Megler Mountain
Pacific County, WA
46.2863, -123.89699
1320 Feet
Call: NM7R
147.180 +600kHz 82.5Hz
444.925 +5MHz 82.5Hz
Megler UHF IRLP Repeater
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IRLP Commands
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Disconnect
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73
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Disconnect
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#
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Keypad Test
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# (+ digits)
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WIN System
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* (a "Star")
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Any Node
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4-digits
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Pre-codes
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-none-
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Location: The Pacific County Megler radio site is located
just northwest of the town of
Chinook, WA. There are
several different sites,
within
about
5
miles that are collectively
known as "Megler", and
this is the nortwestern-most
and highest of these. The other
sites are prominently visible
above the Astoria-Megler bridge while
crossing north-bound.
Access to these other
sites is via the logging
road across from the "Dismal
Nitch" rest area on Highway 401 just east of the Astoria-Megler
bridge. The Pacific County site is reached by way of the Chinook
quarry. Although not visible from the bridge, the Pacific
County site can be spotted from Highway 101, southbound, just west
of Chinook, look up and to the left, to the north of the highway.
Coverage: The "Megler" repeaters cover
nearly the entire
Long Beach Peninsula, and north along the coast including parts of
Tokeland, Grayland and
Westport, WA. They can be utilized east nearly to Longview, WA, and
south to Seaside, OR. To the west, they have both
been worked from
60-miles or more at sea.
Click here for a Megler site plot.
The VHF coverage is a bit better than the UHF coverage, as one would
expect.
The building and tower are crowded with a number
of commercial, public safety and broadcast stations, including six,
one-kilowatt television transmitters that serve the greater
Astoria-Long Beach area, giving the site a high noise floor,
making operations there challenging.
Even though they are stacked one atop the other in the rack,
the 147.180 and 444.925 repeaters have different missions and operate
independently.
The 2-meter repeater
is normally linked to the
BeachNet
system of repeaters.
Follow this link for more
information on the Megler 147.180 repeater.
The UHF repeater is not linked to
BeachNet
and operates "stand-alone".
The 444.925 IRLP Repeater: This repeater
operates independently as IRLP node 3105. Internet
Radio Linking Project (IRLP) is a system of hardware and software
that allows two or more radios to be linked together using the Internet.
This provides the ultimate in flexibility, allowing connections
anywhere there is Internet service.
Follow this link for more general information
on IRLP.
This node normally
"idles" connected to Reflector 9453, the
WIN System, a network of over 70 repeaters in 17 States and 4
countries. The WIN System started in California, and has grown to
the point that there is always something going on! This repeater is
Win System Affiliate Number 33.
Follow this link for current status of this IRLP Node.
Even though the repeater is normally connected to the WIN System,
you are completely welcome to disconnect it and connect
to another IRLP
node if you wish. Yeah, really! Reflector 9453 and the WIN System are
just one of the over 2000 possible IRLP connections. If you want to
meet a friend on a schedule, check in on the node back home,
or just explore, please do!
It is not necessary to contact the node owner before using this node.
It was put in place for general Amateur use. If you need any
additional information or wish to contact the node owner,
Click here to
email Frank, NM7R.
To access a list of all available IRLP nodes, go to: IRLP.net, and click on "NODE
INFO", then click on "List of nodes and
Frequencies".
This will bring up the Status Page. Click on any of the Tabs
to view nodes by category, or click on the "All Nodes"
tab for a complete list of all active IRLP nodes, worldwide.
The standard disconnect command is "73",
or on
this repeater, a pound-sign "#" works too.
When disconnected, you may
dial up another node with its four-digit node number. There are no
pre-codes, just the four digit number. You can send commands while
people are talking on the IRLP connection. The link back
to the computer is full duplex
and as long as they are talking, they won't hear you.
When you are through with your contact(s), please disconnect and
then send a "Star (*)", a special one-digit
command to put the repeater back on the WIN System link. Thanks.
There is a 20-minute time-out
on normal connections. As long as you key up at least once every
15-minutes or so, the connection will stay alive. But if you let
20-minutes go by without a local key-up, the connection will
terminate. This is protection in case you drive out of range
and can no longer drop the connection. The "Star"
command will put the connection back to the WIN System with
no time-out. Also, the pound-sign "#",
followed by a string
of digits will read the keys back to you as a pad-test. This can be
useful if you are trying to determine if you are getting in well
enough to command the node.
Remote Audio Link: The repeater is at 1320-feet
on Megler hill, but the computer and
DSL connection are at my home station, 17 miles away over Willapa Bay
in Nahcotta. I have a pair of yagi antennas on
the side of my tower, aimed
at the repeater site, supporting a 220-MHz up-link from the
computer to the
repeater. The 440 antenna listens to the repeater output as a down-link.
When the user keys the repeater, a PL tone on the repeater transmitter
tells the computer that the local user is talking. This mutes the up-link
and whatever the user says is sent out on the Internet IRLP
connection. When the
user un-keys, the PL tone drops*, and the computer starts sending audio
from the Internet up the 220-up-link to the repeater site to be transmitted
to the user. The two pictures below, on the right, are the antennas on the
tower at my house, and the other end of the connection, looking back from
the repeater site to my house.
This arrangement allows the IRLP to
share my home DSL connection, avoiding the cost of an Internet line at
the commercial site. It also lets the computer live in a more benign
environment, where it is easily accessible for software maintenance.
I don't have to drive 60-miles to the hill and back, just
to hit the reset button. The Bandwidth used by the IRLP connection
is minimal, and I have never noticed any speed reduction in my normal
on-line activities. The link is full-duplex, allowing commands to be sent
at any time, even when the IRLP link is talking. I much prefer this to
the more typical remote link where the user must wait for "dead
air" to send commands.
*Technical Note: The PL encoder on the 440 repeater downlink
isn't switched on and off. If handled this way, when the encoder
is switched off, the decoder "coasts down" for as much as a
half-second before closing. Instead, the PL encoder is switched
between two different tones. As soon as the "wrong" tone
hits the decoder, it slams shut. The encoder runs all the time,
but one of the tone-selection pads is either grounded or floating
to change tones. This gives more immediate switching.
Hardware: The repeater is a GE Mastr-II 110-watt continuous
duty base station running 75-watts output through a circulator, low-pass
filter, a four-cavity Motorola bandpass duplexer and a diplexer to share the Hustler
G6-270 antenna at the top of the 80-foot tower. It use
s an ADI 220-MHz
Amateur transceiver as an uplink receiver with an outboard audio processing
card and a CAT-200B controller. The power supply is a Mastr-II model.
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