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!”