443.950 Will Be Back On The Air Soon

443.950 (T100) Has been off the air for a month or so undergoing renovations courtesy of Henry, WB4IVB. The GE Mastr Exec II reciever has been replaced with an actual GE Master II repeater - along with other improvements and additions.

The CAT 700 Controller has been replaced with an Arcom 210.  This will run 443.950 in addition to a new 900 Mhz linking repeater.  This repeater is not intended for end users but simply as a means to connect 443.950 to the Lynch KY (Black Mountain) 442.350 (T100) and the Corbin KY 444.900 (T100) UHF repeaters full time.  The 900 Mhz repeater will have limited range for distant vehicular use but will be more than enough for site-to-site linking.  Everything it hears will be re-transmitted on 443.950 which has a much larger coverage area and much better saturation.

 443.950 coverage

900 Mhz repeater coverage

As you can see, 440 works better in the mountains than 900 Mhz, although from my use of the KE4KEV and WB4GBI 900 Mhz repeaters in Knoxville and Seymore, the coverage map is probably shortchanging the actual usable mobile coverage by a bit.





Below are some pics of the actual repeater configuration.  Thanks to WB4IVB for the long hours he put into this project and to AJ4G for space at the site and help with the set up and tower work.

At the top are the 900 Mhz radios, a Kenwood for Xmit and  Motorola radius for receive.  It sports a true duplexer and is controlled by the Arcom 210.  The antenna is a Comet cfc7-71 with approximately 7 db gain and will be fed with hardline.

The two older Kenwood mobiles are a TM 241 and TM 341 with various display and memory issues.  This makes them perfect for remote base use, however, and will allow for frequency agile 2 meter and 220 Mhz operation thru the use of the controller and an old Doug Hall Remote Base Interface.

Next is the GE Mastr II 440 repeater set at approx 50 watts.  Signals will first hit the DCI bandpass filter before the decibel duplexers - including a 3 cavity filter centered on 449.950.   443.950 will have five cans on receive before hitting the ARR preamp...  leaving two for transmit.  The antenna is a Diamond 718 antenna side mounted on the tower at approx. 35 feet currently fed with LMR 600.  Plans are to replace this before winter with hardline.

Cooling fans.

Close up of remote base fans.

Master II prep for heat sink fans.

Lowes...  for all your repeater needs.

The thrd tap will be extended to the inside of the cabinet and a fan which will force air directly over the PA transistors and circuits.

When completed, this will link Middlesboro, Harlan, and Corbin Kentucky almost full-time.  Counties covered to various degrees in Southeastern Kentucky are Bell, Whitley, Laurel, Harlan, and Knox.  In N. E. Tennessee Claiborne, Campbell, Knox, Union, Hawkins, and Grainger counties...  In S.W. Virginia Lee, Scott, Wise counties...

The links can be taken down (or brought up) for various reasons, including remote base operation for additional linking and IRLP connection.

Any repeater that wishes to link in through the 900 Mhz hub or through other means should contact w4hkl@live.com or wb4ivb@hotmail.com for more info.  We love to talk amateur radio.

So when you also consider the well-maintained Wide Area Network stretching from Louisville Ky. down to Knoxville Tn., a UHF user in Eastern Kentucky and Northeast Tennessee has quite a bit of coverage to play with.


Steve, W4HKL