Saturday, July 27, 2013

New 2 meter Repeater for the Adirondacks!

UPDATE:  7/27/13 The Blue Mt. repeater is back on the air as of noon today. I talked with both W2CJS and WA2DAD this afternoon on the repeater. The repeater sounded great. Thanks to Clark, Tom and the team that hiked up to repair the repeater and antenna that were recently damaged by a lightning strike.
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Original Post date: 5/20/13

On Saturday, May 18th, the Bear Bait Radio Club and other NNY amateur operators installed a 2 meter repeater on the top of Blue Mountain, near Blue Mountain Lake. This will be a Hamilton County RACES repeater available for general public use as well. The frequency is 146.865 (-) with a PL of 162.2. Area coverage plots for this repeater are quite impressive, showing potential coverage from the St. Lawrence to near Utica, and Watertown to Vermont. The only noticeable dead spot is the Champlain Valley.

I had the new repeater full scale and full quieting all around the Old Forge and Inlet areas when I was mobile on Sunday morning. While talking with a few folks on it, the repeater sounded top notch. I also heard folks later checking in from places as far away as Verona, St. Regis Falls and Saranac Lake. I am sure this is only the beginning of some very nice distant communication around the central Adirondacks. Great Job by the whole crew who put this together! (If I can find out more of the story and those involved, I will post it here)

Several people have asked me how they can support this nice machine. You can do so by sending donations to the club at: Bear Bait Radio Club, P.O. Box 172, Clay ,N.Y.  13041. Please enclose a note indicating "donation for the repeater fund".

On another North Country note, if you haven’t already tried them; there is both a 2M and 70CM repeater on McCauley Mountain just outside of Old Forge. The repeaters are the 147.315 + PL 71.9(KA2FWN) and the 443.175 + PL 103.5(KA2FWN). The 443.175 is also linked to the 443.850 +PL 103.5 in Kirkland. Both Old Forge repeaters have very good coverage. Give them a try!

Find more Adirondack Ham and repeater information at: http://nnyara.net/

                                                        Fire Tower on Blue Mt. (7/2010)