VO2LMC asl Operational

As of this morning, Aug 5, 2024, the old VO2LMC repeater on round hill has had its transmitter disabled & the new VO2LMC allstarlink repeater on Smokey Mountain is now operational in its place.

The old repeater has has some issues over the past year, one being a problem with the receiver, and over the past few months, the transmitter has also been dropping out, but could be reset remotely with DTMF tones using a mobile. Thanks to Darryl, VO2ET, for helping out with resets as required.

The new repeater on Smokey was known to have sustained some damage during the transport up the mountain last summer & it was wrongly suspected to be the filters knocked out of tuning, but ended up being the VXR-9000 transceiver causing the problems & had to be changed out with a pair of old Motorola radios. The repeater is now configured as it should be, using the filters and 2-bay dipole antenna for both Rx & Tx. The APRS station on LMC is also now on it’s own antenna, but still only Rx. No digipeating like is on VO2KG APRS station.

Glen, VO2GO, swapping out the Transceiver. Photo credit to Naz, VO2NS.

The new repeater is using the same frequency of 146.760, Negative 600KHz offset (ie. 146.76-) but now requires a CTCSS tone of 88.5 Hz to key the repeater. Users of the new LMC repeater will have to re-program or re-configure their radio to transmit a CTCSS tone of 88.5 to key the repeater. Using a radio on the old LMC freqs will be able to receive from the new repeater, but NOT be able to key it up without transmitting a CTCSS 88.5 Hz tone. Please pass along this information to any amateurs in the area that may have the older setup in their radio.

For the time being, VO2LMC will be permanently linked to the club VO2WL UHF repeater but, VO2LMC also allows incoming Allstarlink connections to node 555422. Echolink stations still have to connect to VO2WL-R.

Also, Thanks to Cory (not a Ham) for the use of his Side x Side over the past month to troubleshoot & commission the new repeater!

73, HoWL