Georgetown 900 is back

[paul...@yahoo.com]

I finally got er done.

When I got there I found out my superflex 
Jumper was gone from cabinet to feedline. Opened cabinet and all my cables are gone. Power strip was still there.

I had a bunch of old jumpers etc in vehicle so I used them. Hopefully they are okay. Can you say there are padlocks on cabinets now….YUP!!

In the beginning:

When I left Saddleback and got to near fairgrounds I noticed I couldn’t key Deerfield repeater. Hmmm I changed everything except duplexer. On bench sensitivity was good. I also had to swap GaAs FET as I needed the power supply one for Georgetown. As I drove to Georgetown it came to me. I suffer from dyslexia and have dyslexia moments. I reversed the in and out on pre-amp. I saw it in my head the labeling and how I placed it! Doooh!!!

Just had to kill a tick! I weed whacked Georgetown so I can spray weed killer next week.

So after Georgetown I went back to Deerfield and of course it was as I saw it in my head, backwards.

Hopefully everything will be okay at both sites.

We’ll see what happens over time. Deerfield and Georgetown are linked.

Next Goffstown as soon as I can get next repeater built. Then I will link it too.

Paul - W1ASS

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[Bill Curtis]

Hi Paul,

Congrats on getting the repeaters back up and going.  I made a New Hampshire trip back in May and noticed Deerfield 900 was back and going.  I had placed calls on it and Goffstown rpt, but got no one on the air.  I have my MCS2000 in the car programmed with them.  Even though no one was on them, I could tell Deerfield had great coverage into Dover NH.  I was able to hit Deerfield easily from the Microtel in Dover with my HT.

If your down in North Carolina in the future, feel free to try out my repeaters.

927.1375 McCain NC- PL 131.8 (Same as Waltham and tx 100 hz if decoding on radio) has good coverage of Fayetteville, and about 90 min of drive-time on I-95 from Dillon SC to around Benson NC.  It's pushing 150 watts with a hot receiver aided by a Ma/Com KS-21583 preamp.

927.025 (no PL)  - Sparta NC / Green MTN (3900' ASL) has great coverage in the Blue Ridge Mountains... Covers I-40 from Greensboro to almost Asheville and down to Charlotte.

My buddy Dan WA4PXV has recently added the following:

927.1375 (no PL) - Hickory NC

927.050 (no PL) - Kilby Gap NC (just south of Wilksboro @ 3000' ASL)

927.0625 (no PL) - Taylorsville / Lenny's Mountain @ 1600' ASL

And I will be adding this summer 927.0375 - PL 94.8 - Pinehurst NC.  It will be on Allstarlink.  Node # will be 539331, which is currently on 444.200 from my house, but will soon be RF linked from my house to the repeater site.  This is also the same freq and PL of the Gastonia NC / Crowders MTN repeater.

73s

Bill

N1RIK 

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[Roger(WA1NVC) Coulson]

Here at my house in Framingham with my beam at 30+ feet I had no trouble
getting into the old Georgetown. I found a reasonable beam heading but
the new machine is hard to hear and hard to get into. It is registering
-124.0 dBm here. I worked with a friend in Ashland who can get into it
from his house.

It could be the little green attenuators are working overtime or the
system is not working as well as in the past. I have no problems with
Marshfield or Cumberland so I think my equipment is fine.

We also noticed the short tail.

Roger
WA1NVC

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[paul...@yahoo.com]

Hi Roger,

It could be that they built a cell array around the antenna, but I am not sure if that is true.

I will have to try to locate the antenna and new cellular that just went up.  I think there might be one more cellular going in around the Fall so potential issue there if true. Basically they are dominating the tower and are paying tenants so I lose out as to move takes new stress analysis if they did surround the 900 antenna and there really is nowhere to go anymore up other than down near ground.They (cellular) were trying to figure out who they were blocking if an active antenna and who had to lower their antennas due to limited tower space. They were emailing me to who owns this or that antenna and with they need to move.

I noticed a higher SWR than before also so could be the crappie superflex jumper I had to use since my good one was gone. I also turned power down however there was a PA fault so next week when I go to finish brush work I’ll look. Maybe I have a PA issue that developed. It is the machine that was burned in as Saddleback machine and everything moved that it was with including the preamp.

