PARC welcomes new member Mary Anne

Sanford, KE7CGZ

The sPARC gap

Newsletter of the
Portland (Oregon)
Amateur Radio Club

(c) PARC, 2005

Proposed Upgrade for the PARC 146.94

Repeater

 

Last month we covered some of the history of the 146.94 MHz repeater, including the fact that the equipment is a 40-year old Motorola Motrac unit from the 1960’s. Installed by Portland Repeater Incorporated (PRI), it first went on the air on 146.94 on Mt. Scott in 1972. PARC acquired the repeater from PRI in the late 1990’s and has since upgraded the antenna, feedline and duplexer. The present vintage receiver appears to be more susceptible to adjacent channel interference, and that has caused the repeater to be less useful. If you get the chance to use the machine please do so!

 

One of our members has begun work on a newer Motorola system to replace the existing equipment. The Repeater Committee has the components to assemble a modern 100 watt Motorola-based power amplifier. With the proposed purchase of a MSR 2000 repeater power supply, card rack and control cards as needed, a duplicate of our 146.84 package could be assembled. These components are available to the club for a very reasonable price. Having both voice repeaters based on the same interchangeable components will help, as spare parts have also been acquired by the club and a PARC member. The Motorola MSR 2000 is based on the Mitrek series design for the exciter and receiver. The power amplifier is designed for 100% duty cycle, and PARC has a good supply of spare PA boards on hand. These are superior in life expectancy to the original MSR 2000 PA, which was based on the earlier Motrac design.

 

At the February meeting we’ll have more information and hopefully some photos of the both the existing system and proposed replacement. Costs and current donations to this project will be discussed, and input from the membership regarding this proposal will be welcomed by the Repeater Committee.   —K7RUN

Meeting and VE Session Announcement

 

The meeting starts at 7:30 p.m., Friday, Feb 25, in the auditorium on the lower level of  One Liberty Center, 650 N.E. Holladay Street, Portland, Oregon.  Please enter at the south side of the building.  Refreshments will be served. Meeting Topic: Presentation and discussion of the proposed  upgrade of the 146.94 repeater.

 

The VE test session will take place at 6:30 p.m. in the conference room on the lower level.  Please contact n7xb@arrl.net or w7lt@arrl.net or call 503-257-7320 to make required reservation and get more info.

--W7LT