Cruise Passenger Guide

waveJuneau Amateur Radio Club, Inc.
KL7JRC

All of the JARC repeaters are open for general use.  You do not have to be a JARC member to use the repeaters, and we welcome visitors.  You can see that our terrain is extremely vertical.  You can be relatively close to a repeater and be unable to reach it with an HT because of terrain masking.  That is why we have so many repeaters to serve the Juneau area.

There are usually JARC members monitoring the repeaters.  Time allowing, we like to meet you and talk to you!  If you are taking pictures of the Tlingit creation story mural on City Hall look for a snowflake in the 2nd floor windows.  The snowflake marks KL2ZZ's office.  If you call please be patient.  Remember that we are not on vacation and it may take some time for us to get free to answer you.  A good tactic is to call several times and then leave your radio monitoring the repeater system instead of turning it off.  Call again every so often.  Sometimes we answer but the visitor has turned their handheld off before we have a chance to get away from work.

If you are in the downtown area, your HT will easily reach the JARC Mt. Roberts repeater 146.820 (-) at the top of the tram.  A somewhat smaller area is served by WA6AXO's IRLP repeater* 146.880 (-) 100Hz pl. 

In addition to downtown the Mt. Roberts repeater serves much of the trail systems you may be on.

The Mt. Roberts repeater has good coverage of the Perseverance Trail and Silverbow Basin. Some sections of the Perseverance Trail (e.g. the very start at Basin Road and those parts close to Ebner Falls) may be masked.  The Mt. Roberts repeater has excellent coverage of the Mt. Juneau trail, as well as Douglas including Sandy Beach, the Treadwell Mine Trail, and the Douglas zipline.  Coverage of the Mining Museum in Last Chance Basin is spotty because of terrain masking, and the mining museum in Sheep Creek valley is completely masked. 

If you are visiting the zipline or bicycle riding at Eaglecrest the best repeaters are either Lena Point 147.000 (-) or Mendenhall Valley 146.640 (-).  Bicyclists on the lower parts of Fish Creek Road (coming down from the ski area) may be masked from either or both repeaters for periods of time.  If you hike to the very top of Eaglecrest you can reach the Mt. Roberts repeater on the east side of the mountain and the Lena Point repeater on the west.  Remember to look down for aircraft on approach to the airport.

If you are bicycle riding on North Douglas to False Outer Point the Lena Point repeater is your best option.

At the Airport use the Mendenhall Valley repeater or the Lena Point repeater.  If you have a good antenna you can just reach Mt. Roberts.

If you are at Mendenhall Glacier you are covered by the Mendenhall Valley repeater.  This repeater covers the West Glacier Trail well, but if you cut off the trail to visit the ice caves you can become masked when you are close to the ice.  Coverage of the East Glacier Trail is good unless you start heading up the Nugget Creek Trail.  The area around the USFS Visitor's Center, Dredge Lakes and the Moraine Ecology Trail are well covered by this repeater.

If you are bicycling in the Mendenhall Valley, use the Mendenhall Valley repeater or Lena Point.  The Lena Point repeater is better the closer you are to the university campus, and some sections of Back Loop Road are masked.

If you are "out the road" visiting the Shrine of St. Therese, the Arboretum, or are whale watching on Lynn Canal use Lena Point.  Because of the topography of the Juneau area, you may start to pick up the Mt. Roberts repeater again!  Set your radio to high power to reach Mt. Roberts, and expect to be masked while in dips in the road.


* NOTE: WA6AXO's IRLP node is half-duplex.  You cannot hear other Juneau stations on it, and we cannot hear you.  The antenna is on 7th Street, above the City Museum and State Capitol, very near the Wickersham House.  Because it is lower than the Mt. Roberts repeater, more terrain is masked.

WA6AXO's IRLP node is convenient to the cruise ship docks, and is a nice way to call home.  Usually it is connected to the WINS System reflector, with 70-odd repeaters covering 16 states as well as nodes in Canada and Australia.  Please do not attempt to connect the node to another reflector or another node without setting your radio to the reverse repeater shift 146.280 (+), contacting WA6AXO and getting permission first.  The IRLP node is not guaranteed to be up.