Rising Sun Calling

[DaveInDenver]

I thought we were on 147.225

Or maybe I was and you were on 145.460 - Still pretty to chat with someone that far away...First time I've had the radio on in a couple weeks...I actually had to plug my mic back in for the occasion

You were on 147.225, Nak on 145.460 and if anyone cared in the Springs they heard you on 145.160. There is also I think are 220MHz and 70cm machines linked, too. This is similar to the Colorado Connection but just along the Front Range.

 

[nakman]

The 147.225 comes in a little better up north than the 145.460, but they both work. I was monitoring again this morning, I had forgotten about the Larry, Jerry, and Gerry show in the mornings... it's actually a real nice group I have spoken with them before, but they pretty much occupy these repeaters between 7:00 and 8:00 in the mornings. cracks me up how most of their first names rhyme... doesn't seem to phase them though.. other than the morning commute, I haven't heard much action there other times of the day so that's a good one for us to adopt somewhat.

For a while there in the morning someone was linking up a repeater from the San Diego area, and there was a couple guys from CA who were chatting regular with the group. Kind of neat from a novelty perspective, I never jumped in though it usually ends up just another chat about weather. I'd rather talk about tires, gears, and suspension mods.

 

[rover67]

I was monitoring the 225/460 pair this morning too.

I'll hop on later today, i'll be running around.

I am a CRA repeater member so I have the codes, I have not linked it to anything far away yet but have always thought about it.

I was going to link it to memphis when mom got her radio.

 

[DaveInDenver]

The 147.225 comes in a little better up north than the 145.460, but they both work. I was monitoring again this morning, I had forgotten about the Larry, Jerry, and Gerry show in the mornings... it's actually a real nice group I have spoken with them before, but they pretty much occupy these repeaters between 7:00 and 8:00 in the mornings. cracks me up how most of their first names rhyme... doesn't seem to phase them though.. other than the morning commute, I haven't heard much action there other times of the day so that's a good one for us to adopt somewhat.

For a while there in the morning someone was linking up a repeater from the San Diego area, and there was a couple guys from CA who were chatting regular with the group. Kind of neat from a novelty perspective, I never jumped in though it usually ends up just another chat about weather. I'd rather talk about tires, gears, and suspension mods.

Larry is in San Diego via IRLP, Jerry and Gerry are in Denver. They were having a bunch of problems with the San Diego repeater a couple of weeks ago.

You bring up a good point about order of progression. There are several lesser known repeaters that could also be used. They are used less because they do not have autopatch or IRLP or are not linked.

 

[Uncle Ben]

I am a CRA repeater member so I have the codes, I have not linked it to anything far away yet but have always thought about it.

Ditto...

 

[nakman]

You bring up a good point about order of progression. There are several lesser known repeaters that could also be used. They are used less because they do not have autopatch or IRLP or are not linked.

Well for our purposes we don't need any IRLP or Autopatch, we just want to promote radio use and help others gain experience transmitting, get more comfortable with the technology, etc. Plus have daily discussions about starter contacts, 90915-20004 oil filters, and IFS vs. SFA.

I for one don't need to be heard across the front range, or across the I-70 corridor for that matter, so yeah a less capable and lesser known repeater sounds good to me.. you pick!

 

[rover67]

There are several lesser known repeaters that could also be used. They are used less because they do not have autopatch or IRLP or are not linked.

Do tell....

me likey

 

[MDH33]

We could just park the Rising Sun repeater at someones place up in the hills and use it, couldn't we? Oh, wait... that never happened.

 

[DaveInDenver]

There is an active repeater at 146.670 (Castle Rock repeater group) up on Squaw Mt. Good coverage across Denver. They also have a linked pair of repeaters at 448.500/145.400 that is less used.

I mentioned the WA2YZT linked pair at 146.805/447.175.

The Denver Radio League has a repeater at Lockheed (I think) on 146.880. This location does cover Denver metro OK but is starts to diminish beyond south metro.

The Aurora Repeater Association has a few nicely placed repeaters up on Guy Hill (northwest of Golden) with good coverage. Their VHF ones are at 147.750 and 147.720.

The Denver Radio Club has a few repeaters. One is at 145.490 up near Centennial Cone and another couple at 145.030 and 147.330 on Green Mountain. They have a UHF repeater on Squaw Mt.

Personally I say we stick with the 147.225/145.460 pair for the time being until we try some of the others for coverage and use. I know these have tremendous coverage from Castle Rock up to Loveland and with the 145.160 repeater in the Spring it's going to cover like 99% of the club members at HT power.

 

[DaveInDenver]

I for one don't need to be heard across the front range, or across the I-70 corridor for that matter, so yeah a less capable and lesser known repeater sounds good to me.. you pick!

But yes you do need to be heard far and wide. By always calling on simplex you significantly decrease your chances of hitting another member. If someone who is close to you hears your call, then sure, the appropriate thing is to jump over to simplex.

This is why in my FT-8800 file floating around I made memory entries for the input frequencies for the common repeaters. If you hear the other station at high signal levels on the input to the repeater then you know you can carry a simplex QSO. On most of y'all's radios there is also a weirdly named button called 'reverse' or 'REV' and this serves the same purpose by flipping your VFO from the repeater's output to input (e.g. 'reversing' the radio's internal the repeater offset split). I just found that with the 500 memories that having one side set up to scan repeaters and the other set up with simplex, both the repeater inputs and regular channels, I could jump over quicker than trying to find the REV button.

But why bother with all that if all you want to do is chat on your commute, there are times when you want to dink with power and antennas and paths and other times when you just want to use the junk. It's time when you're decompressing from work when you just want to say hey that I'm talking about and this is exactly the point of the repeaters. Ultimately the reason we push ham radio is to communicate information reliably and there is nothing wrong with using a repeater to do that. It also beats running through your phone contacts until you find someone else just chillin' who want to chat. It also allows people to come and go as they start and finish what they are doing.