Previous repeater was analog only. A friend was roaming all around Santa Monica, West LA and eventually into Pacific Palisades working fine into this repeater from a handheld inside a car with rubber duck.
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Motorola Quantar Repeater Controller!
- Thread starter prcguy
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Certainly does look like Mt. Lukens (which strangely, is the highest point within the City of Los Angeles at 5074').
That would put our master receive antenna at over 5,100ft and we can hear everything you say. You can't escape it.
Oh wow, a handheld from inside a car. That is significant. Yeah, one cannot escape it.
Update to my home repeater rack. I need to buy another Northcomm Technologies controller for the new (to me) 900MHz Quantar I picked up yesterday for $300. Its working great on a ham band test pair but I don't have a duplexer yet. This thing has a super sensitive receiver and 100 watts out, what a brute.
Here is a pic of the growing repeater rack in my garage with 2m analog/P25, 70cm analog/P25 and Yaesu Fusion and a 900 analog only but I will upgrade that to P25 soon.
Here is a pic of the growing repeater rack in my garage with 2m analog/P25, 70cm analog/P25 and Yaesu Fusion and a 900 analog only but I will upgrade that to P25 soon.
Talk about coincidence, a buddy just called me up and wanted to test out his 900 handheld. We chatted on some repeaters and he said he’s going to bring a 900 Quantar he has online and link it with a UHF one that‘s running. I don’t think my old Spectra mobiles will do P25. Time for a new radio. Hmmm...900 mixmode HT that I can use mobile and pop out would be good. I wish someone made small P25 handheld radios. Anyways, time to rollout some 1/2” Heliax and get something further up in the air at the house.
It doesn't. And that is why I like this a lot better...and its only a little over $100 bucks ! Good find.
I Recently got a second 900MHz Quantar and both are now dual mode analog/P25. Been testing on 900 around my neighborhood with a Comet 9dBi gain base antenna on my house and pulled a new short run of Heliax to the antenna so feedline loss is about .6dB. Not that impressive talking to a friend with a 1 watt Alinco 900 hand held a couple of mi away. The match on the Comet antenna was not very good and most transmissions through the repeater had an odd low level noise hiss not associated with weak signal. I suspect the Comet antenna has some internal corrosion and/or dissimilar metal junctions causing IMD so I swapped it out with a 17 element Yagi pointed his way and things improved some and most of the hiss noise went away. Then I added a preamp and it made a huge difference in quieting into the repeater.
The preamp is an old Angle Linear model that was a special order with only 8dB of gain. I tested the repeater sensitivity using a directional coupler to inject an RX signal so the service monitor was set about 30dB higher than feeding the receiver directly, avoiding low level leakage problems and false sensitivity readings and I can have the duplexer and antenna connected during the RX sensitivity test. The 8dB gain preamp made about a 6dB improvement in the already great repeater receiver sensitivity without causing any desense, which is phenomenal. The duplexer is rated for 90dB isolation at a 3.6MHz split at 900MHz, so at the 25MHz amateur split the duplexer is overkill.
With the preamp my friend with the little 1w Alinco can go to low power which is 300mw and its full quieting and works great. Now I need to get one of these 900 repeaters on a major mountain top around here.
I also picked up a couple of XTS-2500s on 900 to hand out to friends for range testing and I'm considering a new 11dBi omni antenna from Altelix.
The preamp is an old Angle Linear model that was a special order with only 8dB of gain. I tested the repeater sensitivity using a directional coupler to inject an RX signal so the service monitor was set about 30dB higher than feeding the receiver directly, avoiding low level leakage problems and false sensitivity readings and I can have the duplexer and antenna connected during the RX sensitivity test. The 8dB gain preamp made about a 6dB improvement in the already great repeater receiver sensitivity without causing any desense, which is phenomenal. The duplexer is rated for 90dB isolation at a 3.6MHz split at 900MHz, so at the 25MHz amateur split the duplexer is overkill.
With the preamp my friend with the little 1w Alinco can go to low power which is 300mw and its full quieting and works great. Now I need to get one of these 900 repeaters on a major mountain top around here.
