52.68 K8SGX Repeater?

[KA0XR]

I've read how this Skywarn repeater runs close to 1500 watts and has like 14 receive sites. I can't think of any other single site amateur installations this elaborate. Just curious if anyone within local earshot of this machine has an idea what the local range is and how much use it gets outside of severe weather events? Do the trustees frown on non emergency use or is it active and/or cliquish? I wonder what a similar 2 meter installation would be capable of for line-of-sight local range, all things being equal...

I would think this repeater would be a great beacon for sporadic E band openings if it gets used. However, I've never heard activity of 52.68 when 6 meters is open up to the FM part of the band. Any information (factual or candid) would be much appreciated!

 

[nd5y]

There are several multi-site systems like that with a central high power transmitter and remote voting receivers. Sometimes there can be problems with being close to a receiver and having a good signal into it but not being able to hear the transmitter.

I used to work the Ohio 52.68 repeater a lot back in the 80s-90s when I had a 6 meter antenna up. I don't know if it's in the same configuration now. I remember somebody telling me all about it several times but don't remember the details except it covered a wide area.

I think the 29.62 KQ2H repeater in NY is like that. Transmit site is on a mountain top running a kW with several voting receivers in different cities. I'm not 100% sure on that.

Back in the late 80's there was a 145.25 repeater in Indianapolis that had a 1 kW or so transmitter about 1000' up a TV tower with voting receivers in different cities. They said It covered about half of the state. I think I could hear it into IL on I-70 but there could have been some tropo that day. I don't know if it still exists.

Overland Park, KS had the 146.82 repeater. They had a 100 W or so transmitter on a building that wasn't all that high but it had several voting receivers with 70 cm links. I don't know if it still exists.

 

[tweiss3]

According to their website, its a closed system "It is a closed system and only open to authorized operators."

Their website has tons of information: Welcome to the OPERATION Team Website

I would contact Operations Team directly and discuss it with them.

 

[tweiss3]

I would also add, N8XPK is a 6m repeater out of Doylestown with 5 receive sites that covers a large portion of NE Ohio with decent elevation at 200W. It is used slightly, the largest use is the Sunday evening net at 7PM, where it is linked to a bunch of other repeaters.

 

[ve3ext]

what is the frequency pair please for this repeater??

Jerry ve3ext. north side of Lake Erie

 

[nd5y]

what is the frequency pair please for this repeater??

Which one? The one in the OP is 52.68 out 52.92 in.
I don't know if it has a tone now. It didn't in the past.

 

[KA0XR]

There are several multi-site systems like that with a central high power transmitter and remote voting receivers. Sometimes there can be problems with being close to a receiver and having a good signal into it but not being able to hear the transmitter.

I used to work the Ohio 52.68 repeater a lot back in the 80s-90s when I had a 6 meter antenna up. I don't know if it's in the same configuration now. I remember somebody telling me all about it several times but don't remember the details except it covered a wide area.

I think the 29.62 KQ2H repeater in NY is like that. Transmit site is on a mountain top running a kW with several voting receivers in different cities. I'm not 100% sure on that.

Back in the late 80's there was a 145.25 repeater in Indianapolis that had a 1 kW or so transmitter about 1000' up a TV tower with voting receivers in different cities. They said It covered about half of the state. I think I could hear it into IL on I-70 but there could have been some tropo that day. I don't know if it still exists.

Overland Park, KS had the 146.82 repeater. They had a 100 W or so transmitter on a building that wasn't all that high but it had several voting receivers with 70 cm links. I don't know if it still exists.

Yeah KQ2H is certainly the other high power repeater that comes to mind. Being 10 meters 29.62 is always the first FM repeatter frequency I hear during band openings but it seems to be an alligator in that regard.

Interesting background on those high powered 2 meter machines with all the remote receive sites. Must have been fun back then with such wide area capability. Locally we have a 450 watt 2 meter machine with 7 remote receive sites that has excellent coverage, but no mountains here to allow it to cover half the state or anything (transmitter is on a modest 180' water tower).

There is no local 6 meter FM repeater activity where I'm at so that's why I was curious about the local performance of this high profile but closed 52.68 machine.

 

[kc4jgc]

what is the frequency pair please for this repeater??

Jerry ve3ext. north side of Lake Erie

53.17, according to Repeaterbook. Mentions the five receive sites including the main site. Does NOT include Columbiana.
Akron, Ohio, 53.17, N8XPK Repeater (repeaterbook.com)

 

[KC8ESL]

Back on topic, 52.68 was designed for 100watt mobile stations with 1/4 wave antennas. Theoretically coverage exists from Toledo to Western PA, and coverage south down to Ashland/Mansfield. To my knowledge there are over 20 inputs scattered throughout northern Ohio though some may not be up due to various reasons of needing repair from time to time.
I am fairly sure that the owner K8SGX has reluctantly opened the repeater up to normal amateur use as I hear callsigns on the repeater that aren’t members of SMART or SKYWARN. If I can get confirmation this is true I will post the pl tone of the input.

