Repeater Frequency Change

Hello everyone,

In the event that you have not been around or heard, I would like to announce that our 145.25 MHz repeater has now changed to 146.70 MHz.  This happened on December 14, 2011.  As many of you know, 145.25 MHz just happens to be the same frequency of analog cable channel 18 video signal.  You may ask yourself why would the FCC ever allocate two services to run on the same frequency.  This  is explainable because by definition, cable television runs on a cable line and not over the air.  This cable system is a closed loop where the only signals being received are those injected into the line.  Unfortunately, the environment plays a role in this process where cable lines become old, weather conditions affect the conditions of the lines.  What happens is that cable lines often lose their seal which is the fault of no one.  Sometimes this signal escapes the lines and if you are in the near proximity, you are likely to receive a carrier.

Since cable channel 18 video signal leaks out of the line through various cable leakages around the metro area, this signal fluctuates, appears, disappears depending on where the receiver is located.  This has been a problem for our two meter repeater since it signed on the air in 2003.  The FCC gives special provisions to repeaters that become coordinated through an official coordinating agency in the event their is interference between repeaters.  In Oklahoma this agency is Oklahoma Repeater Society Incorporated (ORSI).  All coordinating agencies have to pay special attention to distance between repeaters, adjacent frequency spacing among other things.  Since any city has a higher density of population, naturally there will be more repeaters in and around cities.  Oklahoma City has a crowded two meter band where all available frequency pairs are taken.

Over the last few months we have been trying to find an available frequency to move our 145.25 MHz to. It has been a very challenging time but we finally found one where a repeater in Chickasha had gone off the air.  Since this new frequency was at 146.70 MHz. we had to sign an agreement with the  Aeronautical Center Amateur Radio Club (ACARC) in Oklahoma City because their 146.67 MHz repeater is only 30 KHz away. They were gracious enough to agree to our relocation though the burden becomes ours if their happens to be an interference between the two repeaters because they were the established repeater prior to our application.  We would like to thank those at the ACARC for their selfless cooperation.

The new 146.70 MHz was originally shown as an abandoned pair though it was later discovered that the owner had gone silent key (SK) and his successor relinquished the pair to us.  We were never given the call sign of this individual but we would also like to give our thanks to this person as well as express our condolences to the prior owner’s family and friends.  We would also like to send our thanks to K5LAD in Owasso, Oklahoma for giving us his blessing to change frequencies.  He also has a repeater on 146.70 MHz.  Though the distance requirements were met, any good neighbor knows you have to be willing to compromise if two people are to get along.  He was very accepting on the first request and was willing to put it in writing on our behalf.  Also I, K5GLH would like to thank our Trustee, W5QO and KD5MAF and K5JAB for their efforts in getting this transition complete.

Lastly, we would like to thank Mr. Merlin Griffin, WB5OSM for his tireless work doing research to find possible frequency openings.  He worked hard to point us in the right direction and was up front with us in the beginning about what a challenge it would be.  A lot went into this frequency change as far as time, hundreds of emails to various people. Our Trustee spend quite a bit of time re-crystalled the repeaters, tuning them and re-tuning duplexers.  Finally we are on the air and we could not have done it without all the help from the people listed above.  I have updated this information on our Facebook page as well. I hope everyone will enjoy the new frequency and use the repeater freely.

Paul, K5GLH

New IRLP Node 7734

Since I do not have my ham radio gear, and do not live in Del City anymore, I had to improvise to be able to talk on the Del City ARC repeaters.  As most of you know, we sold our Del City home in July 2010.  All of my ham radio gear went into storage until we get a new house.  The only thing that I kept out of storage was my dual band, 2 meter, 70 centimeter hand held radio.  We temporarily moved into an apartment in Midwest City while we wait to get our new home.  I can reach the repeaters from this apartment but not very good from inside with the low power that the hand held will produce.

Since both repeaters have IRLP/Echolink capability, I put together another, Internet Radio Linking Project (IRLP) node so that I can connect into either of the repeaters.  This is the third one that I have put together and this one is for personal use.  It signed on the air May 18, 2011 from Midwest City, Oklahoma.  Sure it can be used for a mile or so but will not have much range for others to use.  Anyone can use it but it will not be of much use for very far.  This new node is a simplex node on 445.95 MHz.  It has a PL tone of 162.2  It has an IRLP node number of 7734 and an Echolink node number of 23943.  The node does not carry the Del City Amateur Radio Club call sign of W5DEL but rather K5GLH for IRLP and K5GLH-L for Echolink.

This node will help resolve my inability to have reliable communications through our own repeaters.  I have tested it and it performs very well.  I may play around with it and add Allstar Link capability to it and if it works out, I may add it to the other repeaters as well.  As you can see from the picture, it is running on a magnetic mount dual band antenna stuck on top of a metal filing cabinet.  We will be living in these apartments near Regional Park until around August 2011.  If you are near that area, you can likely reach it without much power.  Again, since it is simplex, there will be no courtesy tones or anything like that.  If you hear a once sided conversation, then you are probably hearing the node speaking to me on my weak handie talkie.  I am excited to get this one on the air and so I can get back into ham radio, at least a little bit.

