History

Dave (KN9E) Recounts the beginning of the 511 Repeater Association...

In the early 80's I was a member of a local ham radio club in Johnson Co., IN. Recently, the lndy 146.70 repeater had moved from the southeast side of Indianapolis to the northside, leaving amateurs in Johnson Co. (just south of Indy) struggling for coverage. I had researched the repeater frequency availability and found there was none available for the club to have unless I could get a frequency transferred. I found the 145.45 was available and contacted the trustee, who was happy to turn it over completely for club use.

So began my experience with repeaters....the 145.45 eventually become the 146.835 due to local interference at 144.85 MHz by local oscillator outputs from scanners listening to 155.55 MHz, a local police frequency. Talk about a hassle tracking input blips down! It turns out that cheap scanners with an IF frequency of 10.7 MHz caused the problem (155.55 - 10.7 = 144.85 MHz). This was just one of the hassles I was about to deal with, not to mention helping to maintain the tube-type GE Progress Line repeater!

Many club members had tasted the glory of using a local repeater, but what about handheld coverage? I got in my head a desire to provide handheld coverage throughout the county and set to work investigating taller tower sites. None were available and I gave up trying until I took a trip to Ohio to visit my cousins and heard the 145.19 FARA repeater which used remote receive links! Man, what performance from a multi-site system....no pesky duplexers to deal with!

I started building up a link for the club repeater with my own bucks and put it on line in late 1984. I failed to realize that the club repeater was really controlled by committee and I didn't realize some didn't like the idea. After hearing a number of complaints, I took it down and just about trash-canned it until Darrell, KM9S, pointed out that I had half a repeater and it would be a shame to waste it!

Contacting the Indiana State Repeater Coordinator, Walt - N9WB, he again was helpful and gave me 146.925. He said there was a repeater in Portland, IN and Cincinnati, OH that used these frequencies, but they were not coordinated as a high profile system, in fact the one in Cincinnati was one of about 3 repeaters coordinated to the OHKYIN Radio Club, and not the "main" system they used.....boy were we in for a surprise.

The first receive link was set up at the now silent key, Sandy's house, WA9RDF. The transmitter was an EF Johnson 150 MHz business radio converted to the ham bands and resided at Darrell's house at Younce St. also in Franklin. Despite the tinfoil and tape, the system worked fine. Handheld coverage in Franklin was provided, now it was time to move north.

Darrell's folks lived just south of Acton in Marion, Co and we picked their house for our next link. The problem was, how to select 2 receivers at the main site? Darrell suggested modifying a cheap Regency scanner to scan a couple of frequencies and run the receive squelches a little tighter. OK, so we built the scanner, tried it out and it worked! Not perfectly, but hey, we were experimenting with limited funds and so far, so good! A little later, we added another link at Camp Atterbury in southern Johnson Co, one in Greenwood at N9BK's house and within a year, we had handheld coverage in Johnson County...that's when the trouble started.

It seems the OHKYIN Radio club of Cincinnati took exception to our new repeater on "their" 146.925 frequency and began running "Trivia Nets" (yes, you got it) on 146.925. Almost every day, we would hear mindless babble by amateurs using high power to talk to their local, seldom used repeater. The state coordinator, Walt (N9WB) was quite understanding of our problem and graciously got us a new frequency....145.11.

The frequency was monitored for many weeks and no activity was heard. All the while we put up with the OHKYIN interference until the necessary time had passed and 511 was coordinated to me. Darrell and I immediately went about re-crystalling the entire system and the 511 had a permanent home in central Indiana!

Over the years, Darrell and I grew the 511 system as we could afford to and new technology became available. We were the first in Indiana to successfully and continuously use remote receivers. We were the first to control the repeater with a computer, a Commodore 64 which Darrell wrote all the code for. Anybody remember the computer voice of SAM? Eventually links moved to silent key Joe (KJ9D) then the WENS tower, Mt Nebo then Banta, New Whiteland, Flatrock and Franklin.

The system later evolved to use a commercial controller from S-Com and a voter card from Hall Electronics. Darrell expertly upgraded the receive links to GE Mastr II equipment and we ditched an old military amplifier made by Motorola for a nice commercial GE system. We were also the first 2 meter open repeater to go to PL access in the late 80's as Dayton's 511 system expanded their performance from the earlier years.

As our followers and users increased over the many years, Darrell and I never forgot our humble beginnings in the mini-barn in Franklin or why we built the repeater in the first place: to provide reliable handheld and low power mobile coverage for area amateurs. We keep our operation informal and fun and vowed never to be ruled by committee. There are many other stories to tell; maybe we can pass them along over a cup of coffee or on the air if the mood strikes us.

Dave

KN9E