Allan, my mobile radio was a GE Progress line - either 30 or 60 Watts. I had
both and don't remember which I used most of the time.
The antenna at 1000 ft was connected to some kind of commercial solid state
converter (which I don't recall) and 1000 ft of RG-58 (at 10 meters) carried
the signal down the tower.
The repeater was an elaborate system with the 146.34/94 as the main machine.
There was at least one other open repeater on 146.16/76 which was for use in
the Ft Worth area only. The transmitting antenna was on the west side of the
tower and it was pretty much shielded from the east toward Dallas.
Unfortunately, the receive antenna at 1000 ft prevented coordination of another
16/76 repeater for 150 miles to the east. At 90 miles we asked for 16/76 but
were assigned the 'odd' frequency of 19/79. I think there were other 'private'
repeaters as part of the system using CTCSS access.
The trustee was Harold Reisor W5SXK and he had the hub for the system at his
QTH. I never got to see any of the gear, but heard about it in bits and pieces
over several years.
As I understood it, each receiver connected to the 10 meter down converter was
connected to a 420 transmitter linking to Harold's house. There he cross
connected to a 420 link back to the transmitter site for each of the transmit
frequencies.
Interestingly enough, he also had a 94 receiver linked to his house, and one
evening when we had some extended propagation, he linked the 94 receiver to the
94 transmitter. The Little Rock Arkansas 34/94 repeater was loud and clear on
the 94 receiver in Ft Worth and although there was a honk each time a local
station on the Ft Worth 94 repeater let up, as soon as another station keyed
down on 34 he was repeated on 94 with no problem. This just illustrates how
much isolation the 34/94 system in Ft Worth gained with the 500 ft separation
on the receive and transmit antennas. The signal on 94 from Little Rock was
that much stronger than the local transmitter on 94.
As I understood it, the 34/94 repeater in Little Rock also had the capability
(by the control op) of listening on 94 and retransmitting on 94 and several
QSOs were had between stations in the coverage of the Ft Worth repeater with
stations on the Little Rock repeater, with the two repeaters linked on 94.
This is a recollection from back in the early '70s' in the last century so hope
I have remembered it right. It was the most robust repeater we had in the area
till they put up the big towers at Cedar Hill and a few repeaters gained access
to antennas at 1500 ft.
73 - Jim W5ZIT
--- On Fri, 1/29/10, allan crites <wa9...@arrl.net> wrote:
From: allan crites <wa9...@arrl.net>
Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Duplexer vs Split Level Antennas
To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, January 29, 2010, 5:13 AM
Jim
That's a very interesting posting of the repeater(s) you were aware of and
worked reliably from some 90 miles away in Texas. Perhaps you could provide us
some of the parameters of the installation, like the receive antenna used at
the 1000' level, the type converter used to convert the received signals to 10
M , the transmit antenna (any one will do) at 500', the coax used to connect it
to the transmitter, and the PO of the transmitter. I'm not sure I understood
you correctly about the coax downlead you indicated was connected to the
receive antenna, was it RG-58 from the top of the tower to the receivers below
or some other type coax? Also what was the PO of the GE mobile you were using?
Thanks
Allan Crites WA9ZZU
