. sat 1000-1500 cst Ted Bleiman









Ted Bleiman K9MDM
MDM Radio Ltd - 1629-B N. 31 st Ave Melrose Park, IL 60160 708.681.0300 fax 708.681.9800 web http://www.mdmradio.com - 
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] ten meter repeater setups

[TGundo 2003]

The one on the south side of chicago (29.66)was listed as tone access, but it runs carrier squelch as far as i can tell.. Yup, just kerchunked it with no pl.

Tom 
W9SRV
Mark Holman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I thought on 10 M. that some are tone access ?I think Chicago, IL did ??Mark HolmanIsn't Radio Fun !! ??- Original Message - From: "Wade Lake" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 8:00 PMSubject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] ten meter repeater setups Amen, I have had a few 10 meter repeater QSO's just to try it. They were all incredibly short due to about 12 interfering repeaters all being keyed up  at once!! You would think that a 10 meter repeater op would, at the very least, set them up to require a CTCSS tone so that they dont interfere  with every other repeater on the channel with every carrier on the input freq. Wade - KR7K - Original Message
 -  From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To:  Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 1:36 PM Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] ten meter repeater setups We sure hear them out on the West Coast. Quite a few of them have Midwest (5,8 and 9) area call signs, as well as the East coast call areas 1,2,3 and 4. All four pairs are completely busy with multiple repeaters when the band is open, which is quite a bit lately. ALl I have to do is key any of the 10FM Radios with a signal (with no CTCSS encoder being used) and there they are. I'm using a 100W MICOR base station on 10-Meters. I also hear the same activity on my ICOM HF transceiver, an Azden PCS-10 handheld transcevier, and my TenTec Omni VI +. Four repeater channels + a 10M Repeater in
 nearly every little jerkwater town = a Real mess! LJ Original Message: - From: Jim B. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 14:48:46 -0500 To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] ten meter repeater setups [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:  Whatever equipment you do use, be *SURE* you have it in CTCSS access (Not  carrier squelch). There are only four 10M FM repeater channels, and   even  during this low part of the sunspot cycle, they're unusable due to the  numbers of repeaters on each of the four channels. They ID on top of each  other, drop in and out as the signals take fades, talk to themselves  spewing out time, temperature,
 elevation, club names, etc. etc. A real  mess. If we could select the one we want to use with the appropriate tone,  (like we used to be able to do), it would be a good thing.   Now Six meters, there's a good place for a low-band repeater system. Lots  more channels available.   Larry I'd sure like to know where all these 10M FM repeaters are. It's so rare that I find ANYTHING I can hit that I seldom bother. Btw, I'm running a 110W Syntor X with an A/S base loaded whip on the jeep. I know it works after talking to CA, AZ, MT, WA, FL, TX, VE7's, much of the east coast, and Spain on 29.6 (from OH). But the repeater pairs are nearly dead. If the band is up, I can hit a machine in PR, but never get a response. That's about it. But I agree 6M is a better
 place for a repeater. If your group wants 10M, how about a remote base on 29.6? Just make sure there aren't any ID's or other stuff coming out on 10, just the person talking. --  Jim Barbour WD8CHL Yahoo! Groups Links  mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . Yahoo! Groups Links Yahoo! Groups Links
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Question for the list...

[TGundo 2003]

Do a google search for a PDF printer driver, there are many free ones to use. Throw all of your gifs and jpegs into Word and create you document. Then, after installing a pdf printer program, you select the pdf printer as your default printer and "print" your word doc. A box will come up that lets you name the file and then it makes it a pdf. Easy as that, I use it at work all the time. You can make pdf's out of any program that prints.

Tom

W9SRVMike WA6ILQ [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I've run into a situation, and thought I'd tap theassembled knowledge of the group...Is there a software package available that will letsomeone drag-and-drop JPG or GIF image filesand produce a single PDF file?The current situation is 27 individual page scansfrom a Motorola manual that needs to go intoone PDF file - but there will be more in the future.Mike WA6ILQYahoo! 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/
	
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Re: Fw: [Repeater-Builder] Direct TV type dish?

