STANDING IN BACK:
Tom Fischell "KØPJG", and George Mensik.
SITTING:
Jane Clark, Evert Clark "Ev" "WAØSCK" (Silent Key), Leo "Unknown Call" (Silent Key), Tom Bingham , Rose Jones, Paul Jones "PJ" "WAØKNI" (Silent Key), Rick Harvey WBØIER", David Moeller "WAØETH", Paul Schlipp "KØRWU", Tom Vogel "WAØKGU", Bob Murray "WBØFXU" (Silent Key).
The picture was taken by club member Tom Beehler "WAØYWS" (Silent Key).
It was voted that Stu Barfield "WØIGU" (Silent Key), Rich Riley "WAØZPD", and Richard Fitzmourice "KØRWW", be considered original charter members, even though they could not attend the meeting that day.
I built the basic repeater and autopatch in 1966 to be used as a private repeater system from my home in Overland, MO.
I believe it probably was the first FM Ham repeater in the St. Louis area, with 146.94/34 being placed in service about a year or so later.
Downtown St. Louis, atop a building, was a 6 meter receiver which relayed to the transmitter site via 44Ø mhz. In High Ridge a 6 meter receiver would also relay via 44Ø mhz.
In Creve Coeur, there was a 44Ø loop repeater link, interfaced to a phone patch.
We had permission to install a receiver at Lindenwood colledge in St. Charles, but the system was rebuilt in 1975 and setup with only one receive and one transmitt locations.
There was lots of equipment to maintain, and for 1971 this was quite a complex system.
To the right of the receiver is a blower to cool the 44Ø Transmitter, and then the 44Ø transmitter. To the right of the 44Ø mhz transmitter is the 6 meter transmitter/exciter. In the Cabinet bottom is the 4-4ØØ 6 meter power amplifier and power supply. Needless to say you could hear the 6 meter signal about anywhere.
The 44Ø mhz system had local omni coverage for the back to back repeater, remote receiver sites. and for Portable and home use.
You GE fans might notice I constructed a transmitter power supply on the 21 inch support rack. I also constructed the HV power supply and 3ØØ watt 6 meter amplifier.
In the cabinet and to the left is the local 6 meter receiver, and to it's right are the 2 44Ø mhz link receivers. One tuned to the downtown St. Louis remote receiver, and the other one tuned to the High Ridge receiver site.
A unique voting system using PL tones, was designed and built by me, and Tom Beehler "WAØYWS".
Each of the remote receiver sites had 2 VOR switches. One set at max sensitivity, and one set at slightly over full quieting sensitivity. When a full quiet signal was received a pl tone was applied to the link transmitter.
At the control site on the switching panel seen below the receivers, the first link received would be selected, untill the first link received a pl tone which would force that link receiver to be online. This switching was fast and could not be detected. The system reception was great.
The 1ØØ foot tower made a great 6 meter transmitter site that we shared with the County Police Department.
Our repeater system was designed to allow the members to use 44Ø mhz control stations, at home, to eliminate TVI problems from and to TV Channel 2, and we could operate 6 meters mobile, for greater range than the 2 meter repeater systems offered.
We had a phone patch, and with the remote receiver sites, we had no receiver degrading or intermod at all. It was a great Idea but the old tube equipment gave lots of trouble.
We could activate any of the 4 frequencies from 6 meters, or 440 mhz, with touch tone commands. I believe we were the first repeater in St. Louis to have remote base simplex capabilities.
The entire repeater was moved to a FM broadcast tower located in the St. Louis Downtown area. The coverage was good but not as good as the old split site system.
Eventually a split site was tried again, but by then most of the interest in the system, and the club had declined, so in 1986 the plugs were pulled, ending a great radio adventure for me.
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