444.725 MHz Repeater site located in the Northeast
section of Rockford. The repeater is at 275ft on the tower. According to the
site owners the repeater is at 350ft above the average terrain. The repeater is
heard almost to Madison, Wisconsin to the north and quite regularly to the south
and east to Naperville, Illinois. We haven’t tried it to the west yet but
hopefully we will have a signal report soon! The antenna is a 16 bay Decibel
DB-420 and is fed with 7/8 inch Heliax hard-line cable. The antenna is located
on the south side of the tower. The repeater is a Motorola MSF-5000 transmitting
currently at 40 watts. The computer operating it and the Echolink is an HP
Workstation 6200A. Here are some pictures of the system with the cover on and
off.
The WX9MCS repeater on 147.255+ PL 107.2 has gotten a new
Antenna at 470ft.
We are very lucky as it is the 2nd highest antenna on the tower, with the
highest being
the FM broadcast antennas. There is nothing else at the level they are on. They
are vertically
separated from the VHF NOAA/NWS transmitter by almost 70ft. So no de-sense on
the front-end
of the repeater. They are using a 17ft dual band fiberglass vertical whip. It is
mounted on a
aft side arm on the west face of the tower. The antenna is bracketed at the top
1/3 joint as
well to keep it from flopping in the wind, and to help support it from ice
loads.
The coax is 1-5/8 inch air dielectric for most of the run. There is a jumper of
1/2 Heliax for the ~30ft from the
end of the 1-5/8 to the antenna. The antenna and connectors were very expensive
as they are kind of rare for
that size coax. There is a 7/8 EIA flange on the 1-5/8 inch coax which goes from
the repeater. The 1/2 inch heliax
has a 7/8 flange on one end and standard UHF/PL-259 male on the other end. They
were able to find a 7/8 EIA flange
direct to N-Female adapter for the repeater end, which is not a very common
connector. The 7/8 EIA flange to
1/2 Heliax was hard one to find but they did succeed!
Here are some pictures of the system with the cover on and off.
Webmaster: Ron Callahan N9SZV (n9szv @yahoo.com)
Please put in subject line: HAM RADIO If I do not recognize the name I will delete it.
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