tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73522234556419581012024-02-19T04:33:59.185+00:00SCARS Repeater UpdateA spot to keep the SCARS membership up-to-date on the club's repeater systems.plawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-17157602447907724642018-10-18T22:09:00.000+00:002018-10-18T22:09:05.303+00:00Repeater Site Expedition Report - 2018-10-18Today, Mark, N5HZR, and Peter, N5UWY, again visited their vacation home, the repeater site.
New firmware was installed in the Arcom controller and a new, known config was loaded. The voice tracks that had been in the repeater controller previously may be there now, but it's not clear from the documentation how those are loaded using the current firmware and programming software so mark it plawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-80026149516685743642018-10-12T17:10:00.001+00:002018-10-12T17:10:23.842+00:002018-10-11 - Serial is OURS!(Special Correspondant, Mark, N5HZR reports ... )
After a couple more calls and emails to ARCOM’s guru Ken, we learned a couple of things.
First, to test the data connection without using the software provided by ARCOM, we can use PUTTY, or Hyperterm to send characters to the serial port. If we connect to the controller in a terminal mode, we can supply 'codes' as if we were DTMF'ing them intoplawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-1409086360004136942018-08-09T02:52:00.001+00:002018-08-09T17:32:04.559+00:008/8 UpdateIt's the 30th anniversary of the first night game in the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field in Chicago. The game was called due to rain and was replayed on 8/9. Many remember the "8/8/88" thing but forget that it was a rain-out.
The SCARS Tech Committee was almost rained out, or more accurately, lightning-ed out on their trip to the repeater site today. However, the plawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-84897060785859987432018-05-03T21:25:00.000+00:002018-05-03T21:25:38.517+00:00Still Fighting ...But is it a good fight? Ahhh ...
The fight with VHF repeater continues. On April 11, 2018, the RC-210 controller was removed from the repeater (that's why there is no courtesy tone). There are actually two auxiliary receivers connected to that controller and while it was unlikely that this was injecting the interfering signal into the system, it was easy enough to remove plawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-86631989132585210372018-01-27T18:39:00.000+00:002018-01-27T18:39:31.646+00:00Repeater Site Expedition Report - 2018-01-27A number of us visited the county yard on Friday the 26th (N5UWY, KD5UGO, N5HZR, W5HLG, WE5Z, WB5ULK, AG5DB, AG5LB, KB5LSB). We looked only at the VHF system and not the UHF system.
A couple of numbers for posterity:
Squelch opens at 0.2 μV.
Full quieting is reached at 1.0 μV
Modulation bandwidth is 9 kHz
Deviation of repeated stations is 3.5-4 kHz
Transmitter frequency error plawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-25101543831827180982017-07-26T22:08:00.000+00:002017-07-31T19:05:39.169+00:00Callsign Cobwebs From The Mental Attic
Heard some chitterchatter recently on one of the repeaters regarding callsign structures. I thought I'd clear out some of the stuff in my mental attic, so here goes:
By international treaty, the USA is allocated W, K, N, and AA-AL, technically WAA-WZZ, KAA-KZZ, NAA-NZZ, AAA-ALZ (AMA-AZZ being allocated to other nations).
Internally, the FCC decides how to break up those allocations into plawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-37328002314812411212017-06-03T01:56:00.001+00:002017-06-03T01:56:40.267+00:00OUARC Repeater UpdateYour host is not only the Technical Committee Chair for SCARS but also a member in good standing (and past treasurer) of the OUARC so he ends up working on the OU repeaters, too (D-STAR on 444.7500 MHz, DMR on 443.8250 MHz, and good old FM on 146.8800 MHz).Several weeks ago, the DMR system fell off the network. The RF side was still up and usable on the local talkgroups; only the remote plawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-83431384445730760312016-11-12T03:26:00.000+00:002016-12-07T21:45:08.868+00:00Nearly Thanksgiving UpdateThis update was delayed in the hope that the Stadium Remote would be back in operation, but that has yet to happen. There are, however, other developments, most of which are probably generally known by now through other channels (RF channels, maybe, even).
Members of the Technical Committee mounted several expeditions to the County Yard in September and October. Over the course of plawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-19398355007074213762016-07-12T15:03:00.002+00:002016-07-12T15:05:20.795+00:00147.060 back - as of 7/11The 06 repeater is back in service. The RC210 controller failed in an unsafe way (with PTT asserted). The Kenwood repeater has its own time-out timer, so it shut off the transmitter when that timer expired.
While your SCARS Technical Committee considers the next steps (diagnosis, repair/replace) the repeater remains in service. Because the repeater is running "stand-alone", theplawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-23013917275549868692016-07-10T19:44:00.000+00:002016-07-10T19:44:21.882+00:00147.060 off the air - 7/9
147.060 off the air
Shortly after the July SCARS meeting, the 147.06 repeater failed. In its absence, please make use of the W5NOR UHF repeater on 443.7 (141.3 Hz tone) or the N5MS OU repeater on 146.88 (no tone).
Your Technical Committee Chair happened to be listening at the time. The transmitter came on about 1220 or so and stayed on for several minutes. Usually, when a plawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-4158419865137199992015-12-28T03:03:00.000+00:002015-12-28T03:03:26.624+00:002015 ReportLet's see if we can wrap up the year in SCARS -- and other -- radio infrastructure.