I also picked up a couple of XTS-2500s on 900 to hand out to friends for range testing and I'm considering a new 11dBi omni antenna from Altelix.
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300mW from a couple miles away on a handheld is nice. Another friend uses that Comet at his home and it performs well for him, but I am unsure what he used for his 900 repeater. It is now offline and we wait to see if it is a total loss, or if anything is salvageable as it was affected/destroyed by the Creek Fire. It had a nice spot around 6000'. Our area lost the GMRS and five other amateur repeaters at that site too, plus an APRS digipeater and whatever else. Total suck.
The other friend, whom I previously spoke of, has it on his list to get 900 up and going now that the other is offline and unsure to ever come back. I am unsure if he will tie it in with the W6DXW linked system or not. Still, it is taking a back seat to getting the W6DXW Empire Grade site back online. That site was destroyed by the CZU fire and several of his Quntars were up there.
The XTS-2500 looks friendly size wise. Honestly, I use P25 much more than Fusion. I would bet that if we linked P25, Fusion and D-Star repeaters here, that system would probably be busy. prcguy, whip up a turnkey solution and we'll use it here. All digital fun zone. We'll even let DMR's skinny ass in on the fun.
The other friend, whom I previously spoke of, has it on his list to get 900 up and going now that the other is offline and unsure to ever come back. I am unsure if he will tie it in with the W6DXW linked system or not. Still, it is taking a back seat to getting the W6DXW Empire Grade site back online. That site was destroyed by the CZU fire and several of his Quntars were up there.
The XTS-2500 looks friendly size wise. Honestly, I use P25 much more than Fusion. I would bet that if we linked P25, Fusion and D-Star repeaters here, that system would probably be busy. prcguy, whip up a turnkey solution and we'll use it here. All digital fun zone. We'll even let DMR's skinny ass in on the fun.
I think its time for some kind of intervention here, I just bought another UHF Quantar and a 800MHz one to play with. The garage now has an operational 2m dual mode, a 70cm dual mode, two 900MHz dual mode, a spare UHF that will probably become a GMRS machine and a 70cm amateur I recently installed on a high mountain top. The 800 was super cheap and will be good for spares parts and the power supply. This has got to stop but I can't help myself. I'm out of rack space in the garage. I feel like one of those people with 25 cats, they are just so cute you have to bring them all home.
And then I talked a friend into buying a UHF model to swap out for his old amateur machine and he shipped it to my house so I can program and tune it up. And rub it. It seems so happy here with all its cousins I may not let my friend take it away. Hey Northcomm, I need a couple more controllers!
And then I talked a friend into buying a UHF model to swap out for his old amateur machine and he shipped it to my house so I can program and tune it up. And rub it. It seems so happy here with all its cousins I may not let my friend take it away. Hey Northcomm, I need a couple more controllers!
So then the question becomes, it the machine purring or is it 60 Hz hum?
And speaking of power supplies, I went to the So Cal high site where one of my Quantars live and swapped out the power supply for a newer battery revert version and installed 180AH of sealed gel cell batts. So now its virtually impossible for it to hum but it does purrr on air! A friend also at the same site swapped out his very old repeater with his newly acquired UHF Quantar and its really working well. I believe these two repeaters are some of the best working in all So Cal with antennas at 5,100ft, really good master receive antenna, preamp and transmit antennas. The coverage is massive and people are getting into it from what we though were impossible areas.
Are they private or open machines?
What was the fire situation like up there?
Angeles Crest Hwy had two roadblocks a little way up from the residential area but I had prior permission to pass through. No evidence of fire or damage anywhere on the trip up. Air quality was poor over all of So Cal visible from the top. We also removed weeds and cut back brush around the building to make it safer if the fire ever gets there.
How was the access road up there? I haven't been up to that site in 20+ years. I remember the road being steep, but no big deal.
First time I was up there was when I was a kid and we hiked up x-country from the front side.
First time I was up there was when I was a kid and we hiked up x-country from the front side.
The road has been recently graded but its always lumpy. I have loose screws rattling around in my spectrum analyzer after the bumpy trip.
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