Ham Radio and the Splash 5
Today, I added a temporary Cross-Band Repeater on Bailey Rd. It is operating at 10w on both VHF simplex and UHF to K1ENF. After an initial technical problem where the VHF frequency ended up interfering with the UHF frequency and the repeater started flip-flopping the transmit. The VHF frequency was changed (see comm-plan) and the system started working as expected. The unit is a Yaesu FT-8500 from the old stockpile built into a base-station power supply. Having been on the shelf for a while it needed some time to stabilize and probably charge the caps evident by crackling noises which seemed to diminish.
Start has weak UHF coverage and full scale VHF Cross-Band coverage (Yeah!) from a HT. The area between the Start and Bailey Rd now have 2 sources of communication – direct with K1ENF and via Cross-Band to VHF Simplex. This will be the first (never too late!) that we have complete HT level coverage on the Novice Course.
Overall Success!