146.9700 - 444.1125 Hamilton, Ohio West Site

The cabinet is a discarded bank server and is large enough to house everything needed with room to spare. November 2015 this repeater was updated with a VHF YAESU SYSTEM FUSION multiple mode repeater under the call sign W8CCI.

October 2016 we added 444.1125 a UHF YAESU SYSTEM FUSION repeater to this site under the call sign KD8EYB (BCAREC).

The next shelf down holds an Ultima deep cycle backup battery, the Tripp-Lite 8 outlet surge protector, battery maintenance charger and a Motorola Micor SWR bridge meter.

The six cavity duplexers are mounted in the bottom of the locked case. The case is a retired bank server case that has a 12" top mounted vent fan with locking removable sides and doors. The front is glass which makes it easy to check the operation of the equipment without having to unlock the case to check it.

Antenna ports are protected by Polyphasers mounted on the top of and inside the cabinet. Ethernet cables also enter via a top mounted ports.

On September 14, 2008 Hurricane Ike visited our area for over ten hours with sustained 70 mph winds. For six of those hours, the repeater maintained primary communications in the county for five days without not any commercial power. The repeater provided emergency backup communications coverage in over 90% of the Butler county area. The Ultima backup battery provided power for communications for the duration of the entire outage.Communications support was provided and maintained to the Butler County EMA, Sheriff's Department and local hospitals during the outage.

The analog VHF repeater and associated equipment was removed in 2022 in anticipation of installing a temporary P-25 UHF repeater on the 444.1125 frequency until two other UHF P-25 sites can be established.

Once the other 2 sites are on the air and functioning, this site will return to FM & Fusion on the UHF pair.