Lou, Welcome! You will find a veritable wealth of information on this reflector, as well as some extremely opinionated (and rightfully so) repeater owners and operators. The main thing to remember is: ask and you shall receive, information-wise.
First off, what are you looking to do with this machine, for example two questions come immediately to mind: Amateur or commercial? How large of an area are you wanting to cover? You will need to contact your local repeater coordinating body and find out just what frequency pairs are available to you for your project before you even *start* looking at equipment. This keeps you from spending money on equipment you will not be able to use later on... Know ahead of time - in some parts of the country, 2m pairs are nearly impossible to obtain, and 440 is rapidly approaching that level. Once you obtain a "construction permit" for your repeater, you can start gathering the necessary equipment. Again, as stated before, a *good* repeater can very well be costly. This is also dependent upon where you are going to be locating it - if you are going to be in a commercial venue, they have much more stringent "regulations" about what type of equipment they will allow (this of course will elevate the cost of the project) as opposed to the type of repeater you could construct/erect on your own tower and operate out of your ham shack... Search the message archives here - you will find prior discussions about just this subject. Pick and choose the information and tailor it to your needs / objectives. Most of us here have accomplished exactly what you are setting out to do, so be sure to ask questions first and save yourself the headaches! And most of all, try to have FUN with it. 73 de Mark - N9WYS -----Original Message----- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of lou_c1357 Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 9:07 AM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Hello... Hello all. Just joined the group, and looking forward to getting all the information that I can. I am looking at a long term project, and want to put up a repeater. I want to know where do I get started?? I am looking for the basics first, and then move along from there. 73 Lou KC2RVD
