Hello Members,
On my 2025 Wish List is a club Repeater, and now it's here... There's still a lot of work to be done.
Today (Friday, January 3rd, 2025), a group of us went to the Moorabbin Club to pick up our Club Repeater and Cavities.
We are thrilled to implement our own club Repeater, which is a fantastic project for everyone to learn not only how a repeater functions but also how it is assembled.
A few items that are required are:
Power Supply
Power Supply Cable
Programming Cable
I believe we have other required components at the club: Coax and Coax Connectors, Antenna.
I will utilize this blog page to showcase the build project.
More fun to come...
Cheers.... Craig vk3ncr
THANK YOU!
On behalf of Famparc and its numerous members, I would like to express gratitude to the Moorabbin & District Radio Club Inc for their generous donation of the aforementioned hardware.
UPDATE 6TH JAN 2025
After collecting the hardware, I dropped it off at the club rooms on Saturday 4th Jan 2025.
Everyone looked to be very impressed by the hardware and are excited in this new club project.
A while back I managed to find and download many PDF for the MX800 Repeater, as well as the Windows Software to program it.
With the amazing knowledge of Rakshit VK3DHR, he managed to get the software running on a PC at the club rooms.
On Saturday I emailed to companies that I understand offer asssitance and parts for the repeater. I sent a request for the Power Cable, as it is quite unique. I will also make enquires for the programming cable.
That's about it at the moment.
Issues we face:
Most of us within the club have either none or little experience in setting up a VHF Repeater, that includes me.
Issues:
Procurer Power Cable
Procure or make Comms Cable to communicate with Repeater to setup.
Setup Repeater
Find a suitable set of frequencies
Re-Tune Cavities once we work out how to setup Repeater
Looking for a clear Duplex Repeater Frequency.
The one I looked at was 147.950/147.350, however I was told by Ken from Moorabbin Club that these frequencies are close to 500 watt Pages which are near by.
The Cavities that we have, have been tuned for the Moorabbin Clubs own local repeater.
The new frequencies I am looking at are:
147.275 147.875
Which is used by Repeater VK3RMP Caveat North Central Vic.
If we find these frequencies perhaps suitable, we then need to setup the Repeater, and also get the Cavity Filters tuned for those frequencies.
Summary:
Find a suitable Frequencies.
UPDATE 7TH JAN 2025
I have received a quote for the Power Cable and Comms Cable and requested a invoice so we can pay for the items. The quote was approved by the Committee.
The supplier is Spectra Engineering WA.
I am researching available and perhaps potential Frequencies for our Repeater.
So far...
146.875 146.275 No go!
146.775 146.175
147.025 147.625
147.200 147.800
147.275 147.875
If you would like to suggest a frequency, or check the above, feel free.. Please Post below.
UPDATE 10TH JAN 2025
The Repeater Power and Serial Comms Cable have arrived..
We will begin doing to testing on Saturday 11th Jan.
Look out! there could be blue smoke escaping LOL
UPDATE 11TH JAN 2025
A fun morning at the club rooms with both Colin and myself learning and playing around with the Repeater.
Now that we have the new Power Cable and Serial Comms Cable, we plug it into power and to our surprise it fired up. I then installed the programming software on our old PC near the fridge, and managed to get the software to talk to the repeater.
After a while searching for a password so we could properly log into the repeater, Rakshit turned up and got stuck in to getting the software to adjust frequencies etc.
After lots of fun and learning, we managed to use our radios to test the operation of the repeater and to our relief it looks to be working ok.
Lots more steps to go yet. Colin was also playing around with the cavities. These will need to be changed to another frequency group.
That's about it..
I think the next step is to connect the repeater to the Cavities and continue testing and learning.
Craig. vk3ncr
Any suggestions please make comment below.
Was Googling "tuning cavities" and there is quite a few good videos on Utube including this one from Australia. Thought it might be an interesting reference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKw6-x4gFJI
Keep up the good work guys.
Be great to have a club repeater
Nice. this is going to be a great project for this year. I am excited to learn.
This will be a great learning experience for all the members.
Woo hoo..nice