CB repeaters?

[d119]

That is the repeater I was referring to, including some of the players involved.

 

[MrSpock11A2B]

Well a big thank you to all of the members who replied. Your input is most enlightening.

 

[prcguy]

You might check out the bottom left of page 6 in this link, https://w5yi-vec.org/W5YI_Reports/1987/1987-07-15_W5YI_report.pdf

 

[kc2asb]

Well a big thank you to all of the members who replied. Your input is most enlightening.

Great idea for a topic. Until the other day, I was not aware of repeaters on 11m.

 

[slowmover]

Officially they don’t exist. Let’s hope it stays that way.

 

[prcguy]

Officially they don’t exist. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Awww, it was fun seeing all the commotion and pissed off CBers when the So Cal Pirate CB system was on air. My friend Larry (WA6SWG) who built and operated it was a hoot with his Hungarian accent and he was a talented CB design engineer with several Fanon Courier and Pace CBs that were his design. The Courier mobile tube type CB amplifier below from the 1970s was also his creation.

Here is a very old picture of Larry WA6SWG who built the Pirate Radio CB repeater system. I can still hear him punctuating a sentence with his typical vampire sounding Blaaa! He was quite a character.

 

[slowmover]

Awww, it was fun seeing all the commotion and pissed off CBers when the So Cal Pirate CB system was on air. My friend Larry (WA6SWG) who built and operated it was a hoot with his Hungarian accent and he was a talented CB design engineer with several Fanon Courier and Pace CBs that were his design. The Courier mobile tube type CB amplifier below from the 1970s was also his creation.

Here is a very old picture of Larry WA6SWG who built the Pirate Radio CB repeater system. I can still hear him punctuating a sentence with his typical vampire sounding Blaaa! He was quite a character.

View attachment 181906

My gripe (dead serious) is with interference on AM-19, The Travelers Channel, and I don’t care too much about the others.

AM-6, The Super Bowl, confines it antics to itself. That’s commendable.

118-possibilities to screw around and have fun (AM & SSB) if we leave out AM-9 & AM-19.

In time — (weird world oncoming re tech and the complete abandonment of our failed physics) — maybe other AM & SSB channels will gain use-adherents with a desired general topic.

I can’t say whether a repeater would be a good idea. But today I think it goes against WHY we most of us may prefer HF Radio over other types.

Seven League Boots.



.

 

[RichardKramer]

I have two simplex repeaters, one is a radio shack; I have to check in the radio room what the other model is. They're for use with an ht as they have a two pin jack. I have to check on the timeout time; the RS has a set time, the other model has an adjustable timeout. If you exceed the timeout, the unit will start repeating at the end of the timeout. I'll have to try it on the cb channels, did use them on gmrs with a 20 watt amp into a 4 element beam.

 

[kc2asb]

My gripe (dead serious) is with interference on AM-19, The Travelers Channel, and I don’t care too much about the others.

AM-6, The Super Bowl, confines it antics to itself. That’s commendable.

118-possibilities to screw around and have fun (AM & SSB) if we leave out AM-9 & AM-19.
(snip)

I recall that Channel 19 was generally respected in my area during the time I was very active (late 80's to late 90's). Lots of truckers were on it locally and someone always answered if you needed a quick radio check.

Curious if any public safety departments still monitor channel 9. Never heard much activity on 9, but they heyday of local departments monitoring it was mostly over by the time I was on the air.

Edit: @RichardKramer - a Radio Shack repeater is a new one to me. Sounds interesting!

 

[slowmover]

I recall that Channel 19 was generally respected in my area during the time I was very active (late 80's to late 90's). Lots of truckers were on it locally and someone always answered if you needed a quick radio check.

Curious if any public safety departments still monitor channel 9. Never heard much activity on 9, but they heyday of local departments monitoring it was mostly over by the time I was on the air.

Edit: @RichardKramer - a Radio Shack repeater is a new one to me. Sounds interesting!

Almost doesn’t exist. I wouldn’t ever expect it.

.

 

[kc2asb]

Almost doesn’t exist. I wouldn’t ever expect it.

.

No surprise. *Maybe* it's still monitored in some rural areas by small departments. If anyone calls for assistance on the road now, it will likely be on Channel 19, but the majority will simply use their phones.

 

[slowmover]

No surprise. *Maybe* it's still monitored in some rural areas by small departments. If anyone calls for assistance on the road now, it will likely be on Channel 19, but the majority will simply use their phones.

Until cell service isn’t available or phone fails.
Seen both and have helped both.

