10.25.2020 New Repeaters installed - See photos on the Photos tab

Post date: Oct 26, 2020 4:42:37 PM

Sunday October 25, 2020, the transformation of the MRA repeater rack was completed. The #1 main Motorola Quantar remains in service, short term, as it has behaved since July (no lock ups), and there is cabling and DR-2X configurations yet to complete. The #1 Quantar will remain in the system rack as a ready spare, after the migration to the DR-2X's. In attendance were Mike Owens K4RKO, Mark Veney W4MEV , Jason Gnatowsky KG4FJC, and Ed Bryce KG4SNK. We have some items to complete, but next event will be completing the cabling, and switch over to DR-2X in analog NBFM only mode at first. Incrementally, we will enable the Fusion C4M physical layer (on a Time of Day scheduled basis), and perhaps in a third phase, add Wires-X or other networking.

A note to the general membership and greater user base of the KG4MRA. The movement to the Yaesu DR-2X repeaters, was motivated by the low costs, versus other repeater hardware options, NOT the determination of the MRA Board of Directors or membership, that KG4MRA would migrate to full time C4FM and/or Wires-X networking. Currently the BoD intends to keep KG4MRA majority Analog NBFM, to accomodate the vast majority of amateur users, both members and the greater amateur community. MRA welcomes comments and inputs from all users, as to what direction the KG4MRA should take now and in the future.

A note regarding another repeater on the 145.43 MHz frequency. Recently, a repeater in the Washington D.C. area, K3MRC, has enabled a Yaesu Fusion DR-2X repeater. Stations in Richmond and central Virginia are now occasionally receiving C4FM transmissions from K3MRC, typically during propagation enhancements and band openings. So if you have a Yaesu Fusion transceiver with C4FM hard enabled, or Automatic Mode Selection (AMS), and monitor 145.43 in central Virginia, you may receive these C4FM/Fusion vocoded transmissions from K3MRC. Those without Fusion radios, will hear/receive these signals as the typical buzzing audio in an FM discriminator. Like all such CPM signals, enabling RX CTCSS 74.4 will block these signals from the local audio, and typically allow any scanning functions to carry on with scanning.

Check out the pictures in the Photos Tab on this MRA Site webpage.

73's

Brewer W4MGA

President Metropolitan Repeater Association