Archives

WD4SCD 147.030 Repeater Remote Receiver

FSG believes in cooperation and assisting other amateurs where we can. In 2019 Richard Pomeroy in cooperation with Pinellas County ACS approached FSG about locating a remote receiver at our St Petersburg location for the WD4SCD 147.030 MHz repeater. After some thought FSG agreed to provide the antenna, radios, interface hardware, computer and Internet link required for this cause. Our first iteration (an AllStar RTCM) didn’t work for WD4SCD, and we ended up with a dedicated windows server running echo-link.

It’s online most of the time, but we do not actively manage it; the WD4SCD repeater admins take care of connecting/disconnecting it. This can be accessed on a 147.030/147.630 with a 100.0 Hz PL tone. Extra Low power on most HT’s from St Pete will be full quieting into this site. As this site is at 380′, it’s one of the highest amateur repeaters in Pinellas County. This is yet another valuable service running over the Tampa Bay HamWAN.

This has been in operation since August 2019, or just about two years at the time of this writing.

Site Hardware

The hardware FSG has dedicated to this is simple, only a Motorola CDM radio, commercial gain 148-158 MHz antenna, 1/2″ heliax, a signal link interface and a server PC running Windows.

First Iteration March 2019

Our deployment of HamWAN, a multi-megabit internet connected network over Ham frequencies, is now live in Tampa.

With a proper CPE setup you can expect to get 10-20 MBit/s TCP throughput to your network.  We support both IPv4 and IPv6 address space.  Anyone who’s licensed (Tech or higher) can get on 5.9 GHz with equipment for under $200-250 dollars.  This is perfect for linking repeaters and other critical points to the internet for redundant radio linking and high speed redundant IP data.  Leave your TNC at home and experience what packet radio should have been.

Below is a coverage map showing a 30 ft client radio elevation (and clear line of sight) to our site in Tampa.  This is an estimate for minimum signal (-75 dBm), as such if you’re marginal it may not work as well, even though the radios will work down to -90 dBm.

-75 dBm or better 30' client

-75 dBm or better 30′ client

Attached is a coverage map you can overlay into Google earth and explore.

To get online please subscribe to our FSG mailing list and we can get you authorized and your client radio configured for our access points.  We have a few test radios available if you want to test a site out before committing to it.