Updated: 11 Apr 2025
Updated: 11 Apr 2025
Hello! I am new to the whole creating a webpage thing so bear with me...
Repeaters:
I own two repeaters in Washington County, TN:
We hold a Bible Study net/roundtable on the 147.120+ repeater on the 2nd and 4th Mondays of every month at 7:00 pm EST (8:30 pm EDT), with the 442.750+ (no tone req'd) repeater as the backup.
The times of the net/roundtable change with Daylight Savings time (hard to stay awake in the winter and can't get inside before chores are done in the summer!)
VHF SSTV net
We hold a Slow Scan TV (SSTV) net on the 145.110- (no tone req'd) repeater on the 1st Wednesday of every month at 8:30 pm ET, 145.290- (103.5 tone) repeater as the backup.
There are a variety of programs, apps, and software that can do SSTV, the radio connections are the same as those for Packet Radio (see below). MMSSTV is a great Windows program, it's readily
available on the internet. Email me if you need help finding it.
Packet Radio:
There's a small group of us in the Tri-Cities Area on plain-old 1200 baud packet, no APRS, just packet radio with BBS's and such.
There's a digipeater collocated with the 147.120+ on 145.010 MHz, the digipeater alias is WASHTN, and the BBS is WASHTN-1.
For those who care, the digipeater is a Kantronics KPC-3+ hooked to a Motorola M1225 VHF radio putting out ~25 watts,
and contains a KA-node as well: WASHTN-7
How I (and how to) get on packet radio:
Personally I use a soundcard modem called soundmodem and a terminal program called EasyTerm. These two programs are extremely easy to use compared to some of the others that are out there.
It is also very easy to build (or buy) an interface between your PC and your radio. I use a Motorola Maxtrac since all the signals I need are on the front mic connector and makes this easy.
Other radios work just fine as well, the signals you need are:
Incidentally these signals are also all you need to run any kind of digital mode on VHF FM (e.g., SSTV, VARA-FM, any of those weird Fldigi modes, etc.), so it's handy to have an interface put together.
I have a youtube channel with a couple videos on packet radio that explain my approach:
Surplus Commercial Gear:
I've been blessed to been introduced to surplus commercial radio gear. For a lot less money than new ham gear you can obtain many older two-way radios that will work on 6 meters,
2 meters (and MURS), 440 MHz, and GMRS. The Repeater Builder website has tons of (free!) information on much of the gear that's out there. There's features on these radios that are nice
to have, (like Squelch Tail Elimination to eliminate squelch crashes on repeaters that put out a tone) and generally scan much faster than ham gear. However, sometimes these radios require
some modification, and nearly all of them must be programmed by a PC of some sort (very few are frequency agile, no VFO). In my fairly short experience as a ham and with commercial gear,
surplus Kenwood gear is generally the easiest to program, easiest to operate, and generally are very good radios. Motorola made (makes) fantastic radios but they are typically harder to program
than Kenwood, and you have to *search* a lot harder for the software. Motorola Maxtracs, Radiuses, and GM300s are great radios from the late 80s through the 90s and are dirt cheap
(you can get them <$50 a piece oftentimes), but they are difficult to program, I have a buddy that does that for me at this time. I can program my Kenwood radios just fine, with Motorola
it's good to have friends...
Besides not having a VFO and needing to reprogram your radios if you need another repeater in the radio, each radio is single band (99.9% of the time), so instead of 1 dual band VHF/UHF radio
say in your vehicle, you'll need a radio (and antenna unless you have a combiner) for each band. I personally have a Kenwood TK-790H (does 110 watts on 2 meters) and a TK-860G (does 25 watts on 440 to GMRS)
in my car and love it. Just a fair warning.
Contact Info:
If you have any questions about anything (packet radio, the Bible Study, the repeaters,etc.), I can be contacted at my-callsign at qsl.net