Repeater Problems

The weekly Thursday evening net wasn’t able to be conducted last Thursday, April 12th due to some kind of a problem with the 147.300 MHz repeater in Tooele on South Mountain.

The repeater isn’t properly dropping the carrier when an input transmission ends. The carrier stays up until the time-out-timer apparently kicks in. The problem will have to be diagnosed and fixed.

The immediate issue concerns the Great Shakeout Event next Thursday, April 19th. The planned net that evening is a special event net with guest appearances from Tooele County Emergency Management. If the repeater is not functioning correctly, the net may have to be moved to another repeater or the net may have to be conducted as a simplex net.

According to an email from club president Rob Andrews, “This could be a great test of our communications abilities in difficult times. So I will let the ARES leaders make the decision on how they would like to proceed.”

The possible alternate repeater is the 146.940 MHz repeater located on Farnsworth Peak. That repeater has a negative 0.600 MHz offset with a CTCSS tone of 88.5 Hz. Club members are encouraged to set up this repeater on their radio(s).

The simplex frequency, if the decision is made to switch to simplex for the net, will be 147.300 MHz, the output frequency of the Tooele repeater. That means it will be necessary for club members to set up this frequency in their radios(s) so that the radio is both transmitting and receiving on 147.300 MHz. No CTCSS tone will be used for this simplex setup. Note that simplex range is limited and some club members in Stockton or south likely will not be able to participate without someone providing a relay.

Anyone wanting assistance setting up their radio(s) to use the 146.940 MHz repeater or the simplex frequency 147.300 are encouraged to bring their radio(s) to Elmer Night on Wednesday, April 18th. Club members will be available to assist.

Commuter Net?

There was some interest expressed at the last WDARC meeting about possibly setting up a commuter net that would operate from about 4pm until about 6pm on work days.

In addition to those that were at the meeting, there are quite a few hams that commute that either aren’t members of the club or don’t attend meetings, so there should be sufficient interest. The commuter net over in the Colorado Springs area was very successful when I-25 was completely torn up (unknown if the net is still operating). The problem is that the Tooele repeaters don’t carry over into the SLC valley very well. If there’s a serious problem, finding about it when finally getting into the Tooele repeater coverage area is too late.

We’ve sent an email to a couple of repeater owners for repeaters that cover both the SLC valley and the Tooele area, hoping that someone over there will think this is a good idea (as there will be construction all up and down the SLC valley as well) and will want to host the commuter net. So, stay tuned. Updates coming as more info becomes available.

Nine New Technicians In Tooele!

Meadow N Clint Thomsen teaches a Linux class at Blue Eagle High School in Tooele. The class intends to do a balloon launch in May and the telemetry and tracking data will be transmitted on the 70cm ham radio band. That meant he needed licensed amateur radio licensees to be the control operators. Clint, himself holding a technician license, decided to teach the technician class license exam and make the exam available to any of his students.

So, on the evening of March 20th, fourteen of his students came to take the exam. Mickey Applebaum’s testing team from Salt Lake City came over to administer the exam supported by the WDARC’s Rob Andrews and Roland Smith. Nine students passed the exam. The other five are committed to passing the next time the exam is available. The club expects to get authorization to have our own testing team in the next few weeks and will administer the next exam session.

Clint took a couple of pictures (click on the picture for a full-sized view):

Test Session Underway
Test Session Underway


The Registration Table
The Registration Table


Oops! Ray Will Be Presenting In April

A change of plans for the March club meeting. TCEM Leader Ray will be presenting in April on Races and ARES rather than in March.

So, bring your shack photos, antenna photos, even cat photos. If you have a computer, bring your pictures on that and maybe the big projector will work for us.

Update! March Meeting Info

The March meeting will be held at the Emergency Operations Center (15 East 100 South, Tooele, UT 84074) on Wednesday, March 7, 2018 at 7pm.

Ray, the TCEM leader, will be doing a presentation on RACES and ARES.

In addition, those who have a “shack”, please bring a picture of your setup to give others who are dreaming of someday having a shack, or those who want to change or upgrade their shack an idea of what can be done.

March Club Meeting

The March meeting will be on March 7th at 7pm at the Tooele County Emergency Management Emergency Operations Center at 50 East 100 South in Tooele.

As of this publication date we’re waiting for confirmation that the presenter will be able to be at the meeting. This news item will be updated as additional information is available.

See you all at the meeting!