Bringing the Tuesday TechNet into the digital age!
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Hi all,
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As I've mentioned over the past couple of club meetings, I've been working with Robb and the CRA to figure out a way to bridge the 145.145 repeater to a digital network so that club members that live in areas that can't hit the repeater, plus those that travel or are in other states, can still participate.
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It took a little work to find the right person at CRA, but I finally found Nate Duehr WY0X who has been instrumental in helping us with the project. On tonight's net, he was able to bridge the 145.145 and 447.575 repeaters together, which then allowed us to bring in Echolink and Allstar networks.
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Fortunately, John Stevens WB4HZA was conveniently at his place in Tampa this week and he joined the net using the Echolink app on his iPhone. I'm happy to report that the test was a success, although John did mention that he lost the connection a couple of times (just requiring him to restart the app).?
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Going forward, the plan is to continue to bridge the repeaters, so it will be possible to utilize the UHF repeater (447.575 (-) 107.2 Hz), which is also located on Mestaa¡¯?hehe (fka Squaw) Mountain. The UHF repeater also supports Echolink connections (search for W0CRA-L in the Echolink app) and Allstar node 59468. I haven't played around with Allstar much although I believe you can get to it using DroidStar on an Android phone. And Echolink can be accessed via Android and iOS apps plus Windows, Mac and via a web browser. Details on the various Echolink apps is here: https://www.echolink.org/download.htm
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By the way, if you're mystified about how to pronounce Mestaa¡¯?hehe, it's "mess-taw-HAY".?
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Nate and I are also investigating bridging the repeaters into a DMR talkgroup. For next week's net, we're going to see if we can borrow another club's talkgroup for a proof of concept, and I'm also working on getting a RadioID assigned to the club callsign, which will then enable me to create a dedicated Brandmeister talkgroup for the club. The talkgroup would be automagically bridged to the CRA repeater every week for the TechNet, and it would also be available 24x7x365 for club members to use to communicate with each other using a DMR radio connected to a DMR repeater or using a personal hotspot like an OpenSpot or Pi-Star (MMDVM) hotspot. Pretty cool!
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So stay tuned for more news on this and in the meantime, if you haven't been able to participate in the net in the past due to a lack of connectivity or coverage, please give Echolink or Allstar a try!
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73,
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Mark
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--------------------- Mark Ehr | K0EHR President, 285 Tech Connect Radio Club Littleton, Colorado k0ehr@... Check out my ham radio blog: |
Mark Ehr | K0EHR