VHF Contest Aftermath, Mourning the Loss of an Operator, and Repeaters

As the end of the January VHF contest settles in, I realized it was a complete and total failure. I think the reason behind it is because handheld radios lack the power and antennas that base stations do for one, and for two, my 2 degree latitude by one degree longitude grid square does not see too much competition in the way of VHF. As another amateur radio operator once told me "You need hills to run VHF, especially on a contest"

Recently, an amateur radio operator named Rodger, his call sign was KA2JXI, has passed away. He was the trustee of most of the repeaters in New York's St. Lawrence county, where I attend college at SUNY Canton. When an amateur radio operator dies, he/she is deemed to be a silent key, or SK for short. Silent Keys date back to the past of amateur radio when it used to be Morse Code (CW) only. They are honored for their selfless sacrifices and work that they have done for the amateur radio community as a whole.

Lastly for today, I will give a basic introduction on what repeaters are. A repeater does exactly what you think it sounds like: it repeats a signal for many miles around. It is a very unique and complex piece of equipment which I will probably explain more in depth in a later blog post. The most common band that you will hear repeaters on is 2m (144-148 Mhz.) but they are also found on 10m (29.5Mhz), 6m (50-54Mhz) and 440Mhz and up, but it is rare to hear them on UHF and up. Most repeaters have a special tone known as a CTCSS, or as Motorola calls it, a Private Line, or PL tone to prevent a repeater many miles away from interfering with another. Other repeaters can allow you to call 911 in case of an emergency where there is no cell phone service. Some repeaters may require a special code to use it, because the repeater can be controlled by the operator who owns the repeater. Repeaters can be found dotted across the world, and there are websites where you can look up local repeaters in you area. My personal favorite is Repeaterbook and usually tells if the repeater is operational or not, as well as if the repeater is open to the public.

I am doing some research on some equipment to do a journalistic review on for my next blog post in the near future.

Until then this is N2ASD. Clear.