[TGundo 2003]

We use a Terk BMS 58 multiswitch for the most part. They retail for 129, you can find them on amazon.com for 85 i believe.If you need to put up the third dish for sat C and combine it in, you will need a Sat C kit. This is simply a 2-gig 2 way combiner. Itcombines oneof the feedsfromB with the feed from C. A and B have 2 feeds (one for each polarity) and C only has one. One of the polarities (pardon the spelling)on B only utilizes half or so of the available transponders, so C fills up the other half. The multiswitch (or voltage switch) locks each input to one of the four signals coming from the dishes. It then routes the incoming feeds to the outputs that call for them. One polarity operates at 13V, the other at 18V, so your satellite receiver will send out the appropriate voltage for the the polarity it needs. But wait- you say- there are 4 inputs and only 2 voltages, how can this possibly work??? Simple. A 22 kHz tone is sent when the
 receiver needs the second satellite feed. When you flip through your signal meter and look at the transponders, all of the odd numbered ones are one polarity, and all of the even are the other. This is all useful info when you are troubleshooting.

As for the antenna input on the multiswitch-- NEVER USE IT! Typically there is 12-18 dB of loss through a multiswitch. If you need to use one coax, use a diplexers to combine it after the switch.

Good luck with the 48" dish. Let me know if it all works out fine. If you find you are missing some channels or transponders for some reason it may be that the the dish is too big and focused and you are missing one or more of the birds at 101. There are three just at 101.

As for the competition between directv and dish- they can still get along with each other. How do I know this- you ask? The 110 (C) sat is shared by both Directv and Dish Network in perfect harmony.

I thank everyone for putting up with this off the topic thread as well. If it makes any difference I am working on my Mitrek Repeater project right now as I write this. I was able to borrow a spectrum analyzer so I just finished tuning the duplexer. Nice to have the right tools for the job.

Thanks!

Tom
W9SRVTony King - W4ZT [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I haven't combined dishes YET... the multiswitch I have is for a single dual LNB but there are 5x8 multiswitches out there that claim 4 LNB plus antenna input for 8 outputs. Do a Google search on "directv multiswitch" and you'll get thousands of hits, mostly folks selling them. Just be sure that you get one designed for Directv control. Perhaps Tom or one of the other guys will have a suggestion for one they've used. I'd be interested in their ideas too. Right now I am not looking for multiple satellites, rather very solid signal from one, to get rid of as much rain fade as possible.Thanks to the group for tolerating this slightly off topic thread :)73, Tony W4ZTAt 11:00 AM 10/24/2004, Maire Company wrote:
What direction would I go to look for one. any model you have the best luck with? thanks 

- Original Message - 
From: Tony King - W4ZT 
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Saturday, October 23, 2004 10:14 PM 
Subject: Re: Fw: [Repeater-Builder] Direct TV type dish?
Use a multiswitch.
I'm working on a 48" dish right now for looking at 101 alone ;) Hope to be rid of a LOT of rain fade.
73, Tony W4ZT
At 09:00 PM 10/23/2004, you wrote: 

Tom, 

a little help here? if I am going to look at sat. A and sat. B with 2 dish's is there a way to hook them into the same input on one receiver? 

thanks John [EMAIL PROTECTED] 


- Original Message - 
From: TGundo 2003 
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Saturday, October 16, 2004 11:16 PM 
Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Direct TV type dish?
I work for a high-end Custom home electronics company and deal with directv all of the time. Heres a few bits you may or may not find intresting. 

