South Central Wisconsin has it's first D-Star repeater on the air.
On Friday, August 21, 2009, N9UDO, KB9VMC and W9YYZ turned on the 145.255 D-Star repeater system.
Repeater callsign is: WB9FDZ C
The system's gateway is not currently running, but to follow soon. We are doing some preliminary testing on a temporary antenna located only 225' up on the tower. The designed height is 385'. We should be at that level in a few weeks.
8/26/09 Gateway server installed. Working on connectivity issues.
8/29/09 Gateway is up and running! Pretty cool stuff.
8/30/09 Gateway not always reporting to master servers every 15 minutes as scheduled. Our gateway not showing up on the D-Star Calculator. But the Gateway is working.
8/31/09 D-Star Calculator now working.
11/1/09 Gateway now reporting every 15 minutes to master D-Star servers as scheduled.
1/26/10 Combining equipment installed into existing combining racks.
1/31/10 Repeater system moved to the 145.310/144.710 frequency pair and connected to the combining system. Our receive antenna is now at 400 feet on the tower and the transmit antenna is at 320 feet. This is the final resting place for the 2 meter D-Star system.
2/22/10 Wisconsin Association of Repeaters is requiring us to re-coordinate the D-Star frequency after the change from 145.255 to 145.310. We will likely be moving frequency one more time to either 145.305 or 145.315. In order to effectively utilize VHF spectrum, WAR is splitting center channel, wide-band analog frequencies in to 2 D-Star digital channels. So effectively, 145.310 will become 2 D-Star channels. one at 145.305 and one at 145.315. We are currently awaiting another engineering study to be completed for the new frequencies to see if there are any intermod problems.
5/14/10 Received official word from the Wisconsin Association of Repeaters that our new frequency pair will be 145.315/144.715.
6/20/10 The 2-meter D-Star repeater has changed frequency per the Wisconsin Association of Repeaters. The new frequency is 145.315 output with a 144.715 input.
Check back often as system updates will be posted here.
