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THE TOWER !



 

                                                        

The Repeater's Of The MARC


The Massillon Amateur Radio Club operates 2 Repeaters in Western Stark County, one on 147.18+ mhz and the other on 442.85+ mhz. They both bear the club call W8NP.


The 147.18 Machine

The 2 meter repeater is on 147.18 Mhz and is a very wide area coverage machine that serves all of Stark County. It has an open autopatch and is located 170 feet on top of an old railroad microwave tower. It consists of a GE Master II commercial radio and an ACC RC - 85 controller. The antenna is a Stationmaster vertical. It is an open repeater and is always available to all area amateurs. When conditions demand it is placed on PL using 110.9 tone.

147.18 Gets Much Needed Equipment Upgrade

     On Saturday - March 9, 2002, members of the MARC Repeater Technical Committee made some much needed repairs to the club's 147.18 repeater. Our heavily used main 2 meter repeater suffered a transmitter problem a few weeks back which lowered the output power to only about one watt. While still functional, it greatly reduced the repeaters wide area coverage.

     The Technical Committee had been preparing new RF equipment for some time in anticipation of an equipment upgrade to the repeater. This new equipment included both a new transmitter and receiver, as well as a new 100 watt final amplifier. This new equipment is a General Electric Master II Series Base Station converted to amateur service. This time proven system replaced the nearly 10 year old repeater which was a converted General Electric Mobile Radio. The existing ACC RC-85 repeater controller was reinstalled into the new repeater.

    This new repeater should provide the club many years of reliable service. As with any major equipment upgrade, there will be many post installation adjustments necessary to fully "fine-tune" the repeater to its final setup. Output power, squelch adjustments, audio characteristics, etc are but a few of the many adjustments necessary to make the repeater have that great audio ours is known for. The repeater will also have  "Tone Squelch", which will allow you to hear only stations transmitting and not the controller audio or any hash caused by band openings. This feature is not yet operating but should be fixed soon.

     The installation took nearly the entire day as our technicians made the conversion to the new system. Special thanks to the following club members and individuals for giving up their Saturday to get our repeater back into service. They were:  Technical Committee members Jim Farriss - WA8GXM and Perry Ballinger - W8AU. Terry Russ - N8ATZ and Don Finley - W8DEF also lended support. Club member Jason Stroll - KC8LIN also stopped by to check thing out. A special thanks to Marty Baker - N8XPK, who also helped out with the installation. Marty is a member of the Pioneer Amateur Radio Club and an experienced two-way radio technician who owns and operates several repeaters himself in the Akron area including a super six-meter repeater on 53.17 Mhz. Some pictures of the installation project are shown below.

 
W8AU begins wiring the controller to the new repeater
 
 
Lets see, which wire was that again ?
 
 
Marty - N8XPK is always ready to break out the BIG GUN !
 
 
Marty & Jim - WA8GXM prepare the new RF equipment

  


The History Of The 147.18 Repeater

The following history lesson is courtesy of the Massillon "FEEDBACK" Newsletter August 1992
-------------

  Two meter FM was active in the 50's in this area mainly with Civil Defense. W8QA had control of the dozen or so pack sets available. Around 1962, many of us began to convert used police/taxi units to 146.94 simplex. As growth continued, other simplex channels were adopted.

Repeaters began to appear about 1966 with W8IOO in Youngstown opening up on 146.94 !. This didn't last long because of all the complaining. Newcomerstown was next, W8THC, with output on 146.76 and input on 146.94.

In the late 60's and early 70's Massillon adopted 147.18 as "our" simplex frequency, to get away from the repeaters that were mainly using 146 - 147 Mhz. This worked well until repeaters needed additional room and the "repeater council" opened up 147 - 148 Mhz for repeater use.

We complained to the council, but "squatter rights" on 147.18 were not going to stop "progress."  So, in order to keep 147.18, we had to establish a repeater their.

This was not well received by the repeater council, as they had already authorized the city of Parma near Cleveland to use 147.18. These were the early days of the repeater council, however, and their authority was not as well established as today. So they listed both Parma and Massillon as holders of this frequency, although, engineering wise, this was too close. In actual practice, it wasn't too bad, as they were on the north side of the "summit" and it didn't have a high elevation. We were not really "line of site" with each other.

Early tests in 1975 made at W8AU's QTH (then in Jackson Township) with vertically separated antennas instead of a duplexer, were not satisfactory, but we could show we were "using" the frequency. A fellow in Orrville kept asking the council for our frequency, reporting that we were not using it. Letters went back and forth between W8AU and the repeater council on this, and ultimately we prevailed.

A used Sinclair duplexer (four cavity hybrid ring for you tech types) was purchased and rebuilt for the lower frequencies of 147.18 / 147.78. Finally, we were on reliably !

The initial gear was tube type, Motorola G series recv/xmitr strips at 10 watts (20 ERP) with a standby 500 watt Motorola amplifier added around 1977.

In 1979 the repeater moved (with W8AU) to higher ground on a hill southwest of Massillon, in Tuscarawas Township where it remained until about 1990 using the same G series equipment, having served way beyond its commercial life. Since then it has moved to "The Site" located on a railroad tower about 175 feet high and was upgraded several times to commercial General Electric solid state equipment thanks to then club member Steve Garwood - N0CZV. An ACC RC-85 Controller was purchased (still in use today) and the repeater has become the high profile system in Western Stark county since then.

An interesting thing happened to the Parma 18 repeater about 1981. It's owner moved to Wakeman in Lorain county and took it with him, where it operated for a few years with little or no users. He then wanted to move back to Parma, but had to re-apply to the repeater council for permission. He was denied the right to use 147.18 in Parma this time as Massillon was too close ! Had he never moved it away, it would have still been authorized.

Our repeater was originally assigned the call WR8AKA in 1976 when special calls were required. The "R" identified it as a repeater callsign. This held until the five year license period ran out. By then, the FCC had deregulated to where they stopped assigning special calls and repeater operators had to use their own or a club's callsign. The change to W8AU/R occurred during that time and ultimately changed to the club callsign W8NP/R.


The 442.85 Machine

The 440 repeater is on 442.85 Mhz and was designed to serve the greater Massillon area. It also has an open autopatch and is located on the roof top water tower at Massillon Community Hospital. It consists of an ICOM UHF Repeater and also uses an ACC RC - 85 controller. It is used as our "rag chew" repeater but during severe weather is used to provide the hospital with Skywarn reports.


 

Below are several images of the 147.18 repeater site.

78rpt3.jpg (69622 bytes)   

The Tower !

 

 

  78rpt1.jpg (88959 bytes)

The Base Of The Repeater Site    

                              

 78rpt4.jpg (84406 bytes)   

This Is Our Backup Battery Bank

 

 

  78rpt2.jpg (99049 bytes)

The Repeater And Controller
And ACC RC-85 Still Going Strong !


 

 

This is a picture of the club's 442.85 Repeater located on the top of Massillon Community Hospital. 

 

  This page was last updated on - 12/08/02

 

   

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 This page was last updated on  12/08/02

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