 

[KD8GUA]

Several years ago (2012-2014 range) I had my Syntor X9000 installed in my vehicle and was picking up a very technical ragchew between several hams on the 52.68 repeater. I was in Columbus, Ohio, approximately 150 miles away (as the crow flies). The band conditions were not unusual at the time: late afternoon, no severe weather, no major solar activity. I was just in a high spot in Columbus and was able to pick up the repeater with a quarter wave antenna.

I have kerchunked the repeater in the past successfully much closer to Cleveland. I had a lead on a PL (since it's not published for "secrecy") and programmed that PL in and it worked. The listed PL on Repeaterbook is 100% accurate.

Why there are "closed" repeaters in the world of amateur radio I will never understand. The whole point of putting up a repeater is to encourage communication and community among amateur operators. Instead people take this elitist route of "we only let technical blah blah blah and certified this and that use our repeater."

It's 6 meter FM. If you truly wanted a private, high tech system, you'd build out a P25 system with a special NAC and not list the NAC.

 

[900mhz]

Several years ago (2012-2014 range) I had my Syntor X9000 installed in my vehicle and was picking up a very technical ragchew between several hams on the 52.68 repeater. I was in Columbus, Ohio, approximately 150 miles away (as the crow flies). The band conditions were not unusual at the time: late afternoon, no severe weather, no major solar activity. I was just in a high spot in Columbus and was able to pick up the repeater with a quarter wave antenna.

I have kerchunked the repeater in the past successfully much closer to Cleveland. I had a lead on a PL (since it's not published for "secrecy") and programmed that PL in and it worked. The listed PL on Repeaterbook is 100% accurate.

Why there are "closed" repeaters in the world of amateur radio I will never understand. The whole point of putting up a repeater is to encourage communication and community among amateur operators. Instead people take this elitist route of "we only let technical blah blah blah and certified this and that use our repeater."

It's 6 meter FM. If you truly wanted a private, high tech system, you'd build out a P25 system with a special NAC and not list the NAC.

Low band does not support P25

 

[KD8GUA]

Low band does not support P25

I'm quite aware of that thank you. My point is that if you want to create a private system, there are other ways of doing it. Hell, using P25 repeaters and VoIP a wealthy enough ham club could put together a linked conventional digital repeater system rivaling MARCS on VHF, UHF, or even 900 MHz

 

[KQA726]

25 years ago 52.68 (52.92input) was used as the primary link from Cleveland National WX Service 'District Offices' only.
So for Toledo District One Skywarn to CLE NWS, IIRC, there was both a 6m RX in Downtown Toledo and a UHF RX at the Davis-Besse nuke plant that were tied-into this 6 meter closed system. I have not heard it in use in the past 10 years though.
Also, even though each county sheriff's office/local SKYWARN county comms building, may have a MARCS radio, it is 'verbotten' to use the MARCS radio to contact NWS CLE/Wilmington/Northern Indiana for anything short of an EF5 on the ground and only if all 6m/2m/telephone comms have failed. It truly is the last backup to the backup as I was told.

 

[wd8chl]

Low band does not support P25

Plus P25 did not exist when that went up. Or any other digital mode. No, I think you misunderstand how repeaters work. It is the property of the trustee/owner, and they can limit access any way they want. Also again, when this machine went online, leaving it "open" (btw, CTCSS access does NOT make a ham repeater "closed"!) would have left the repeater chattering all day long, to some exclusion of the locals that wanted to use it. It's not as big a deal now as it was in the 70's and 80's.
Did you know that there was no such thing as an empty repeater pair on 2M in Ohio then? I don't mean "paper" repeaters, I mean it took little of a band opening to hit a repeater on every 2M pair with less than 5W and a unity gain antenna on the roof of your house. Often more than one. A friend of mine that lived in University Hts in the 70's used to get calls from Dayton all the time asking him to turn down his power, he was tying up their repeater all the time. He was running one watt with a less than 3dB ground plane on the roof of his house. And the local repeater wasn't strong enough to use a handheld inside.

 

[ad8g]

Hey all, just saw this thread. I'm one of the guys that helps Bill K8SGX maintain the F2 repeater. He still does almost all the work, I tend to handle things like the controller and voter programming and occasionally breaker-resetting after a storm . I can answer some questions here. Bill doesn't really use the internet much, so you can direct any questions about the system to me.