Paul, K5GLH

New Ham Podcast on TWiT

If you are one of those technology enthusiasts like I am, you may watch or listen to This Week in Tech (TWiT). I was listening yesterday, March 27, 2011, when they had Bob Heil on as a special guest on one of their podcasts called Triangulation. They use his microphones on the TWiT podcasts so he appeared live yesterday. Once he was announced, the word got out to many hams and suddenly there were dozens of ham radio operators that showed up. The response was so overwhelming that Leo Laporte asked him to do a ham radio podcast and he agreed. This is great news because Leo Laporte’s shows are seen by hundreds of thousands of people weekly.

This is a rare opportunity to get the word out about ham radio. I am pretty excited about this. It is great when we have opportunities to show the world why ham radio is still relevant. I know in this day and age when Skype is available to call around the world it may seem that ham radio would be archaic and of no purpose. Those of us that use ham radio know the excitement of knowing that a signal jumping off one antenna and then landing on another antenna thousands of miles away is far more exciting. If you get a chance, go to TWiT and watch or listen to yesterday’s podcast that focussed on ham radio.

You will really enjoy it.
Paul, K5GLH

World Wide Friendship Net

This morning I had the rare opportunity to check into the World Wide Friendship Net on the Great Lakes Reflector 9611.  My friend K5MES, Harold in Fort Smith, Arkansas has been inviting me to this net for quite a while but it seems that I am never able to check in.  This net comes on seven days a week at 9:00 AM local time.  If you would like to check in, by all means do.  If you are the first one on the 145.25 MHz frequency, just give your call sign FIRST and then dial 9611 and you will be connected.  As most of you know, I sold my house in July and am having another one built so I am out of a full blown ham rig at present.  I do have a handie talkie (HT) but the rest of my gear is in storage.

We suspect that we will be moved into our new place around October or November of this year.  At that time, I will  be back on the air fully again.  I hope that you will take the opportunity to check into this net if you have time.  If you ever need to ask a question, then just send an email to members at delcityarc dot org.  If you want me directly, you  can email me at paul dot mccord at gmail dot com.

If you would like the ability to post on this blog, just let me know and I will give you access.

Thanks,

Paul, K5GLH

Update September 27, 2010

As many of you know, I (K5GLH) sold my home in July and so the 443.3 repeater has been temporarily moved to another location with a lower antenna.  I moved into an apartment in Midwest City, OK for a year until our new home in Oklahoma City is built.  Both repeaters have been on and off sporadically on purpose.  Since the repeaters are located in an area that is not intended for long term use, they are only on for short periods of time.  This is not indicative that our systems are going down permanent but rather dealing with a limited hosting site for a limited time.  This situation will likely continue for a year before the systems will be fully serviceable.  We have been missing in action (MIA) for quite some time but that is because I have been going to college full time, then worked on getting the house in sellable condition, and then finally moved into a temporary apartment for a year.  I just wanted to inform everyone that we have not gone away and are not intending on closing the systems down.  As you may have noticed on the main page that our club turned eight years old on September 4, 2010.  What a milestone for something that was intended to be an experiment.  Things are going well for all of us and we do plan on having the systems back up fully at a time in the future.

Thanks,

Paul, K5GLH

Web Site

Today, June 6, 2010 I uploaded the delcityarc.org site to a new server. It was actually a downgrade and I did it for two reasons.

1. This site does not require all the bells and whistles that my personal site does.
2. Price! I have hosted this site on Godaddy.com for the last three years and have been very happy with them.

Godaddy is about as dependable as one can find when it comes to domain hosting. Unfortunately they charge by the month for hosting. The domain registration is good for as many years as you want to register for a flat rate per year. The hosting charges per month and by the time you pay for domain registration as well as hosting, you are up to $199.00 for three years. With that service, you get all sorts of features including scripting capability. This web site does not need all those features because it is not used for interactive communication. The blog is actually linked within a frame to http://dcarc.wordpress.com.

I have moved this site back over to its original hosting spot back in 2002 on Doteasy.com. They have a zero dollar hosting with limited 100 MB storage and 1 GB per month traffic. All you have to do is pay for the domain registration. While this would be inadequate for my personal page, it is perfect for this one. Since our blog is actually hosted on a different site, the site can do just what it did before. To the end user, there is virtually no change. If I did not announce what I have done, no one would have any idea that anything had changed. I just finished uploading the files into the folder of the new server. The site appears to be working wonderfully.

If you have any questions, please send an email to members@delcityarc.org.

Thanks,
Paul, K5GLH

Del City ARC Web Site

For those that follow my posts both on my web site and on the Del City Amateur Radios Club’s web site, I need to let you know that www.delcityarc.org domain is about to expire in July.  This domain is going to be moved to another provider over the coming weeks so it may be unavailable from time to time.  Since it may be offline briefly, I am posting this on my own web site and on the club site just so you will be able to find the status.  The new site will be unable to host the blog onsite.  The blog itself with be hosted on the wordpress.com site.  Since the blog is already being viewed within a frame, it will be virtually undetectable from the average user.  The actual club blog will be located at http://dcarc.wordpress.com/ instead of on the actual domain.  The main page http://www.delcityarc.org will be hosted on another site while to the average user, there will not be a change.  The new offsite blog will be pointed to from the main page into an internal frame. 

