The trouble arose from trying to find a replacement 444.7 Repeater (Flashback story time....)
Many moons back (even predating when the repeater had Allstar (the female voice controller)) the repeater finals died after long duty cycle at it's normal 40 watt output power.
You see this repeater used to sit pretty much dormant prior. At some point the Hogville Hams moved over to it and the repeater even was retuned for a while to 443.175- the NWA Link system hub- while work was being done at Mercy. After the retune back to the original 444.7 the hogville hams remained on the Link System. Well with the addition to the Saturday night rag chew, the PA slowly fell off in power and died, with parts literally rattling inside the PA. A replacement was found but it wasn't as reliable as the other (a potential miss match?) and thus the repeater power fell yet again to 2 watts into the antenna. Many people could get into it, but could not hear it.?
Going to earlier this summer I had some Kenwood Motorola radios. They were extremely difficult to interface and even after I did they were deaf as a post. We could obtain a much normal 30 or so watts with about 80% duty cycle but handhelds couldn't get into it. You'd have to run 25 or more watts for even mobiles to get in.
Tem obtained a "Breadbox" repeater- Much similar to the one originally there. Crunch the numbers and in order to obtain 80-100% duty cycle to power just about has to be wound back to about 10 watts. For some reference most of the NWA Linked repeaters run about 20-30 watts into the duplexer, with the exception of Green Forest pushing 17 watts.
But for you Siloam Springs guys don't worry too much. K5DXR was able to hit the 442.000+ repeater on Kessler Mountain on his handy. The 147.315 puts out about 80 watts and has a great set of "ears" so chances are you should be able to get in it with pretty minimal power and/or antenna. Another thing to consider is the K5SRS "Smith Radio" Linked system. He has a 146.670 - 110.9 near Gentry, 146.955 near Pea Ridge, 147.225 in Lowell, and a UHF down on the Bobby Hopper Tunnel. The problem with this is K5SRS is kinda of a hard man to get ahold of to ask him about using the system.
Jon, K5DVT