• Jan 27, 2010 - Installed a new 160 Gb SATA drive donated by Dennis Hughes, KE6RYZ. The old drive was having intermittent problems. I will now start working on some of the D-StarQuery tools for the system. Enjoy! 73 - Phil, AD6NH

  • Jan 26, 2010 - AT&T just completed some repairs to the DSL line, so the links should be much more stable now. If you were experiencing link problems in the last two weeks, that was the cause! I have also acquired an amplifier for the W6HRO B (70cm) system, and that should be online within the next two weeks. Enjoy! 73 - Phil, AD6NH

  • Oct 7, 2009 - Thank you Kevin Moore, KC6FLG, for fine-tuning our 70cm duplexer. The 440 D-Star repeater is working quite well now as we continue to make small improvements over time. Additionally, I installed a modest battery backup system for the repeater itself, so we will have some hours of run time in the event of a mains power failure. Hopefully there will be more improvements made as time and money permit. I hope you are enjoying the system! 73 - Phil, AD6NH

  • May 23, 2009 - Many thanks to Brian, NJ6N, for his help in getting the gateway back online today! The new hard drive is installed and the system was completely recovered. Enjoy! 73 - Phil, AD6NH

  • May 22, 2009 - The gateway is currently offline due to a hard drive failure in the gateway computer. I will attempt to have it replaced and back up by the end of the long weekend. Check back here for status. 73 - Phil, AD6NH

  • May 14, 2009 - Our 2-meter repeater is back online on a "test pair", for lack of a better description. You will need to reprogram your radio with this new frequency (note the odd offset) in order to access the repeater. It is our hope that this will become the new coordinated frequency, but please check back here for more updates. The frequency is 147.570 with a -2.555 MHz offset. Enjoy! 73 - Phil, AD6NH

  • April 28, 2009 - The 2-meter repeater is OFFLINE until further notice. Due to the recent FCC ruling that clarifies what a repeater is, (click here for details) we believe that we are in violation of FCC Part 97.205(b) by operating on our TASMA coordinated frequency. Until a solution is found, we have elected to shut the repeater for now. Please check back here for updates on this situation.

    In the meantime, we have been inspecting the 70cm repeater installation in an effort to maximize its efficiency. While it has been serving the local area well, there are a few things that could be done to further improve its usefulness. I do need to have the duplexer re-tuned and I need to have made new jumper cables between the filters. If you have a source for those jumpers, please let me know! Additionally, I will be doing some testing with an amplifier to see if we are maximizing and matching our TX/RX range circles. We have the power, coax, and antenna to handle at least 100W on the 70cm repeater, so if you have an amplifier sitting around doing nothing, bring it on down! Thanks for your help - enjoy D-Star! 73 - Phil, AD6NH

  • November 18, 2008 - Great news for the W6HRO repeater system! We worked all day today on the antenna system, and I am pleased to report that the 2-meter repeater is in fantastic shape! To make a long story short, we have gone to a dual antenna system. We were able to get quite a bit of both horizontal and vertical separation, and as a result the desensing problem has been eliminated and the repeater is back up to its full 30w of output power. Initial tests proved that the repeater is usable within at least a 10 mile radius of the store, and I look forward to posting more results as reports come in. Please use the repeaters! They are here and available for everyone.

    Additionally, the W6HRO B 70cm machine will now be connected to the REF001C reflector during store hours. Previously, the 2-meter machine had been connected to reflector. The decision has been made to leave the 2-meter machine open and available for general use, and the 70cm machine will carry the more specialized programming such as reflectors and newsline broadcasts. Of course, you may still use the 70cm machine as needed, and the ability to control the connection to the reflectors is open to all users

  • November 1, 2008 - Have you tried to use the W6HRO C 2-meter repeater lately? Not having much luck? Well, we have found the answer to the problem. Our cavities, which were so graciously donated to use for use on our D-Star repeater, just will not tune where we need them. First of all, they appear to be 1 MHz minimum split cavities, and of course we need 600 kHz! Secondly, they will not tune down low enough; we have the plunger all the way down on the RX cavities and it is not low enough. Therefore, we are looking for help in the way of acquiring some 2-meter cavities that will work for us. Being that this is a low-level repeater site (the store!) and we do not need to worry about notching adjacent transmitters, we merely need something that will give us the requisite 85 dB separation between our TX and RX frequencies. If you can help us find some very low cost cavities to purchase, or if you are interested in donating to the HRO D-Star repeater system, please contact Phil, AD6NH at the store or use ad6nh (at) arrl.net. In the meantime, the repeater output has been reduced to 3W in order to try to facilitate local communications without desense! Thank you for your understanding and consideration.