Ok, Call me a Shopper!

So, about a month ago, I got a phone call from a friend telling me he found
a deal that we could not pass up! Thanks KE4TZN!
He spotted a 8 hour sale on Icom D-Star/Analog repeaters at 1/4 price! He twisted my arm HARD! (Yeah, right!). I bit on the 440 Icom repeater with no idea on how to set it up. I guess this is what this hobby is all about. Doing things you have little idea on how to do and you learn by doing it. Boy am I going to need help. There are decisions to be made: Where to put it, what frequencies do we need, what purpose will this device try to fulfill. Which antenna and feed lines, which filter cavities, how many cavities do we need? How about the repeater controller and do we have an internet connection?

Multiple questions and decisions to research and make. I was thinking that having it in the ARES trailer with a pushup mast would be useful at a search and rescue site. It would be useful at any event that may not have good local repeater coverage. It becomes a mobile repeater. I understand that there may be frequencies for this kind of use but will have to investigate further. Having a repeater that can do both D-star and analog is very useful and could include those operators that do not have D-star HT’s.

Guess what? It arrived about a month after placing the order. When I checked on it, I thought it would be 3 months to get it. Surprise, it just got here already! Now the questions need to be answered. I have already thought that the cavity filters need to be a 6 cell rather than the 4 cell type as the higher number seems to mean better filtering so that there is better separation between transmission signal and the incoming signal. I have already seen the youTube videos on tuning the cavities. It is like manually tuning an antenna matcher with twin needle display, simultaneously turning the knob and also tuning the capacitors at the same time to make the filtration curves you need to separate the incoming and outgoing signals.

More to come… Need to find the parts. Stay tuned for part II.
73 Peter N4PVH.