.

 

[K9KLC]

Leaving the profession in 1988 I can't really comment as to what's happening today on CH 9, but I can tell you from 79-88. I worked for three different departments that all had CB's in the cars (truck in my case at one Dept) and at the dispatch centers. From 79-81, the sheriff's office I was at, probably got almost as many calls for assistance on the CB on CH 9 or 14, than we did on the phone. Believe it or not, at that time some people still didn't have phones in that area but almost everyone had a CB. We had the Motorola's that would monitor CH 9 and any other channel at the same time. Seemed we used those almost as much as the Low band VHF we had at the time, or at least close to it.

In the mid 80''s the small town I worked for seemed everyone had a scanner. We decided on occasion to dedicate a CB channel for back door coms and we'd say go to tac 2 which was ch 21 on the CB band. Everyone started calling the station to try and get that "tac 2" frequency. Was actually funny. Ah the good old days!

 

[RichardKramer]

Video of the RS simplex rptr. Timeout was 30 seconds.

 

[kc2asb]

Video of the RS simplex rptr. Timeout was 30 seconds.

Never saw this before. Almost looks like a baby monitor.

 

[RichardKramer]

Never saw this before. Almost looks like a baby monitor.

Yes, it's really small. I have 2 of that model. Takes batteries or dc. I didn't didn't find my other model yet; I'll keep looking.

 

[prcguy]

I have simplex repeater boxes from two other mfrs and one is US made. After using them for a few minutes you get really frustrated transmitting to them then waiting then everyone hears what you said in addition to the first live transmission, then somebody else transmits and waits and eventually hears what they said with most people hearing both the live and recorded version. I may have used both of mine twice then toss them in a drawer as they are a waste of time for me.

I suppose when the end of the world comes and all other repeaters are gone you could set one on a hilltop with a handheld and actually repeat comms further than simplex, but when the end of the world comes there are more important things to worry about than a simplex repeater.

 

[WSAC829]

After using them for a few minutes you get really frustrated transmitting to them then waiting then everyone hears what you said in addition to the first live transmission, then somebody else transmits and waits and eventually hears what they said with most people hearing both the live and recorded version.

There is a simple fix for this. My portable ammo can GMRS repeater uses a Surecom SR-112 simplex repeater controller. What you do is set up your simplex repeater radio to use the actual offset for TX + RX frequencies. In my case GMRS (RX on 467.xxx + TX on 462.xxx). Then set up your portables/mobiles for repeater use using 467.xxx for TX and 462.xxx for RX like normal. This way nobody hears the transmissions twice. There is only the delay between transmissions before it rebroadcasts. This way it acts more like a normal repeater.

It also makes for a great way to range test your repeater. Drive around and see how far away you can still hear yourself.

 

[gary123]

Talking technically and legalities aside . You could make a CB repeater. Due to the narrow frequency range you would have a hard time making duplexers to allow operation with a100Khz to 300khz tx/rx split. There are duplexers used for 10m ham repeaters but modifying them to go 2Mhz below their designed tune range would be a challenge. Modifying such hardware to go up in frequency is 100 times easier than going down in frequency. Basically your fighting the fact that the lower frequency is a longer wavelength so everything need to physically bigger. If you were looking to do it. I would go with a split site configuration. One site for TX and one for RX. You could link the RX site to the TX site with a separate frequency or hardline or even VOIP.

Such a repeater can be AM or SSB although I do not recommend it as there is no easy way to select triggering the repeater such as a PL tone. FM would work fine as PL tone configured rep[eaters are old hat.

 

[prcguy]

Talking technically and legalities aside . You could make a CB repeater. Due to the narrow frequency range you would have a hard time making duplexers to allow operation with a100Khz to 300khz tx/rx split. There are duplexers used for 10m ham repeaters but modifying them to go 2Mhz below their designed tune range would be a challenge. Modifying such hardware to go up in frequency is 100 times easier than going down in frequency. Basically your fighting the fact that the lower frequency is a longer wavelength so everything need to physically bigger. If you were looking to do it. I would go with a split site configuration. One site for TX and one for RX. You could link the RX site to the TX site with a separate frequency or hardline or even VOIP.

Such a repeater can be AM or SSB although I do not recommend it as there is no easy way to select triggering the repeater such as a PL tone. FM would work fine as PL tone configured rep[eaters are old hat.

I have a split site VOIP repeater right now that works perfect on CB if I wanted to do that, which I really don't. BTW it works perfect in SSB or any mode and can cross mode.