1. Rain fade. Want to limit this? Put up three 1 meter dishes to look at the birds and have better signal reception. Yes, its an eyesore, but you hardly ever get rain fade!. The dishes are getting smaller and looking at three different positions in the sky, so they give up gain with the dish itself to look at all of these at the same time. They get away with this because the birds themselves are relativly high power. You can use up to a 1 meter dish to look at any one position in the sky and get much better signal, but not any bigger because again, the dish is too focused, At the 101 degree position there are actually three satellites which if I remember right are about 50 miles apart from each other in orbit, but at 24000 miles away thats virtually a single point in the sky from here. However, a dish bigger than 1 meter can single out one of the satellites. For you who have directv and have looked at your signal meter, with a 1 meter dish setup almost all of the transp! ond! ers
 will read 100 all of the time with clear skys or even light cloud

Re: [Repeater-Builder] Direct TV type dish?

[TGundo 2003]

I work for a high-end Custom home electronics company and deal with directv all of the time. Heres a few bits you may or may not find intresting.

1. Rain fade. Want to limit this? Put up three 1 meter dishes to look at the birds and have better signal reception. Yes, its an eyesore, but you hardly ever get rain fade!. The dishes are getting smaller and looking at three different positions in the sky, so they give up gain with the dish itself to look at all of these at the same time. They get away with this because the birds themselves are relativly high power. You can use up to a 1 meter dish to look at any one position in the sky and get much better signal, but not any bigger because again, the dish is too focused, At the 101 degree position there are actually three satellites which if I remember right are about 50 miles apart from each other in orbit, but at 24000 miles away thats virtually a single point in the sky from here. However, a dish bigger than 1 meter can single out one of the satellites. For you who have directv and have looked at your signal meter, with a 1 meter dish setup almost all of the transponders
 will read 100 all of the time with clear skys or even light clouds, and you hear toto flying by when rain fade actually knocks the signal out all together.

2. For long runs or commercial installs the standard is RG-11 coax to maintain signal level. There are amplifiers used for this as well. Stacker systems are becoming more common in MDU and high rise buildings. Basically, conventional satellite systems work 900 to 1500 as noted in a previously. The issue is that the reciever has to send a signal to the dish to switch between the a and b lnbs to look at the different birds, they cant both come down the line at the same time because they are both oviously coming down at the same frequency. You cannot just "split" the signal to multiple recievers because they would battle for control over the dish as channels are changed. Because of that distribution of that to dozens of recievers in a large building starts to get complicated because of the voltage switches needed to facilitate the switching. The Stacker system sends the second dish feed down at 1500- 2 gig, so that all of the signals are on the line at the same time, a on
 900-1500, b on 1500 - 2000. Many of the recievers out there already have tuners built in that can accept the wideband input, just a simple trip into the service menu on the box and turn it on! Now we can amplify and split as needed to feed as many as you want! But RG-11 and 2 gig rated splitters and amps are a must. 

Thats my two cents on the matter.

Tom
W9SRVbob [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  From: "russ" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 2004/10/15 Fri AM 02:00:59 GMT To:  Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Direct TV type dish?   Hey Does any one know what frequency that the coax line coming from the LNB's to the receiver is? On direct TV. 73 Russ, W3CH  yes the cable is rg6 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/
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Help in locating a DB-408 for the ham band

[TGundo 2003]

yes I have, probably going on 20 different suppliers including the major ones with no luck. mch [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Have you contacted the major distributors? (Tessco, Hutton, Etc.)Joe M.tgundo2003 wrote:  As per recommendations on this group I have settled on a DB-408 for my new UHF repeater project. My problem is I keep running into dead ends in locating one, new or used, to buy cut for the ham band. I talked to Andrews to see if I could persuade them to build me a one- off for 440 but hey wouldn't. Can anyone help me out before I have to settle for a "stick" antenna? I have also looked at the Maxrad open dipole model which I can get for 440, but it seems like a bad deal, its as much as a DB-408 new. The Sinclair is just too much $$ for th budget. I want to get this project done before it gets really cold here in Chicago. Please feel free to contact me off the list with any info you
 may have. [EMAIL PROTECTED]  Thanks!!!  Tom W9SRV   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/
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] Help in locating a DB-408 for the ham band

[TGundo 2003]

does anyone else run the 450-470 version on the ham bands successfully? My machine will be 441.850.

