This and That...

 

This and that…ramblings from WB4GBI

 

Here’s hoping everyone had a great weekend.  I know several went to the Huntsville hamfest. I had planned on going, but this weekend was “move-in” weekend for on-campus UT students, which included my daughter.  I doubt she reads this, but just in case:  Paige, I am SO proud of you. You excel at anything you do. Study hard and go with God. Love, Daddy.

 

And besides, I wanted to save my shekels for a new duplexer for 146.73 instead of going to the hamfest and spending them.  So, speaking of duplexers, I have made a down payment on a set of six-cavity TX-RX duplexers. These are new in the box, but were bought for a project that was never completed.  I hope to finish paying for them in the next two or three weeks, and then have them shipped here. From that point, I will see if Kevin (W4KEV) will be kind enough to tune them up using his sweep generator.  I know for a fact that you will notice a marked improvement in 146.73’s receive capability.  I have heard a lot of people trying out .73, and I hope that those who are having a little difficulty accessing the repeater will remember that it is practically “deaf” at this point in time due to duplexer loss. I didn’t intend to put it on the air this way, but these things happen, and I’ve had to work these kinds of “bugs” out before when I have placed a new repeater on the air.  145.47 had some technical issues, believe it or not, before it became the wide-area coverage repeater that it is now.

 

So, what’s going on with the other repeaters?  Well, at this point in time, there are no major needs on any of the other machines.  I hope to add a receive preamp on 444.3 sometime soon, but its not nearly  as “deaf” as 146.73 is right now. It seems that my quietest  repeater is 146.625, for the range it has. If you find one of my other repeaters too crowded and too busy for your liking, why not try .625? It has a nice footprint and has been on the air at this location for about four years.  I have had 146.625 on the air since 1988.

 

Some of you may have noticed that I had to turn off 145.47 last night.  It was not meant as an indictment of those who were using it, but there was someone who thought it was his playtime and proceeded to key up and make miscellaneous unidentified transmissions.  I know that conventional wisdom tells us to ignore jammers and QRM-ers, and I usually try to do just that. This, however, had gone on long enough, so I turned it off for a while. The result was that when I turned it back on, the problem had disappeared, probably due to him knowing that his “playtime” was now ineffective. It’s hard to jam a repeater that has been turned off on you, isn’t it? Turning a repeater off is my last resort, but please remember…it is my license that is in use as well as the repeater user's, as defined by the FCC.  It is the same as if I had invited hams to my house to use my equipment.

 

For my next blog entry, I think I will start a series on repeater basics.  I hope you will want to read it.  If you like what you see, tell others. If you don’t, please tell me.

 

73 de Tim WB4GBI