We’re now on the ‘Magic Band’ (6m)!
Well, chalk up another milestone for Mid Island Radio Association and its VE7RPQ repeater system. We can now be heard on and receive checkins on the 6m band! For those of you with more modern HF rigs, 6m will already be available — all you have to do is add a reasonably resonant antenna 🙂
On Thursday, April 10th, our intrepid repeater group — spearheaded by Jeff VA7JPS and Don VE7ATJ with invaluable assistance from our ground crew — Al VA7MP and Peter VA7PWT — scaled the water tower in Qualicum Beach and upgraded our repeater site there to include this new functionality.
As I understand it, the ‘listening post’ was originally installed there in order to provide additional QB coverage for repeater transmitters located in Parksville (either at the Trillium Lodge or at what is now the Jensen Centre).
With the installation of the VE7RPQ repeater on Mt. Cokely, the need for this ‘remote listener’ in QB became largely redundant, since Mt. Cokely provides much better overall coverage for the Oceanside area. So, it was decided we needed to a) repurpose the existing equipment; and b) retain the site by providing additional capability for our network (and have some fun on a new band as well!)
Jeff very kindly offered to donate the 6m equipment from his store of repeater supplies (and we are eternally grateful to him for that 🙂 ) and so planning began.
The Water Tower site is owned by the Town of Qualicum Beach, so permission was sought and granted for MIRA to scale the tower to inspect and refurbish our equipment. Things have changed a lot since the initial installation, so there were a number of safety protocols to be reviewed and adhered to, and Peter was very helpful in getting us checked out and certified to go. (Thanks so much, Peter!) Don VE7ATJ went up first, back in late March, in order to review the current status of the equipment and take some reconnaissance pictures for Jeff, so he’d know what we were looking at and what was needed.
Once we knew what we were dealing with, then came the big day — taking out the old equipment and antenna, fixing up the UHF link (pointing in the wrong direction, but working somehow 🙂 ) and installing the new 6m equipment. Unfortunately, it was a typical West Coast Spring Day, with rain and occassional bursts of sun but no wind (thank goodness).
The de-install and install went relatively smoothly. The only hiccup was a dead power supply that was bolted to the frame of the box and refused to budge. We’ll have to leave that for another day. For now, it’s been unplugged and replaced with a newer unit. We also had some very weird readings on our antenna analyzers. Even though the 6m dipole checked perfectly on the ground, suddenly the SWR was reading 4::1! We put it down to ‘stray radiation on the tower from ‘other sources’ 🙂 and decided to just leave it. (It seems to work just fine)
So, what we have now is a 6m ‘remote base’ similar to the VHF unit on Mt. Benson west of Nanaimo. It operates in simplex mode, so it’s not a true ‘full duplex’ repeater per se, but it will listen on 6m and automatically link whatever it hears out to the VE7RPQ repeater system. It will also rebroadcast anything it hears from VE7RPQ out on its 6m frequency. Initial testing shows everything to be working just fine! From my location in French Creek, I’m able to hit the new 6m ‘remote base’ with less than 5W! And Jeff was able to hit it from a 6m handheld!
So… if you’d like to give it a try, the frequency is 51.600 Mhz, FM, with a 100Hz sub-audible tone on transmit. Currently, the output audio is a little low, but perfectly readable. We’ll work on that the next time we’re up there 🙂 Have Fun and Hear you on the Morning Net!
73.