First, the repeater is open to anyone who wants to use it, of course the owner is free to ask anyone to not use it if he wants.

The biggest use of the repeater is still Skywarn. We hold a weekly practice net every Wednesday at 8:00PM eastern time, the purpose is for Skywarn Coordinators and NCS to test their gear. The net usually lasts about 5-10 minutes - no comments, just checkins. If you are involved with Skywarn as a net control, NWS liaison or coordinator, we encourage you to check in to this net every week. "Real" skywarn nets are typically only run when NWS Cleveland requests them.

There are radios at NWS Cleveland and - last I knew - NWS Pittsburgh that can access the system.

At last count, I believe we have 17 inputs on the air (but I'd have to double-check that). Some inputs are as much as 80 miles away from the repeater site, so maintenance can be a bear.

We don't quite cover all the way to toledo (in normal band condx) - it's just a bit too far, so the Skywarn folks out there use a private Echolink node to access the system. But we do cover the vast majority of Northeast and North Central Ohio as well as Northwest PA.

The transmitter runs about 1200 watts currently (the 4CX250B tubes are something like 20 or 30 years old so it's down from the original 1500) into an antenna at about 700ft on a 735ft tower. The amplifier is homebrew and can run continuous duty. The tower sits on a hill that's about 1260 feet ASL. It's been at that location since 1986 if memory serves. (I was 5 years old at that time)

The old operationteam website is no longer and I now host an updated version of the "history" article on my website here. I've also created a page with some of the vital information here. I plan to expand this page with additional photographs of the system. I also submitted an update to the information on RepeaterBook.

Let me address some of the comments here to clarify:

According to their website, its a closed system "It is a closed system and only open to authorized operators."

This was the case for a while, but the repeater is now open.

Why there are "closed" repeaters in the world of amateur radio I will never understand. The whole point of putting up a repeater is to encourage communication and community among amateur operators. Instead people take this elitist route of "we only let technical blah blah blah and certified this and that use our repeater."

The simple answer: Because they can. Maybe the reason you mentioned is the most common, but other people may do it for other reasons, such as experimentation and learning.

Repeater owners get to set the rules for access, and if they want to leave it closed or deny access to certain people, they may do so freely. My understanding is that some clubs, for example, would close repeaters to only dues-paying members. Owning and operating a repeater takes a lot of time and money.

It's not as big a deal now as it was in the 70's and 80's.

Sadly, repeaters these days don't seem to get a lot of use, and I'll speculate here - that's why more and more are open.

I'll be happy to answer any questions people have. Personally, I'd like to see the system get more use. I try to listen during the day now that I'm working from home, but of course I mute my scanner when I'm in meetings.

Feel free to direct any questions my way, happy to answer them.

 

[KA0XR]

Hey all, just saw this thread. I'm one of the guys that helps Bill K8SGX maintain the F2 repeater. He still does almost all the work, I tend to handle things like the controller and voter programming and occasionally breaker-resetting after a storm . I can answer some questions here. Bill doesn't really use the internet much, so you can direct any questions about the system to me.

First, the repeater is open to anyone who wants to use it, of course the owner is free to ask anyone to not use it if he wants.

The biggest use of the repeater is still Skywarn. We hold a weekly practice net every Wednesday at 8:00PM eastern time, the purpose is for Skywarn Coordinators and NCS to test their gear. The net usually lasts about 5-10 minutes - no comments, just checkins. If you are involved with Skywarn as a net control, NWS liaison or coordinator, we encourage you to check in to this net every week. "Real" skywarn nets are typically only run when NWS Cleveland requests them.

There are radios at NWS Cleveland and - last I knew - NWS Pittsburgh that can access the system.

At last count, I believe we have 17 inputs on the air (but I'd have to double-check that). Some inputs are as much as 80 miles away from the repeater site, so maintenance can be a bear.

We don't quite cover all the way to toledo (in normal band condx) - it's just a bit too far, so the Skywarn folks out there use a private Echolink node to access the system. But we do cover the vast majority of Northeast and North Central Ohio as well as Northwest PA.

The transmitter runs about 1200 watts currently (the 4CX250B tubes are something like 20 or 30 years old so it's down from the original 1500) into an antenna at about 700ft on a 735ft tower. The amplifier is homebrew and can run continuous duty. The tower sits on a hill that's about 1260 feet ASL. It's been at that location since 1986 if memory serves. (I was 5 years old at that time)

The old operationteam website is no longer and I now host an updated version of the "history" article on my website here. I've also created a page with some of the vital information here. I plan to expand this page with additional photographs of the system. I also submitted an update to the information on RepeaterBook.

Let me address some of the comments here to clarify:



This was the case for a while, but the repeater is now open.



