pnw220

10/14/23: Baldi Bridgecom failure

About a week ago the Baldi repeater (224.880) transmitter failed. The receiver seems to be fine but the transmit signal was weak and subsequant testing showed an output of 0W.

Rob (AF7PR) is taking it off the hill and will deliver it to me next week. I will rebuild it with Motorola CDM1550's and scrap the Bridgecom it was using. We've not had good luck with them.

We'll try to get it back up by the end of the Month or close to then.

Ken - N7IPB

09/30/23: RIP Capitol Peak

Another unfortunate change. After many years of operation, starting as the RF UHF hub for multiple 220Mhz repeaters the 440.5Mhz repeater on Capitol Peak has been taken off the air.

As a result of the DNR mess K5IN reluctantly had to remove the equipment and take it off the air.

What does the future hold? At this point we're not sure but It's not likely that we'll be at a location with the same footprint. Rest assured that the equipment will not likely go to waste but at this time we can't say for certain where it will end up.

Ken - N7IPB

06/10/23: RIP Lyman Hill

Regrettably after 21+ years of operation the Lyman Hill (224.780) repeater has been taken off the air.

A combination of site fees and insurance cost has reluctantly convinced WA7FUS and I that we can no longer support it's operation at that location. We do intend on finding a new location (several are being worked on) but our current lease is up this month.

It's not likely that we'll be at a location with the same footprint but given the organization of the system we can use fill-in sites at lower elevations and gain equivalent coverage.

Any repeater systems that would like to join the network are welcome. Contrary to our old practice, operation on 220Mhz is not a requirement as we already have other systems present. Later this year we will be adding a 2mtr and another 70cm system. Repeaters may operate stand alone and need not be part of the default talk group.

See Ken - N7IPB for details

05/31/23: Capitol Peak

Capitol Peak (440.500) has been reconnected to the network. It's been functioning stand-alone but since HamWAN was taken down just over a year ago it has not been available to the rest of the system. I originally fired up the old RF link to Lyman but for various reasons we had problems so I eventually shut it off.

Last week AF7PR installed a modem for the DMR repeater and we are once again connected. We were still configured for HamWAN but yesterday K5IN, KJ7HDU and myself visited the site and upgraded the software to put us back in business. Ken - N7IPB

05/23/23: Haystack site

The Haystack site (224.280) has been reconnected to the network. The lighting strike back in April took out some network equipment and I assumed that it would all need to be replaced before we were connected again. Not true! I talked with Bart this week and with a little reconfiguration he had us back up and running in short order. Ken - N7IPB

05/12/23: Crawford Mountain

The Crawford Mountain hardware was turned over to KC7CKO and K7DUH this week. This system consists of a Kenwood TKR-750 VHF repeater on 146.800 Mhz, a Kenwood TKR-850 UHF repeater on 443.075 Mhz and a pair of Motorola CDM radios on 223.080 Mhz. All three are controlled by a single Raspberry Pi 4 and will show up on the portal as three individual systems. Located about four miles east and slightly south of Tenino the repeaters are expected to go into operation in late June. Ken - N7IPB

12/30/22: Yuma, Az joins the system

Welcome the "Old Fortuna Amateur Radio Troops" OFART repeater to the system. N7FRT, their UHF repeater has joined the system and is on the portal and active as of 12/29/22. They are not initially monitoring TG#42 but if you wish to give someone there a call you can select them with DTMF 9142100# or monitor that group for an hour with 9442100#. Ken - N7IPB

12/30/22: Talkgroup announcement change

Instead of announcing "Talkgroup nn" the repeaters now tell you the name of the talk group. For example "Talk Group West Tiger" instead of "Talk Group 4270" Let me know if my choice of text needs to be tweaked and changed. Ken - N7IPB

12/15/22: Portal is back

It's a long saga, and not really over yet (for me) but for everyone else the Portal should be back. Ken - N7IPB

12/10/22: Portal Status

"Yeah, I broke it" The Portal is currently offline and I'll get it back as soon as possible. Ken - N7IPB

11/20/22: Haystack - 224.28Mhz

A new repeater on Haystack in Snohomish county went operational this last Saturday. The site is owned by Bart AE7SJ and installation was done through the hard work of WE7U, N7TAP and N6NRG. It took over three Saturdays as they fought downed trees and snow to install the repeater and antenna at more than 4000'. See the portal CTCSS map table for access tones.

11/20/22: West Tiger - 224.34Mhz

The BEARS 224.34 repeater on West Tiger mountain joined the system this last week. CTCSS tone is 110.9Hz for the repeater and the usual 103.5Hz to automatically bring up talk group #42. If you program your radio for 110.9Hz you can manually connect to talk group #42 with the DTMF command 9142#

11/14/22: Repeater Roundabout

This year some of our repeaters will be partipating in the Repeater Roundabout. The Lyman, Lake Forest, Baldi (Grass Mtn) and BawFaw repeaters are registered. Please use a 123.0 tone to avoid automatically linking the repeaters to talk group 42.

UPDATE: 11/14/22 SVXportal updates

SVXportal continues to improve. We now have information pages on each repeater, detailed talk group listenings and a system description page. The system map shows dynamic signal strength when you zoom in and if you left click on a location the 'Show Coverage' link will overlay a coverage map.

Note: some of the information displayed is still for systems undergoing construction and/or test. (Haystack, Crawford, Yuma AZ)

Follow the link on the left.

Haystack: An attempt to install 224.280 at the Haystack site was made two weekends ago. WE7U and N7TAP made the arduous trip and spent the whole day getting to the site and installing the repeater. Unfortunately they ran out of time for the antenna so it was continued this past Saturday. Again Murphy struck and a mismatch in connectors prevented finishing the install. With luck the job will be completed this coming weekend.

K7NWS: Another project that has been in the works for some time should be active soon. The BEARS 224.340 machine on West Tiger should be up and running on the system within days. It's standard CTCSS of 110.9 will still have it operating stand alone but a CTCSS of 103.5 or a DTMF command of 9142# will link it to most of the other PNW220 repeaters.

Keep your eyes pealed to the SVXportal for both Haystack and K7NWS operational details.

UPDATE: 7/13/22 Announcing SVXportal

SVXportal is an open source project provided by SA2BLV and is in use on many SVXlink systems world wide. It shows dynamic information about what repeaters are up and running, real-time signal strength measurements, statistics about activity as well as talk group and CTCSS tables and much more.

Note: some of the information displayed is for systems undergoing construction and/or test. (Haystack, Crawford etc.)

Check it out via the link on the left.

UPDATE: 6/20/22

Bawfaw (Boistfort Peak) is back up and running. Check it out on 224.080 -1.6

UPDATE: 05/30/2022

A lot has happpened since the last update.

Capitol Peak lost it's Internet connection last week but fortunately we still have the old RF link to Lyman in place. That has been activated and is now providing connectivity.

As a result of using the RF link you will notice the system announcements for Capitol being heard throughout the system. We are awaiting word on whether we will be able to keep the repeater on Capitol or not. If it stays we'll be providing Internet and things will go back to normal.

Rattlesnake was removed from operation last week. For the moment the best bet for everyone is to use the Lake Forest machine (224.22) or Baldi (224.88. We have a number of opportunities to fill in the old Rattlesnake coverage this summer/fall. I'll keep everyone posted.

BawFaw has been sent off to be re-installed and with a little luck it will be back up in June.

In addition several new locations are in the works and hopefully we'll have more info soon.