You may be asking yourself why we are doing this.  The reason is the hosting cost.  Currently I host both domains through my provider at an expensive rate.  I pay extra because I like having the ability to run scripts, have xml databases, allow more traffic among other things.  Both of these domains are about to expire within a month of each other and I am unwilling to pay the extra costs for both pages.  I can move the Del City ARC page to a more budget plan with less functions and save some money.  Since my personal blog gets more traffic and I use it more, I am more willing to pay the extra rate for it.  As I said before, it will be virtually undetectable to the average user but it will save us more than 50% of the cost. If you have any questions, please post them via email to our members@delcityarc.org address.

Thanks,

Paul

Update Two Twelve Twenty Ten

What an amazing week.  A week ago it was a sad day when I had my tower taken down and sold.  The WIN System antenna was placed on my dad’s (W5QO) tower about 1/2 mile North of here.  The 443.3 repeater is back on the air at this new location with the antenna mounted on the Southwest side of the tower.  We were concerned how we were going to install the IRLP node on the repeater because there is already another node (3867).  Since both repeaters are now at the same location, they are using the same Internet service.  If you know anything about IRLP, Echolink, or any other streaming service, you know that audio and control commands happen on certain ports.  The ports are the same on all nodes of like systems.  Most people forward those ports to the node using a router.  The problem is that you cannot forward the same ports to more than one computer simultaneously.  This causes a unique problem because simply having a router will not be enough to have more than one node on one router.

We were left with either changing locations of the IRLP node and transmitting the signal to the repeater or getting another Internet account at the same address.  Transmitting the audio to the repeater from a remote location is not the desired method for various reasons.  For one thing the audio is not as clear by doing it this way.  We prefer to have the IRLP node connected directly to the repeater.  Secondly, having the node at a remote location makes moderating it more difficult.  By having it connected directly to the repeater we solve these issues and others.  We did some research and found it would not be that expensive to purchase another Internet Protocol (IP) address for the same Internet service.  This eliminates the problem of forwarding ports to more than one computer.  Now the 443.3 repeater’s node (8440) has its own IP address so that it does not require any ports to be forwarded.  For the purposes of security, we have to block all ports except the ones that are needed. 

As of last night, 11 Feb 10, both repeaters are back online with both nodes fully operational.  We remain an affiliate of the WIN System so once the audio levels are set on the 443.3 repeater, the WIN System will return 24 hours a day.  The antenna is currently not as high as it was before it was moved but we are evaluating our options to remedy this limitation.  Either my dad, W5QO, Larry, KD5MAF, or myself will keep you up to date on the operation of the systems.

Thank you,

Paul, K5GLH

Future of Repeaters

On February 6, 2010 the K5GLH tower came down.  This is the tower that hosted the 443.3 MHz repeater (WIN System).  This was a move that had nothing to do with the Del City Amateur Radio club but rather to help facilitate the sale of my home.  As I have posted before, we are planning to buy a new home but we need to remove the tower because many potential buyers may see it as an eye sore.

This was a sad moment for me but it was a necessary move to be able to sell our home for the most we can.  I took 87 pictures of this removal and have them on Flickr.

In this picture you can see the top section coming down.

As you can see in the photo above the last section is being removed.

In this photo you can see the spot where the tower once was.  This is a very sad image to me although I know it was a necessary move.  I know many of you are wondering where this leaves the 443.3 MHz repeater.  Well the antenna that was on the top of this tower can be seen in the photo below.

This antenna has been installed on a side mount on the same tower that the 145.25 MHz repeater is installed.  As soon as weather permits, this will be connected to the 443.3 repeater in the new location.  This being a side mount installation on the Southwest leg of the tower will likely result a null to the Northeast.

In this photo you can see the UHF antenna being installed in its new configuration on the W5QO tower.  This will be the new home of the 443.3 MHz repeater.  At some point this antenna may be raised to the top on a candelabra type installation.  Keep an ear open for this repeater when the weather clears up.  This was a very busy weekend getting the tower taken down and the antenna being reinstalled at the new location.  I am hopeful that everything goes smooth on the new tower.  The IRLP will be a new challenge and may have to be moved as well to enable both nodes to work.  Each node requires its own unique external IP address to be able to operate.  This is because both nodes use the same ports and a router could not forward the same ports in two directions.  This is a small problem that will be resolved in the coming days.  The club officers were in agreement that we needed communication with the members as to the status of this move.  This post is being posted both on the club blog as well as my personal blog so that this information will be the most widely disseminated.

Thanks,

Paul, K5GLH

Updates Coming

You may have noticed the 443.3 repeater off the air for a while. Soon I will be posting to update everyone on what has happened and what is going to happen. We have every intention of putting the 443.3 repeater back on the air as soon as weather permits.

Stay tuned and we’ll keep you advised.

Paul, K5GLH