The simple answer: Because they can. Maybe the reason you mentioned is the most common, but other people may do it for other reasons, such as experimentation and learning.

Repeater owners get to set the rules for access, and if they want to leave it closed or deny access to certain people, they may do so freely. My understanding is that some clubs, for example, would close repeaters to only dues-paying members. Owning and operating a repeater takes a lot of time and money.



Sadly, repeaters these days don't seem to get a lot of use, and I'll speculate here - that's why more and more are open.

I'll be happy to answer any questions people have. Personally, I'd like to see the system get more use. I try to listen during the day now that I'm working from home, but of course I mute my scanner when I'm in meetings.

Feel free to direct any questions my way, happy to answer them.

Very nice and informative post, thank you! Amazingly elaborate system that, as a ham radio repeater installation, is probably unrivaled anywhere. Is the repeater antenna the lone DB-212 trombone on the right side of the tower in the photo?

Just curious why 6 meters was chosen (and continued) instead of 2 meters? Was it necessary to have the remote input sites on a different VHF band than the reepater transmit band? Or was it the case (or assumption) that a 6m repeater at 700 feet and 1200+ watts would outperform 2m range-wise, all things being equal? Or just to be different? Since quality commercial 6 meter gear is not as common as it was when the system was conceived, do most users gravitate toward the nearest 2 meter input site for system access?

 

[ad8g]

Very nice and informative post, thank you! Amazingly elaborate system that, as a ham radio repeater installation, is probably unrivaled anywhere. Is the repeater antenna the lone DB-212 trombone on the right side of the tower in the photo?

Just curious why 6 meters was chosen (and continued) instead of 2 meters? Was it necessary to have the remote input sites on a different VHF band than the reepater transmit band? Or was it the case (or assumption) that a 6m repeater at 700 feet and 1200+ watts would outperform 2m range-wise, all things being equal? Or just to be different? Since quality commercial 6 meter gear is not as common as it was when the system was conceived, do most users gravitate toward the nearest 2 meter input site for system access?

I'll try my best to answer what I know - I think the antenna you're seeing may be the UHF link receiver, but I'm not 100% sure.

I believe 6 meters was chosen long before the repeater was placed at that site - it had been at a couple sites prior to that location, and at the time the repeater was started, everyone was on low band, including public safety, so that's the gear that was available. That said, the big amplifier that's there now was built by K8SGX when they moved it to that site.

So there are no 2 meter inputs - only 6 meters. All the inputs receive on the same frequency and PL (52.92, 107.2), retransmit the signal via 70cm link frequencies to back to the main site where the received signals are voted. We're using a Motorola DigiTAC voter.

That said, we do have a UHF repeater on 444.975 that's linked to it, and many users that are closer to the site choose that because it's easier and a lot of them don't have 6 meters, especially in mobiles. That UHF repeater has no remote inputs, only the local receiver, and last I looked it was set to about 80 watts.

Speaking of inputs, here's another mildly-interesting fact: There's no 6 meter receiver at the transmitter site. The duplexer would be too big and even then, the transmitter runs so much power that I'm told it runs the risk of bothering the receiver since the split is close. The nearest receiver is in Chardon... a few miles Northeast as the crow flies.

 

[tweiss3]

I figured why not and plugged this information into my 7300 between nets, and was able to bring up the repeater with surprising ease. I'll have to put it into my VX7R and see how it it pans out around town. Reception is very clear in the Akron area.

@ad8g Do you have information on the location of receivers?

 

[ad8g]

I figured why not and plugged this information into my 7300 between nets, and was able to bring up the repeater with surprising ease. I'll have to put it into my VX7R and see how it it pans out around town. Reception is very clear in the Akron area.

@ad8g Do you have information on the location of receivers?

If you're in Akron, you're most likely getting into the input in Wadsworth. Maybe Brunswick, Mantua or Canton if you're lucky but those would be a long shot... I wouldn't be completely surprised, 6 meters has a tendency to get some real distance without a lot of effort.

Glad you were able to bring it up - I haven't been listening much lately because I've been busy. But make sure to throw your callsign out there. The more the merrier, I say.

- dave

 

[ad8g]

I would also add, N8XPK is a 6m repeater out of Doylestown with 5 receive sites that covers a large portion of NE Ohio with decent elevation at 200W. It is used slightly, the largest use is the Sunday evening net at 7PM, where it is linked to a bunch of other repeaters.

I haven't been on Marty's repeater in ages. When I first got licensed, I got a VX-8R at a hamfest for a good price. One of the first things I did was hook it up to a tri-band antenna I had installed in the attic and I was able to get into 53.17 full-quieting and hear it full-quieting.