This site I made to
give some information about the 3 FM repeaters in the city of Venlo.
Venlo is in the South
East part of The Netherlands, close to the German border.
The repeaters are
made by two radio amateurs :
PE1MDG : He helped with 19"inch racks,
making of PCB's, front panels, 220V AC power supply, helping with tests, etc.
PE1RAH : I did do the electronics part,
designing circuits, making PCB's, programming, adjustments, made the two 3-band
antennas, etc.
The total station :
2 mtr Pi3RNL TX : 145.6125
MHz. RX : 145.0125 MHz. (-600kHz. Shift).
70cm Pi2RNL TX : 430.3500
MHz. RX : 431.9500 MHz. (+1.6 MHz. Shift).
23cm Pi6RNL TX : 1298.425
MHz. RX : 1270.425 MHz. (-28 MHz. Shift).
Location :
The station is located on
an 30 meter high flat building.
This flat building is
lokated on the highest location in the area of Venlo.
The TRX are standing in an
little room, just below the elevator machine room.
Gridsquare : JO31BH
Callsigns :
All three the repeaters
have the same suffix : RNL.
RNL is standing for : Regio
Noord Limburg. (Region North Limburg)
PS: Limburg is the
South-Eastern province of The Netherlands.
All the callsigns are
connected to my license ( PE1RAH ), and can now operate unmanned.
2 Meter (Pi3RNL)
The 2 meter part is based
on two Teletron T813 (old bus TRX) devices.
Both are modified to the
repeaters amateur frequentie.
The output power is 10
Watt.
70cm (Pi2RNL)
The 70cm part is based on
two old ATF2 parts that are used in an ATF2 base station.
Both are modified to the
repeaters amateur frequentie.
The output power is 10
Watt.
23cm (Pi6RNL)
The 23cm part is an copy of
the 2m repeater with behind it an 2m/23cm convertor.
The output power is 2 Watt.
ANTENNA's :
The total station
(2m/70cm/23cm) is working via two "3 band GP" antenna's.
The RX antenna is standing
exactly above the TX antenna, and because they have both high gain,
interference is very low
and we don't need cavaties.
To make it possible to use
three repeaters via two antenna's at the same time, we use two
"3 band" antenna
filters. (One for RX the other for TX)
To reduce cable losses, we
use low loss H100 coax cable with high quality N-connectors.
The total coax cable length
is about 15 meter what gives us little cable losses..
Control
unit :
Every repeater is
controlled by its own uProcessor system.
All repeaters have the same
system so we can exchange them when necessary !!
Because of this, all
repeaters are working exactly the same.
The only differences are
the callsigns that are programmed into the EEPROM audio system.
The control units are based
on an self designed, tested, and made 8049 uProcessor system.
The system is able to
detect : Carier, 1750 Hz., CTCSS, and DTMF codes.
Because an repeater is
primairly made for mobile and portable stations to get longer range distance
it can be activated without
any tone code, just push PTT and talk !!!
After every transmision the
repeater gives an rogerbeep, it is very usefull for mobile and portable
stations with lot of noise
surround them.
The callsign is given by an
female voice in standby mode, and when an qso is going on it switches
to the CW mode for minimal
interference of the qso.
To protect the repeater
against long times of transmision, and prevent it against endless speakers,
it has got an
"strengler". It switches of the transmitter after more than 3 minutes
of continues TX.
The timer of this
"strengler" is reseted when the rogerbeep is given.
This gives mobile and
portable stations also the chance to log in, instead of waiting an long time
before
an endless speaker is
finished with his/her talking.
Lokal amateur now say "I
release my PTT to pay" or "I must put in another coint"
.
This all helps them to
remember not to talk longer than 3 minutes.
3 Band Crossband Mode
:
What is crossband ? Crossband
mode is like an normal repeater, only TX and RX frequenties are both
at different amateur bands.
Most modern dual band
portable radio have such option too.
I wanted to test something
new. 3 band crossband & repeater mode at the same time !!!!!!!!
We had already 3 stand-alone
repeaters, the only thing is connecting them with some inteligent logic.
Lot of amateurs told me it
is not possible, but it really works !!!!!
It is very usefull for
testing your self made TX or RX, (also an reason why the repeaters can be
activated
without an tone code!)
Or for two mobile stations
who both have different TRX bands, they can still QSO via crossband mode.
Unfortunatly only few
people have discovered these usefull features.
PI3RNL,PI3RNL,PI6RNL are
the first dutch repeaters that can operate in :
Normal repeater mode
& 3 band crossband at the same time !!!!
Some words from
myself (PE1RAH)
For me it was very
interesting to design and make this station.
The most interesting thing
for me is the technical part, I learned a lot of things by doing this project,
and I hope lot of amateurs
will enjoy my HAM tests.
73 de William PE1RAH
This page is designed
and created by PE1RAH. (William Leijenaar).