On tail being tight. CTCSS is currently being gated by receiver CTCSS, so when mobile unkeys the encode drops out. I don’t think you hear a squelch tail as it should be doing reverse burst and there is no squelch on receiver running wide open.

I will have to think a little on repeater tail CTCSS encode for maybe a timing circuit or similar to hold encode it open until after tail beep. ID’s do not have tone encode so it doesn’t key up link system and start a loop of ID’a for the network . I plan to eventually filter out CW ID’s from links so you only hear a 5 second carrier since link has valid tone keying up repeater but then bottom of list right now. Too much work to bypass 900 mobiles being used for links and to install tone cards to inject a controlled  tone encode.

Saddleback has a regular controller so I can keep CTCSS encode open just to tail beep and off on voice announcements and ID’s. Georgetown is just simple PIC controller from HamGadgets.

I’ll think on how to resolve tail issue and since I am building Goffstown so I have test bed at home to resolve it. I just have to ensure I do not create some sort of feedback loop in the link network.

Paul - W1ASS 


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[Bill Curtis]

Hi Paul,

Yeah, your 443.850 repeater has impressive coverage... I can mobile it from Worcester Mass to Portland ME on the interstates.

And the guy in Ossipee, must be Frank W1WU. I got him interested in 900 after telling him about my 900 repeater in NC.  I visit him on some of my trips back to NH and he's visited me once here in NC when he was passing through.

Well it sounds like you have a nice system going.  You have access to some great sites, but the hilly terrain really does kill things.  My McCain NC 927.1375 machine does quite well from a HAAT of 331 ft because of all the flat or flatter terrain.  And also having a really low noise floor with high performing preamp helps too.

I may link up my 900 mhz repeaters also (excluding the one in the mountains).  In fact I tinkered a bit today and put together another 900 machine with some maxtracs.  I have no place to put it at the moment, but verified the gear still works. Guess it could be a backup.

73

Bill

N1RIK 

On Sun, Jun 26, 2022, 11:35 AM paul...@yahoo.com <paul...@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hi Bill,

Thanks! Deerfield and Georgetown are now linked. As soon as I replace Goffstown it will be linked too. At that point if you bring any machine up they all come up like the Near900 system. Someone jokingly called my linked system the W1ASS ring of fire network. Hmmmm?

Some day I want to play with simulcast. I was checking coverage and Georgetown ends where Deerfield picks up with some overlap. Goffstown picks up where Deerfield ends so the overlaps seem to be good for simulcast.

Maybe next time you pass by and fire up one with the three or four linked machines/repeaters (whatever term one chooses) you will get a response. Up north in Osippee I believe the owner of that machine would like to link up so once I get my port expander for the Deerfield controller I will be able to do that if he wants me to do so. Also it will give me a port for the Near900 network if they want to do a MA - NH linkup on demand.

Unfortunately it appears that repeater usage is slowly dyeing. On 900 in hilly terrain having such limited coverage makes it worse. My 440 machine which has a good footprint used to be busy years ago and now little usage. 

I have to go up and clean the 440 machine as I had forgotten to give it its yearly love and care. Now I will try to visit all my machines each summer  and vacuum and blow out everything.

I’ll have to use allstar to connect from home to your repeater if I have chance to build box or install software for allstar. I never drive out of the area just fly. I’ll be flying south this Fall 

Have a great Summer!!!

Paul - W1ASS


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On Saturday, June 25, 2022, 11:29 PM, Bill Curtis <thump...@gmail.com> wrote:

[paul...@yahoo.com]

Hi Bill,

Yes it is Frank I hope. He said he gets good coverage on his 900 machine. I tried to key it with one of my links from Omni on saddleback but I didn’t get any return. It was only 3 watts. I have output of links set for 3.5 watts. I can key most of the machines in Mass with the 3 watt power. I’m on south side of Saddleback so it looks south but not north.

 Fireworks going off all around here so happy 4th to everyone!

Paul -W1ASS

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[Bill Curtis]

Hi Paul,

Maybe you had some programming wrong.  I can hit his repeater from Mt. Agamenticus in York Maine with my MTX9250 HT just fine and it was full quieting coming back.  The furthest away that I've been able to key it up was in Newington on the Spaulding Turnpike just south of Exit 3 at the top of the hill with 30 watts.

And if I recall, I believe I could key it up in some areas on I-95 in Maine.

73

Bill

N1RIK 

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