This really has nothing to do with this post. I found it while Googling for an “amateur radio roundtable” image and thought it would be amusing. 🙂
You may be sheltering in place or self-quarantining, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be out of touch with your fellow hams. For the foreseeable future, ARROW members will be congregating at 10 am and 7 pm on our 2 m repeater (146.96 MHz), and at 2 pm on the Brandmeister MI Talk Group (TG 3126).
Please feel free to join us, even if you’re not an ARROW member. The nets are conducted in a roundtable format, with one of the participants (often Jay, WB8TKL) acting as the ringleader. We babble on about how we’re coping with this situation, including what projects we’re working on and what bands and modes we’re operating.
A small contingent of worker bees swarmed in on the Wolverine Tower penthouse and performed a number of tasks, the main task being to remove the 443.5 NBFM repeater and replace it with a Motorola DMR repeater on the same frequency.
Since no Internet connection is active to the site at the moment, it is not linked with any other DMR repeaters. So use Timeslot-2, TalkGroup-2, for LOCAL access. Dinesh reconfigured the DMR repeater to attach to our “future” network connection. Please refer to this guide for programming your DMR radio: https://w8rp.org/how-to-guides/dmr-repeater/
I also took some time to reseat the exciter and receiver cards in the Motorola MSR2000 146.96 repeater (’cause it doesn’t hurt to scrape those 30-year-old connectors from time to time). I also gave the guys a tour of the penthouse and the rooftop so they have a better idea of the “future” Heliax replacement project, and WHY it is delicate to work above the boilers and HVAC that support the building. NOT to place to drop a tool or a bundle of Heliax onto 🙁
The process of gaining access and the support we got from building maintenance was EXCELLENT !!!
The following fine folk showed up onsite to perform the work: WB8TKL Jay, AB3DC Dinesh, AC8TO Don, and K8UCH Mitch. Ulysses N4IYL was on his HT a few miles away to give us signal reports.
– Jay WB8TKL
Don AC8TO, Dinesh AB3DC and Jay WB8TKL. Missing is Mitch K8UCH.
The repeater cabinets
ARROW 440 DMR repeater on the top and the 220 repeater on the bottom.
We have created a new page called DMR Repeater which is visible on the main website header above. This page has more information about the ARROW DMR Repeater and how to program it. Please see: http://w8rp.org/dmr-repeater