Thanks for all the replies so far!!

TomChuck Kelsey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
You can also look at Telewave. They make one similar to Sinclair, but lessexpensive.However, I have yet to see one of the Decibel 450-460 versions that didn'twork just fine in the ham band. I'm running that band split and my repeateris on 442.75. No problem at all.ChuckWB2EDV- Original Message - From: "tgundo2003" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2004 11:43 PMSubject: [Repeater-Builder] Help in locating a DB-408 for the ham band As per recommendations on this group I have settled on a DB-408 for my new UHF repeater project. My problem is I keep running into dead ends in locating one, new or used, to buy cut for the ham band. I talked to Andrews to see if I could persuade them to build me a one- off
 for 440 but hey wouldn't. Can anyone help me out before I have to settle for a "stick" antenna? I have also looked at the Maxrad open dipole model which I can get for 440, but it seems like a bad deal, its as much as a DB-408 new. The Sinclair is just too much $$ for th budget. I want to get this project done before it gets really cold here in Chicago. Please feel free to contact me off the list with any info you may have. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks!!! Tom W9SRV Yahoo! Groups LinksYahoo! 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
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Re: [Repeater-Builder] New UHF repeater antenna suggestions

[TGundo 2003]

can you give me any info on a vender you might know of? I have been looking and cant seem to find one.

Thanks!
tomruss [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:




There are still vendors who stock the below cut in the Ham bands. 440 to 450 MHz you should buy one already in the Ham bands.
Why spend your money on a new DB products in the wrong band to start with?
73, Russ, W3CH


- Original Message - 
From: TGundo 2003 
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 9:09 AM
Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] New UHF repeater antenna suggestions

Would i want to go with the 408-A (406-420) or the 408-B (450-470)? Do you know if either of these antennas are tunable by the end user? The website is not clear about that. The repeater is going to be 441.850/446.850.

Thanks again for your input!

TomChuck Kelsey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
DB-408 will give you decent gain without the extra length and cost of theDB-420. It has 4-bays (8 elements).It will give you good close-in coverage with HT's that the higher gainantennas can't give. If most of your potential users are 10-15 miles away,the DB-420 (8-bays, 16 elements) is not the best choice.ChuckWB2EDV- Original Message - From: "tgundo2003" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: <REPEATER-BUILDER@YAHOOGROUPS.COM>Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 10:58 PMSubject: [Repeater-Builder] New UHF repeater antenna suggestions Hey all- I am in the process of putting up a new UHF repeater in the area and I am looking for any input on which antenna might best suit my needs. Let me give you some background: It is a motorola Mitrek 30 watt UHF converted to
 a full duplex. The radios are up and running in the shack. I am looking into a preamp for the radio as well(Ill take suggestions on that as well!) The repeater site is a water tower in the area, appx. 150ft agl. It is a virgin site, no other antennas or radio gear there now. There is nothing obstrructing the site in any direction. I want omni- directional coverage from the site. I will be fabricating the antenna mount to my needs, however I would like to try to keep the antenna as lightweight as possible, without sacrificing too much performance or duribility, to make for ease of installation. 16 bay with heavy mast is out of the question. I was considering a Decibel Products DB-636 for its 6 dbd of gain and being relativly lightweight and simple to mount from the base. I also looked at the Hustler Spirit Series. I want a good antenna up there, I
 really don't want to make that climb often. However I see all kinds of comments out there about staying away from fiberglass antennas for repeaters. This causes me to look into this more closely. Any advise or suggestions would be helpful and appreciated! Thanks and 73's de Tom W9SRV Yahoo! Groups LinksYahoo! 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/


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