Repeater Page


The AARO VHF Repeater

Our First repeater was built from a modified Motorola Micor, a Dual band fiberglass antenna, some old 7/8 hard line that was donated, a used commercial power supply, and a barrowed Controller.  After several changes and replacement parts, our newest set was finally put on the air. 

The call used was W9YPS in memorandum of a local "ELMER" Frank Oberlander. After awhile, someone was talking with W9NCZ, Mary, Franks' widow and she mentioned it kind of disturbed her to keep hearing his old call, a decision was made to acquire a different call.

It is in use today.

The club repeater was built using a Kenwood TKR 750 Repeater, we are using a set of WaCom duplexers,

A Decibel Products DB224 antenna, 1/2 " Andrews heliax, and a

Arcom RC 210 controller all powered by a Astron 60 amp rack mount power supply.

Our VHF repeater is a co-ordinated repeater on 145.490 Mhz.with a minus 600 Khz split. We use a 227.5  Hz PL Tone  Encode and Decode to  eliminate QRN & QRM from and to other areas.

The repeater  now has the call AA9RO which was acquired June 28, 2005.

 The machine itself is located in Galva, Illinois, on top of The Gateway Co-Op Grain Elevator, which is  182 feet tall. The base is 840 feet above sea level.

The exact location is 41:09:52N Latitude and 90:03:03 Longitude.

We are running 30 Watts input, but cover a 60 mile circle.

The machine is open to all hams wishing to use it,

but, please respect it and use it as a true Ham Operator would.

In time when a severe weather watch is in effect in the area, our

repeater serves as a link to the National Weather Service at the

Mount  Joy Airport, the home of the Quad Cities

Weather Bureau. Please do not interfere with these weather nets, but you

are welcome to join in if you should see a threatening situation.