ALMOST THERE!

 

Many of you have asked, “When is 146.73 going back on the air on English Mountain?”

 

Well, after many months of behind-the-scenes work, I am now proud to announce something publicly. Yesterday, I met the site owner and tower climber of the facility from which I am renting tower space.  With the help of Dave, KE4YBZ (who also maintains my web site- Thank You Dave!),  the antenna for 146.73 has been installed on the tower and the cable has been routed into the building. I have my assigned space in the building.  It was an all-day trip, as it takes over 90 minutes to get to the site.  The antenna installation took place after about three hours of preparation and tower work. The English Mountain site is only five miles from paved road, but it is a five-mile, closed-access mountain road. It takes about 20 to 25 minutes just to get up to the site. But the “hard part” is done!  It was 90+ degrees at the site with no shade. I have a nice sunburn and some yellow jacket stings to show for the effort. I actually got the yellow jacket stings while loading the antenna up at home.  Who said ham radio was painless?  J

 

Now, you might ask…”Why didn’t you take the repeater with you and get it on the air?”

 The reason is that I had a concern with the repeater duplexer that necessitated leaving it here in town and checking the alignment. I hope to have that resolved by the end of the week. Then, I will need to secure a time that I can get access the site to deliver the repeater and duplexer. Please bear in mind that as a *renter* on this site, I have limited access and can only go when I have secured a key to the road and building. However, due to the limited availability of sites on top of English, I am very pleased to have the site that I do.

 

After the antenna was installed, I hooked up my Icom mobile and made a few tests on simplex. Some of you might have heard me or worked me from there. The Antenna checked out fine.

 

 

Hang on…we’re almost there!!

 

 

What have you done for me lately?

 

 

What have you done for me lately?

 

If you are unfamiliar with repeater operation, you might think that repeaters are “plug and play,”  or that you put one on the air that all of the work is done. Not so. A repeater owner or trustee will spend countless hours testing his repeater for coverage, proper tuning, and audio. And this of course doesn’t count, heaven forbid, if it goes off the air.

 

Sometimes, I just pay “social calls” at the sites where my repeaters are, but more often than not, I usually give the repeater a full check up when I visit a site.  What parameters would one check on his repeater to make sure it is functioning at its full capacity? Well, here’s some parameters; I’ll try to give each one of these some discussion in the future. On the receiver side:  Sensitivity, selectivity, modulation acceptance bandwidth, carrier frequency, IF frequency, audio-output symmetry.  On the transmitter side: Power output, spectral purity, deviation, carrier frequency, modulation symmetry.  Particular to repeater operation:  desensitization (“desense”), repeat audio level, time-out timer, hang timer, and effective sensitivity.  It is not necessary to check all of these parameters every time you go to the site, but all of these have some bearing on how well a repeater operates.

 

So…Why the title of this article?  What have I done (for you, the repeater user) lately?  Well, this past Saturday, I spent almost all of the day working on the 146.73 repeater. I am getting it fully ready for its trip home to English Mountain. I am really looking forward to having 146.73 back on the air at English Mountain, where it was for over 25 years.  I hope Sam (WB4HAP, from whose estate I bought the repeater after he became a silent key) would be proud.  Saturday, the repeater was fitted with a control receiver, DTMF decoder, two new fans to cool the transmitter PA, a new rack-mounted electrical strip, and new duplexer cables. The control receiver had some issues, but those were all repaired and the repeater is now fully ready for its homeward trip. I’ll be working on an installation date (hopefully) next week.

 

Today, Sunday, July 13^th, I spent a couple of hours at the 145.17 repeater site in South Knoxville.  The repeater had no repeat audio, and even though it was on the air, it was basically useless; so, I visited that site and gave the repeater a good tune-up. Here’s hoping it works for a while to come.

 

So, even there was no hamfest or field-day type event this weekend, it was a busy ham radio weekend. I hope you enjoy the “fruits of my labors!”

 

 

 

Here goes!

Well, here goes!

Thanks to Moe, N4CQW, I now have the means to "blog." I have read many
blogs before, but this will be the first time to be on the other side of
the keyboard. So, what am I going to write about?

Most likely, you already know me or know of me. You know that I have
several repeaters on the air in East Tennessee. In fact, you probably found
this off of a link from my repeater website. I have had a repeater on the
air since 1981 and was maintaining them a couple of years before that.
Repeaters have been my "niche" in ham radio since shortly after I got my
license. I bought a 12-channel crystal-controlled radio in 1974, and I was
hooked. Not too long after that, I got the chance to meet George Shaver,
K4HXD. He's the fellow that put the very first two-meter repeater on the
air in East Tennessee. George was one of the first people that I looked up
to in ham radio. Later, we worked together and become good friends.

What is a repeater? Well, in its purest form, it's a piece of equipment
that receives and retransmits radio signals. But to me, it's more than
that. It's a community of ham radio operators. Most repeaters have a
"personality." It's a place to rag-chew, conduct nets, meet new hams, and
find help when you have an emergency or urgent need. I'm proud of the
service that my repeaters provide, and I'm equally as pleased that hams
like yourself will use them, enjoy them, and call them you "home" repeater
while you are on the air. Its a priviledge for me to put the repeaters on
the air for you to enjoy. I hope you will enjoy my effort to tell you a
little about them and why I'm so proud of them.

Please check back regularly. I'll try to make it worth your trouble. If you
like what you see, tell your fellow hams.

73 de Tim WB4GBI

test message

Hello and Thank You for stopping by my blog page. I hope you will find it entertaining and informative. Please check back often for updates as I plan on sharing a lot of information about the WB4GBI repeaters and repeater operation in general.  Please email me at wb4gbi@arrl.net if you have any comments of suggestions. I look forward to hearing from you.

 

73 de Tim WB4GBI

 

Tim Berry WB4GBI  (check out my website at www.wb4gbi.com)

Chief Engineer

Citadel Broadcasting of Knoxville, TN

WIVK-FM   WNOX-FM   WNML AM/FM  WNRX-FM  WOKI-FM

 

 

"Do you really want to know what's wrong...or do you just want me to fix it?