The
Repeater's Of The MARC
The Massillon Amateur Radio Club operates 2
Repeaters in Western Stark County, one on 147.18+ mhz and the other on 442.85+
mhz. They
both bear the club call W8NP.
The 147.18 Machine
The 2 meter repeater is on 147.18 Mhz and is a
very wide area coverage machine that serves all of Stark County. It has an open autopatch
and is located 170 feet on top of an old railroad microwave tower. It consists of a GE
Master II commercial radio and an ACC RC - 85 controller. The antenna is a Stationmaster
vertical. It is an open repeater and is always available to all area amateurs. When
conditions demand it is placed on PL using 110.9 tone.
147.18
Gets Much Needed Equipment Upgrade
On
Saturday - March 9, 2002, members of the MARC Repeater Technical Committee made
some much needed repairs to the club's 147.18 repeater. Our heavily used main 2
meter repeater suffered a transmitter problem a few weeks back which lowered the
output power to only about one watt. While still functional, it greatly reduced
the repeaters wide area coverage.
The
Technical Committee had been preparing new RF equipment for some time in
anticipation of an equipment upgrade to the repeater. This new equipment
included both a new transmitter and receiver, as well as a new 100 watt final
amplifier. This new equipment is a General Electric Master II Series Base
Station converted to amateur service. This time proven system replaced the
nearly 10 year old repeater which was a converted General Electric Mobile Radio.
The existing ACC RC-85 repeater controller was reinstalled into the new
repeater.
This new
repeater should provide the club many years of reliable service. As with any
major equipment upgrade, there will be many post installation adjustments
necessary to fully "fine-tune" the repeater to its final setup. Output
power, squelch adjustments, audio characteristics, etc are but a few of the many
adjustments necessary to make the repeater have that great audio ours is known
for. The repeater will also have "Tone Squelch", which will
allow you to hear only stations transmitting and not the controller audio or any
hash caused by band openings. This feature is not yet operating but should be
fixed soon.
The
installation took nearly the entire day as our technicians made the conversion
to the new system. Special thanks to the following club members and individuals
for giving up their Saturday to get our repeater back into service. They
were: Technical Committee members Jim Farriss - WA8GXM and Perry Ballinger
- W8AU. Terry Russ - N8ATZ and Don Finley - W8DEF also lended support. Club
member Jason Stroll - KC8LIN also stopped by to check thing out. A special
thanks to Marty Baker - N8XPK, who also helped out with the installation. Marty
is a member of the Pioneer Amateur Radio Club and an experienced two-way radio
technician who owns and operates several repeaters himself in the Akron area
including a super six-meter repeater on 53.17 Mhz. Some pictures of the
installation project are shown below.
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W8AU begins wiring the
controller to the new repeater |
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Lets see, which wire
was that again ? |
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Marty - N8XPK is always
ready to break out the BIG GUN ! |
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Marty & Jim -
WA8GXM prepare the new RF equipment |
The
History Of The 147.18 Repeater
The following history lesson
is courtesy of the Massillon "FEEDBACK" Newsletter August 1992
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Two meter FM was active in the 50's in this area mainly with Civil Defense. W8QA
had control of the dozen or so pack sets available. Around 1962, many of us
began to convert used police/taxi units to 146.94 simplex. As growth continued,
other simplex channels were adopted.
Repeaters began to appear about 1966 with W8IOO in Youngstown
opening up on 146.94 !. This didn't last long because of all the complaining.
Newcomerstown was next, W8THC, with output on 146.76 and input on 146.94.
In the late 60's and early 70's Massillon adopted 147.18 as
"our" simplex frequency, to get away from the repeaters that were
mainly using 146 - 147 Mhz. This worked well until repeaters needed additional
room and the "repeater council" opened up 147 - 148 Mhz for repeater
use.
We complained to the council, but "squatter rights" on
147.18 were not going to stop "progress." So, in order to keep
147.18, we had to establish a repeater their.
This was not well received by the repeater council, as they had
already authorized the city of Parma near Cleveland to use 147.18. These were
the early days of the repeater council, however, and their authority was not as
well established as today. So they listed both Parma and Massillon as holders of
this frequency, although, engineering wise, this was too close. In actual
practice, it wasn't too bad, as they were on the north side of the
"summit" and it didn't have a high elevation. We were not really
"line of site" with each other.
Early tests in 1975 made at W8AU's QTH (then in Jackson
Township) with vertically separated antennas instead of a duplexer, were not
satisfactory, but we could show we were "using" the frequency. A
fellow in Orrville kept asking the council for our frequency, reporting that we
were not using it. Letters went back and forth between W8AU and the repeater
council on this, and ultimately we prevailed.
A used Sinclair duplexer (four cavity hybrid ring
for you tech types) was purchased and rebuilt for the lower
frequencies of 147.18 / 147.78. Finally, we were on reliably !
The initial gear was tube type, Motorola G series
recv/xmitr strips at 10 watts (20 ERP) with a standby 500 watt
Motorola amplifier added around 1977.
In 1979 the repeater moved (with W8AU) to higher
ground on a hill southwest of Massillon, in Tuscarawas Township
where it remained until about 1990 using the same G series
equipment, having served way beyond its commercial life. Since
then it has moved to "The Site" located on a railroad
tower about 175 feet high and was upgraded several times to
commercial General Electric solid state equipment thanks to then
club member Steve Garwood - N0CZV. An ACC RC-85 Controller was
purchased (still in use today) and the repeater has become the
high profile system in Western Stark county since then.
An interesting thing happened to the Parma 18
repeater about 1981. It's owner moved to Wakeman in Lorain county
and took it with him, where it operated for a few years with
little or no users. He then wanted to move back to Parma, but had
to re-apply to the repeater council for permission. He was denied
the right to use 147.18 in Parma this time as Massillon was too
close ! Had he never moved it away, it would have still been
authorized.
Our repeater was originally assigned the call
WR8AKA in 1976 when special calls were required. The "R"
identified it as a repeater callsign. This held until the five
year license period ran out. By then, the FCC had deregulated to
where they stopped assigning special calls and repeater operators
had to use their own or a club's callsign. The change to W8AU/R
occurred during that time and ultimately changed to the club
callsign W8NP/R.
The 442.85 Machine
The 440 repeater is on 442.85 Mhz and was
designed to serve the greater Massillon area. It also has an open autopatch and is located
on the roof top water tower at Massillon Community Hospital. It consists of an ICOM UHF
Repeater and also uses an ACC RC - 85 controller. It is used as our "rag chew"
repeater but during severe weather is used to provide the hospital with Skywarn reports.
Below are several images of the 147.18 repeater
site.
The Tower !
The Base Of The Repeater Site
This Is Our Backup Battery Bank
The Repeater And Controller
And ACC RC-85 Still Going Strong !
This is a picture of the club's 442.85 Repeater located on the top of
Massillon Community Hospital.
This page was last updated on - 12/08/02
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last updated on 12/08/02
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2002 MARC Productions
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