AMATEUR RADIO
REPEATERS IN UTAH
There are numerous Amateur
Radio repeater stations in Utah including a number in Southwestern Utah.
The following is taken from a database maintained by the Utah VHF Society
web site and information from that organization is reproduced below. The
Dixie Amateur Radio Club takes no responsibility for any inacuracies that
may be present in these listings.
To view a comprehensive
listing of all known Amateur Radio repeaters in Utah please follow this
LINK.
Dixie
Amateur Radio Club's
Linked
Repeater System
The Dixie
Amateur Radio Club has a linked repeater system. Here are the new frequencies
that you can use. These are open repeaters available to any Amateur to use:
-
145.490 MHz Utah Hill (covering most
areas of the southern county, northern Clark County, NV)
-
146.640 MHz Webb Hill (coverage
of metropolitan St. George, Washington)
-
145.450 MHz Toquerville (coverage
of northern Washington County, Hurrican/LaVerkin - eastern Washington Ccounty
areas)
Remember,
the frequency that you should have your transceiver's receiver set on is
the frequency shown above. You should have the transmit offset
set to minus (-) 600kHz and each of these repeaters require a 100hz
CTCSS tone to access them.
Information
on accessing IRLP Links from the Club's DARC Repeater System:
All you need to do is
key up on one of the 2 meter DARC repeaters, count to two to get time for
the links to all come up, identify yourself for IRLP access, dial the IRLP
node number on your TT pad, release the PTT and listen for the IRLP computer
voice to tell you if you are connected or not. When you are done dial 73
on your TT pad and the IRLP computer voice should come back and tell you
that you are disconnected. If for any reason you cannot get the 73 to work
(like you drive out of range of our repeaters), the IRLP node connection
will time out if the repeaters are inactive.
The DARC repeaters are:
145.490, minus 600khz transmit offset, with 100.0Hz CTCSS tone,
145.450, minus 600khz transmit offset, with 100.0Hz CTCSS tone, and
146.640, minus
600khz transmit offset, with 100.0Hz CTCSS tone.
The 145.49 is a high
elevation mountaintop repeater with good general wide-area coverage. The
145.45 is a medium level machine that works best in the Hurricane area. Up
to the Zion park entrance works on a mix of 145.49 and 145.45 with .45 being
the best overall. The 146.64 is a low level machine for St. George and Washington
area coverage. All three of these repeaters are normally linked.
Presentation on the Repeater System:
Below
is a link to view the presentation on the Club's Repeater System that Nick
Nickle, W7CRN, presented at the October 21, 2009 Club meeting. A number
of Club members asked if it could put it on the web site.
Please CLICK HERE to view the presentation. (NOTE: IT WAS REVISD SLIGHTLY IN APRIL 2020)
(Note: It is provided as a PDF file)
A Tutorial
on Good Amateur Repeater Practices from Honorary Lifetime Club Member Casey
Lofthouse, KD7HUS:
I asked that this be
posted on our repeater page. It covers the operating procedures according
the to ARRL. On a recent fall 2011 day, the system was plauged with
nearly 200 kerchunks. You have got to be kidding me! Here is
a link to ARRL operator manual regarding repeater operation and a few other
spills on it. Thanks for reading and following this advice. '73', Casey
http://www.redgiant.org/w7rac/arrl_repeater_operation_from_the.htm
Kerchunking, What is it?
To put it
lightly, it is an act of pressing the PTT to trigger the repeater without
any intention to talk to anyone. Some people do it when there is no one talking
on the repeater. They may be checking if their antenna is working okay, or
to know if the repeater is working fine. Some do it when they feel bored
and the mere repeater tail end and squelch crash gives them some satisfaction.
The funniest thing is that if someone comes forward to talk to them, they
simply shy away. People who do kerchunk while a QSO is on are real QRM makers.
Sometimes, a distant station trying to access the repeater by turning and
adjusting their antenna towards repeater could be mistaken for kerchunkers.
In that case listening carefully without any prejudice could bring to your
log a callsign which is transmitting from afar.
Whereever there are hamradio repeaters, kerchuking is there, its a universal
phenomenon. Kerchunk if you have to. But always Identify your transmissions!
Another good thing to keep in mind is to always allow a slight pause to allow
another station to transmit if he needs to. And remember transmitting without
identifiying is illegal.
OK, we have probably all done it, but what is it. You pick up the mike or
handi- talkie because you have not heard anything for few minutes. Then even
though the display of the radio is on, that little bit of doubt creeps into
your mind, is it the repeater....or me..... or is my radio working? Did the
repeater offset slip? Did the PL tone get lost? Did the power setting go
to extra low? Did that intermittent coax connection just go away again? Finally
you just have to key the mike for a second or two to see if you hear the
repeater identify or hear the courtesy tone. That second or two of dead air
with no ID is a kerchunk.
If you just have to do an on air test, say so:
"This is (Call sign) Testing".
It will still bring up the ID or courtesy tone and is a legal transmission.
Due to the increasing complexity of our radios, no one minds if you test
as long as you say so. Anyone who has ever had a microprocessor-based radio
lose its mind knows the complexities involved.
Anytime we use the repeater and autopatch, we become caretakers of it. The
responsibility does not lay entirely in the hands of the repeater trustee
and the communications officer. By our very use, we are taking this responsibility
upon ourselves. If we use it, let's use it in a way that will provide this
service for years to come. It's a shared resource, and in sharing we must
all use it with these things in mind.
By the way, the term "Kerchunk" can also apply to the sound a large Amplitude
Modulation Transmitter makes when the operator switches it off and on.
Information from Steve Fehlhaber of Monroe, Utah on other linked repeater
systems in the State of Utah:
I wanted to
share some Utah VHF repeater information with you and your organization.
I invite you to review my information and create a link to it via your website
if you so desire. Last year I realized that the chore of locating and identifying
repeaters for single and Linked systems in Utah was a complex task of research
and patchy information. In this endeavor, I realized that a single
listing and mapping of our 3 primary linked systems was possible. This
includes the "Intermountain Intertie", "Sinbad(SDARC)", and "Skyline Systems".
I first published in August of 2009, updated in September of 2009 and again
in February of 2010.
The link is www.steveswww.com/content.htm or via my call
sign at QRZ.com where there is a link available also.
I invite you
and any of your members to visit and review this information. If there
are any errors or omissions, please let me know, otherwise, I think you will
find it rather pleasant to use and derive information from. We
have also just begun to establish a new group here in Sevier Valley,
www.sevierarc.org,
Sevier Amateur
Radio Group.
Please feel
free to contact me for information or questions about these sites.
73,
Steve Fehlhaber - KE7ZIW
Monroe, UT. 84754
435-893-1957 cell
CW4759
www.steveswww.com
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