Both of these repeaters are now temporarily off the air undergoing a major upgrade. We expect them to be off the air for several weeks while the new equipment is being installed and modifications are made to the existing equipment that will stay in service. We are installing both of these repeaters inside a new(to us) rack mount cabinet. There will be a new power supply and new grounding and lighting protection devices will be incorporated. Once this project is completed the equipment will be located back at the Major Hospital building in downtown Shelbyville. When the new hospital building is ready later this year, it will be moved to that location. That location is on much higher ground and should let these two repeaters easily cover Shelby County.
The 224.440 MHz repeater will become a member of a new 220 MHz repeater network that will span the State of Indiana when completed. The links for the network will be primarily RF links that would be very reliable even under the most severe conditions. Internet links will be used only if no other link method can be established into the network. This means that our 220 and 440 MHz repeaters will no longer be linked together, at least in the near future.
The 440.975 MHz repeater is being replaced by a new Yaesu Fusion analog/digital repeater. Folks with Yaesu Fusion radios will now have a local Fusion digital repeater in the neighborhood. This repeater will easily cover the Shelby County area once it is moved to the new Hospital building location on the North West side of Shelbyville.
February 13, 2016
We are going to use a Motorola UHF transceiver for the RF link radio. An ID’er board will be added so that the RF link radio ID’s without sending the PL tone that activates the UHF Repeater hub in Indianapolis. We don’t want the RF link radio ID’ing all over the 220 MHz repeater network. Looks like the old Maggiorre 220 MHz repeater and the Link controller board will work ok in this configuration. The controller board will run the repeater and the RF link radio. We are probably a couple of weeks away from having what we need to finish up this project. When we get the hardware in our hands and assembled into the repeater cabinet, we will then put the unit back at the old Major Hospital building and give it a good test before moving it to the new building.
May 9, 2016 The 220MHz repeater and UHF RF link radio are now in bench testing and should be delivered back to us very soon. We will then mount the equipment into a “new to us” repeater cabinet and do some testing and make sure we are making the RF link to the UHF hub repeater located in Indianapolis. This shouldn’t take long to accomplish, then we will move the equipment back to the Major Hospital location for temporary operation until the move is made to the new hospital site on the North West side of Shelbyville.
May 17, 2016 All of the equipment is back in Shelbyville and ready for assembly into the “new” repeater cabinet. A work and test session will be scheduled in the very near future. Once testing shows that we can make the link in to the UHF hub repeater in Indianapolis we will put the repeater back in service at Major Hospital.
June 25, 2016 Performed tests on both repeaters including the the RF link radio for the 220 MHz repeater. Everything passed muster and is ready for installation back at the Major Hospital building location downtown Shelbyville.
July 2, 2016 Moved all of the repeater equipment to the Major Hospital downtown location and got everything put in place. Installed a UHF Yagi antenna on the rooftop tower for the RF link radio. When we fired up the repeaters we immediately had a power supply over-voltage situation with the vintage GE power supply. We wound up temporarily replacing it with an Astron power supply. Both the 220 and 440 MHz repeaters are up and running along with the UHF RF link radio for the 220 repeater network. We made several contacts on both repeaters and then declared this mission a successful completion.