The tower project is finally finished. This took way longer than anyone expected when we started in 2007 but it's done. The 147.06 repeater (radio, controller, power supply, cabinet) has been replaced. The 443.7 repeater has been replaced -- a side project entirely done and paid for by KC5OU. plawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-54102949291668902652015-08-16T18:13:00.003+00:002015-08-16T20:54:57.648+00:00N5MS/R Returns To Air
Thanks to its owner, Micheal, N5MS, the 146.880 MHz repeater known as "the OU repeater" is back on the air. Several components were replaced, some proactively, and the transmitter re-tuned. One of the reasons it was off the air was that it had been generating spurious signals on other frequencies that were interfering with other systems. Preliminary testing didn't find any of plawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-63102567484353714482015-07-11T03:46:00.000+00:002015-07-11T03:46:29.559+00:00D-STAR CalculatorWhen you first start working with D-STAR, getting the callsigns and gateways and whatnot all in the correct spaces can be daunting. Fortunately, the folks behind one of the D-STAR websites have built a calculator that will tell you exactly which items to put in which fields. And once you set it the way you want, it gives a nice graphic of what those settings allow you to do. Tryplawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-59929857932706904472014-02-10T01:27:00.001+00:002014-02-10T15:43:53.462+00:00TimersTimers on the VHF system are set as follows:
Hang time: 3 s
time repeater carrier stays up after a user unkeys
Courtesy tone delay: 250 ms
time between when user unkeys and courtesy tone sounds
Repeater time out: 180 s (3 min)
Kerchunk timer: 150 ms
filters out many kerchunkers and lots of key-ups from interference
ID timer: 540 s (9 min)
(plawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-89883823261994948232013-02-24T17:03:00.001+00:002013-02-24T17:03:31.575+00:00Digi Update, Other NewsYour editor apologizes for the lack of updates. The NORMAN digi remains off the air. During this hiatus, the Technical Committee is taking the opportunity to clean and test the equipment. The digi will be off the air for some time, for reasons explained at the last club meeting. The antenna/feedline replacement project is proceeding. We expect to have both the VHF plawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-69227959757129942132012-01-31T19:57:00.004+00:002012-01-31T19:57:44.773+00:00Interference Mitigation on 06As many members know, there has been an intermittent interference issue affecting the VHF repeater.
What the committee believes is happening is that two signals are mixing with the product of the two showing up at the link receiver. This is why members hear the Stadium courtesy tone after the repeater drops.
One of the two signals mixing is SCARS' own UHF system; the other isplawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-91753639921789568802011-11-14T15:55:00.001+00:002011-11-14T16:00:48.512+00:00Another 06 updateA representative of the Technical Committee visited the main repeater site on Friday, 11/11. The repeater controller was re-initialized using special software from the vendor then had the firmware and our configuration reloaded. As of this writing, all seems well.
The recorded announcements were not reloaded due to a "connector failure" (as in the TechComm rep did not have the plawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-74692919446797288042011-11-06T23:59:00.000+00:002011-11-06T23:59:15.660+00:00Repeater Status Update - November 6Your SCARS Technical Committee has not been having fun over these past few weeks. About the end of September, the crunch monster returned to the VHF repeater. Since then, things have become less-fun. There are two things going on; RF issues and controller issues.
RF
Signals are appearing in the repeater that are unwanted. Sometimes, these signals are retransmitted plawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-54387284373481711242011-09-27T15:57:00.000+00:002011-09-27T15:57:29.471+00:00Noise on 06Boy, if it's not one thing, it's another. Sometime on 2011-09-26, we started getting noise on the 06 repeater. Sometimes, the noise is near the tail end of a user's transmission, sometimes it appears on its own. Occasionally, the UHF repeater voice ID can clearly be heard, other times not. Whether this is the old "Crunch Monster" that used to appear on the system years agoplawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-70955757124211810272011-09-15T13:51:00.000+00:002011-09-22T15:47:02.338+00:0006 power update (UPDATED 9/22)06 (and the UHF repeater and the Norman digi) are back on the air.
There was a fault in the underground power feed to the county radio hut. The power provider has connected a generator to keep the radio equipment and tower safety lighting on.
Please note that repairs are not yet complete with no time-line known to this reporter.
It is expected that repeater service will be interrupted atplawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-81906215990522814612011-09-14T17:39:00.000+00:002011-09-14T19:18:21.975+00:00147.0600 off the airLooks like the power supply may have "crowbarred." We are unable to access the site until Thursday afternoon, so in the meantime, please avail yourselves of SCARS' 443.7000+ (141.3) repeater or N5MS' OU repeater at 146.8800- (CSQ).plawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-12262150993214612462011-07-20T14:54:00.000+00:002011-07-20T14:54:16.598+00:0042On this day in 1969.plawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-74431267073332865982011-06-24T21:52:00.000+00:002011-06-24T21:52:16.050+00:00It's doneWe'll need to make some tweaks, of course. Kyle already dialled back
the too-aggressive kerchunk filter and I'm sure there will be others.
Special thanks to Ken B, Ken E, Kyle K for doing the work, Phil S and
Bill L for the supervision, and our friends from the Cleveland County
Sheriff's Office, John G and Jon L (both hams).
Next up: Tower work!plawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-78746702097901897392011-05-06T16:35:00.002+00:002011-05-07T15:25:30.220+00:00West receive site off the airBut only temporarily. The room that houses it is being renovated, so it has been moved to a temporary location. Once power is restored, it will again be active and we expect that to occur TODAY, May 6.
UPDATE: We're back. Shouldn't be any change in operation as no equipment was changed, just moved.
plawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7352223455641958101.post-24989980855977649312011-03-14T17:03:00.003+00:002011-03-14T17:09:09.548+00:00We now pause for Station Identification ...... This is W5NOR ...Whenever you hear the repeater transmit its callsign, in voice or code, take this as a hint that you should identify your own station. The timer is set for 9 minutes, so if you've been in a long QSO, you should have enough time to stay legal.Also recall that the repeaters have blab-off timers. Should you talk too long without allowing the repeater to reset its timer, the plawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15456499491316855895noreply@blogger.com0