KG4MRA Home
Welcome to the KG4MRA Metropolitan Repeater Association (MRA) Site
Last update August 13, 2023
Many of you will remember Chuck Smith W4SVR, a Richmond/Hanover ham, who passed this year in February. He was an inspiration to us all, and his passing was "way early". Chuck's family and Estate, is now dealing with disposal of all of his ham radio gear, which is extensive. Notably, there is a lot of commercial Motorola gear, and general Amateur radio equipment. The listing of all items can be found at this URL:
https://www.grspmx.com/w4svr.htm
As the webpage indicates, you can directly contact Marshall WA4OFW at his email given on the page, if you are interested in any of the items.
Sunday May 28, two modifications were made to the 145.430 KG4MRA repeater.
The DR-2X repeater squelch tail is lengthened to 2.5 seconds, which limits the repeater thrashing on/off between uplinks, allows stations enough time to hear quiet carrier before the returing station begins transmitting. Also allows another station to insert themselves into the QSO before the repeater drops carrier. It's not necessary, for a returning station to wait for the squelch tail and carrier drop, although doing so, will "pace" the simplex conversation providing even more time for a breaking station to insert themselves. This is in contrast to the feature some repeater controllers have, using bebop tones, to pace the QSO stations for any breaking stations.
The second modification is reducing the CW ID speed down to 24 WPM, the 32 WPM setting is a bit fast for many stations.
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On Friday March 3, two significant upgrades to the KG4MRA repeaters occurred.
The long awaited (~2 years) return to full power TX on 145.430 was implemented, by including a 4th Vari-notch cavity filter in the RX duplexer path, improving isolation and eliminating self desensitization, such that the 250 Watt Henry Power Amplifier has been enabled, returning 145.430 to the full power levels of the old Motorola Quantar repeaters, which delivered ~150 watts. So now, the 145.430 TX is +7 dB from where it was recently with the 50 Watt max output for the DR-2X repeater standalone.
Additionally, the 224.420 repeater, has been upgraded, by replacement of the flat pack 220 MHz duplexer, with a brand new ($1800) TX RX Systems Vari-notch 4 can cavity duplexer, which has notably improved both RX and TX of KG4MRA 224.420. On December 16, 2022, the 224.420 repeater was upgraded from 12 year old Alinco DR-235's to TYT TH-9000D Xcvrs. This doubles the downlink TX power from 25 to 50 Watts. Other upgrades are being considered for this repeater.
PLEASE NOTE: THESE UPGRADES COST THE MRA APPROXIMATELY $4000 THIS YEAR. So if you enjoy and use either of these machines, please be sure to pay your 2023 Dues, and/or make a donation to MRA, to keep the treasury above water. To do so, simply pull a copy of the Membership Application (from this site) and mail your check for $15 (per year) dues, to the NEW MRA address:
Metropolitan Repeater Association (MRA)
P.O.Box 553
Chesterfield, VA 23832
The Metropolitan Repeater Association, MRA, is a group of Amateur Radio Operators dedicated to providing a high quality, wide coverage area two meter repeater for the Richmond Virginia metro area and surrounding counties. The MRA is not a club, rather, it's an association of people interested in ensuring the repeater remains maintained, supported and most importantly, used!
The KG4MRA repeater transmits on frequency 145.430 MHz, with -600 KHz offset uplink, and requires a CTCSS tone of 74.4 Hz on the uplink. The KG4MRA is now operating with Yaesu DR-2X repeaters, and therefore APCO 25 (P25) is no longer an available service on the repeater. Currently KG4MRA is operating in split Fusion mode, C4FM or NBFM Automatic Mode Selection (AMS) on the uplink, and NBFM only on the downlink. This split mode of Fusion service allows for NBFM (Analog) only radios to hear all traffic and communications when receiving KG4MRA, and use of 74.4 Hz CTCSS Tone Squelch (to block C4FM on the downlink) is no longer necessary.
The repeater transmits a CTCSS tone of 74.4 Hz on the 145.43 MHz output, to enable using 74.4 Hz RX tone squelch on users radios to block whatever noise and interference they may experience receiving the 145.43 MHz downlink. Use of the 74.4 Hz RX tone squelch on users radios is optional. The occurrence of interference on 145.43 MHz in central VA is rare, but there is a repeater in the Washington DC area running full Fusion on 145.43 MHz, and occasionally propagation will cause that repeater being received in the Richmond area.
The vast majority of users of KG4MRA use analog NBFM. But there are a significant number of hams in the Richmond area with Yaesu Fusion mobiles and HT's, so there may be more C4FM traffic on the repeater, versus the very low usage of P25 when that was supported.
The KG4MRA repeater was located on the WRLH Channel 35 Analog TV tower in north Chesterfield County (intersection of Routes 288 & 60) from 1982 to 2016. Original call sign of the repeater was W4SQT (Trustee Rod Kieper W4SQT/SK). In 2014 the call sign of the repeater was changed to KG4MRA. On December 28, 2016, the entire KG4MRA repeater was moved to its new location on the WTVR TV Channel 6 tower, when the old WRLH Channel 35 TV tower was scheduled for demolition in 2017. The WTVR TV Channel 6 tower is located in central Richmond (intersection of I-195 & Broad Street), ~13 miles ENE of it's prior location at WRLH.
The KG4MRA antenna at the new WTVR site is a Sinclair SD-224, 4 bay stacked folded dipoles, centered on 730 feet AGL, on the north tower leg of the WTVR tower.
The Metropolitan Repeater Association owes it's continued operation to the gracious hosting of WTVR TV CBS6, on the iconic free standing 849 foot AGL (1053 foot ASL) tower erected in 1953.