FINALY NEW REPEATER FOR ZASAVJE REGION (article in CQ 1/2002)

Radioamateurs in Zasavje have been talking about new repeater since 1997. A need for new repeater become especialy becouse the old VHF repeater on Mt.Mrzlica works very bad. The RX is not sensitive for a weeker signals, so you can hardly make a contact with a handheld radio through repeater. Original repeater was damaged in thunder storm in 1995. They have had replaced it and it had never work as well as the old one. Owner of repeater is Slovene radioamateur association, but they had no interest to replace it with new one. The solution of a problem have hanged on us in region.
We saw the best solution of a problem with replacing the old one with new VHF repeater on Mt.Mrzlica, but costs for such a repeater were too big for us. In our minds was also DVR (digital voice recorder on simplex) and a crossband repeater.
We were talking and talking and talking and five years were around when still nothing happened. Problem was still here and becouse of a difficult area (lot of mounteens) we were not able to make a contact with city on the other side of the hill with a handheld even on 5 km of distance.
So throug these five years I realize if I won't take a solution in my hands we really won't have a new repeater.
In November 2001 I start to collect components for a new crossband repeater. I also settled a location for repeater with RTV (Slovene national TV) in a place which they use for distribution of 5 TV programs for a part of city Trbovlje and Zagorje on mounteen St.Planina(Trbovlje). When almost all of the components were collected I bought a RRC-4 smart repeater controller made by Mijo(S51KQ-our repeater manager) who also settled things about papers and CEPT.
I have a support from many radioamateurs: especialy from Milan (S57BMU), Roman (S56HVF), Matjaž(S57MK), Julijan (S53Y), Jože (S53SX), Drago (S57CX), RPT & ATV manager Mijo (S51KQ), Mr. Naglav Jože who works on Radio Trbovlje (also radioamateur but momentarilly not active). Jože gave an ICOM mobile dual bander IC 3220 which they use on radio for communication before the boom of mobile phones. He also helped me to settle with RTV for location.
On the 2nd of February 2002 we finally fixed new repeater S55UTR RU376 on St.Planina(also known as Partisan hill) above city Trbovlje. UL:JN76ME, ASL:1011 m, TX FRQ:434.700 Mhz and RX FRQ: 145.5875 Mhz.
First results were unbeliveable, repeater was covering all the cities in region with a handheld on economic low power 20mW. It covers Trbovlje, Zagorje, Hrastnik, Izlake, Zidani most, Sevnica, Ribnica, you can work with high power even from the capital of S5 Ljubljana. It also covers the main highway road Ljubljana – Maribor between Ljubljana – Trojane.
Repeater is made of ICOM IC 3220 (low output power 7W), antenna Diamond X–50, 30m of coaxial cable RG 213 MIL STD, power supply 300W (13,8V,15A), RRC-4(heart of system), metal box with two PC ventilators for cooling the RIG. I'm not using any filters becouse there is not so much HF in the air also repeater works crossband and duplexer is already in RIG. House in which repeater is located is air conditioned with temp. arround 25°C and with 220V from a network. You can also come to the location with normal car the road is pretty good.
RRC-4 controller have an option for wireless remote of repeater with DTMF commands. Sysop can enable or disable the RX etc. ID is automaticly on TX every 65 minutes(time is also selectable with DTMF from sysop) with voice in Slovene language. Users can operate with DTMF A1(ID), A2(INFO text), A0(telemtry which use CW and is useful especially for sysop to see which functions are on or off). The repeater have also voice clock which announce time every hour.
I have a plan for future to get one transceiver for 70cm input and 2m output (Kenwood TM 702).
Repeater is made for all radioamateurs especially for amateurs in Zasavje region. I wish all of you very best contacts throug new repeater. Tilen(S56JCT)