N5MBM Chappell Hill 23 cm FM voice repeater - Under Construction
I have some parts, I am cobbling things together and hunting for more commercial grade components to make this repeater a reality.
We FOUND an Icom IC-RP-1220 10w 1.2 GHz repeater on eBay! (In March 2017) I found a set of suitable cavities, receive pre-amp and a receive pass band cavity (In April 2017) and am now hunting for a high gain vertical repeater antenna and 75 ft. run of Heliax to make it all work.
This repeater was originally located in Paradise, California in Butte county and programmed for 1287.100 out / 1275.100 in with a PL of 88.5 and I think it belonged to KE6IIV. That's the only 1.2 GHz repeater on that frequency in California. After looking at the instructions in the manual, changing dip switches to change the frequency may take a masters degree in mathematics from MIT. So I filed for an allocation with the TXVHFFM Society for what it is programmed for already!
There isn't much out there for analog 1.2 GHz FM voice repeaters. Icom is one of the few that manufactured any gear for this band, but has since discontinued production for the US market (Back in the 1980's!). Cavities are harder to find than hens teeth! But I am still looking. The 1.2 GHz band is seriously UNDER-utilized, in my opinion, and I think that they could use some more activity. If we don't use it, we could lose it!
Here is another Icom repeater I have been looking for...
This is why I am so excited... Once I get this up and operational, I will have attained my goal of having an analog FM repeater on every single band from 6m all the way up to 23cm, all located in one place and cross-linked so they can all talk to each other. It was a personal goal. Just something I wanted to do. It probably won't serve very many people at all, but it will WORK and that's what is important to me. AND it will be freely accessable by anyone with a good old fashioned analog FM 2-way 1.2 GHz radio...
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