RB – TTL Test Site
A few of you have figured out what Mike, Ryan, and myself have been up to recently. Here’s the scoop for everyone else…
About 10 miles north of Manhattan is a boot and western wear store. It used to be called RB Outpost, but now it’s just The Outpost. It’s owned and operated by the Buchanan family and I’ve known them for many years. With their permission I have installed an antenna mast there, and will be conducting many various experiments in the coming months & years. Everyone is welcome to join in on the testing and learning. It’s a great site — middle of Riley County and pretty high up and easy to access. Based on elevations from Google Earth, the ground elevation there is about 66′ higher than the ground elevation at the current MAARS repeater. Of course, the MAARS repeater is much higher up the tower than my antennas will ever be.
The mast I’m using is the 33′ tilt-over from Myron Calhoun, which makes changing antennas easy, which is good because I have a lot of antenna changes planned. The antenna currently in use is about 45′ high.
For the moment I’m referring to it as the RB-TTL site: RB for the old store name RB Outpost and TTL for “Test, Tune, Learn”. The most important thing I can say about this site is that it should never be considered as infrastructure. By that I mean this: don’t rely on it. It’s not there to be a primary or a backup of anything. It’s there to learn and nothing more.
I’m documenting the configurations and tests at http://KB0AZJ.com. When I make updates there, I’ll send an e-mail to this list. Everyone is welcome to check that site out for the current configuration, to test the current configuration, and to email me reports at Farren@ComputerShed.com.
The current configuration is a VHF/UHF bi-directional cross-band repeater. Frequencies are 146.460 and 446.025, and both are simplex, and no tone is required. You can transmit on either band, and it will repeat on the other band. If you have a dual-band radio, you can listen to yourself if you are within range. If you turn the volume up too high, however, you’ll get audio feedback. So far it’s worked from almost to Marysville to the north; to Dwight to the south, and Junction City to the west. None of us have been east yet. More detailed reports are on the web site. Please send me your reports!
Future planned (and hoped for) configurations will be packet (not APRS) on VHF, “something” on the 220 band, and a UHF repeater that will eventually have one of the MMDVM modems on it so it can be used as a Fusion, D-Star, DMR, or other digital voice repeater. I already have a second site selected where I can install more equipment so someday I hope to learn about linking repeaters. More details are on the web site.
This isn’t just for me to learn — I want to share what I learn and I want others to be able to learn as well. I’m open to ideas for configurations and tests. I’m open to installing other equipment. I’m open to showing others what’s going on. However, a full-club field-trip might not be appreciated by the Buchanans. And right now, there’s really nothing to see. I will put photos on the web site, however. If I do anything worthy of showing, I’m open to doing a show-and-tell at a club meeting someday.
Farren, KBØAZJ
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