Antennas Part One

Antennas Part one


With your tech license in hand, you may pick a 2 meter as your first radio, hand held, mobile or base station. The cool thing is repeaters are around to extend your range dramatically. This system can cover a very large area with one watt (power) by using a repeater. Your low power can be retransmitted to 30 watts even up to 100 watts. Many repeaters are located on tall towers on hill tops extending your line of sight signal to amazing ranges even up to 50 miles. I recently visited a repeater owned and operated by Charlie N0UGO and Randy N0IQ. The name repeater is exactly what it is. Your low power signal transmits to the repeaters receiver with a subaudible tone (optional) unlocks the repeater, amplifies it, then retransmits it on another frequency with a lot more power. Your radio will need to be programmed to automatically transmit the send and receive frequencies with tone if needed to unlock the repeater.

Repeaters are not as simple as they sound. The electronics are very complex and coordinate with each other. The building they are housed in needs to be built to survive extreme weather conditions and the temperature needs to be controlled by a heating and cooling systems. Tower paint, color and aircraft warning lights need to be maintained by a qualified skilled tower climber. Then there is back up power provided by an automatic generator and change over system. Not only does this tower serve the Ham Radio community but it donates space for emergency disaster organizations plus a medical aircraft company radio system, a rural internet provider and a local radio station which provided a little revenue to help offset expenses.

Charlie and Randy have put a lot of effort into the making and maintaining of their repeater. They have $50,000 invested in the N0UGO system including the tower, antennas, feed lines, repeaters, controllers, and labor.

Next time you key up a repeater and hear your hosts Charlie N0UGO, Randy N0IQ Kevin K0KDC, Ed K0RPT and Doug N7UVW, thank them for the great contribution they make to Amateur Radio. There is a list of area repeaters and access tones on the sidebar.