Cambridgeshire Repeater Group

Hi all,

Thanks to everyone for the updates regarding the loss of power at the Madingley site on 20/01/12, it sure gave the batteries a good test and I would say they worked well.

If you look at the telemetry MB7UM sends out here http://goo.gl/C6g7f you can see the 4th graph down showing the mains power state (010 for ON and 000 for OFF). Power went for somewhere between 16:50:41 and 17:02:20 and came back on between 00:00:17 and 00:11:53 (how cool is it we can tell this now!). That was a duration of about 7 hours.

Back on the telemetry, the 24v graph (2nd one down) shows a drop in voltage from ~27.5v to 25.0v, 27.5v is the charging voltage, but held steady at 25.0v for most of the time after, some slight fluctuations towards the end. The 12v (top graph) didn’t change at all (the fluctuations between 13.9v and 14.1v is probably ADC error). Note the graphs are the actual value x10 which allows greater resolution.

The only thing I need to work out is why the temperature jumped 8C when the power can back on (between 00:00 and 00:47). This *might* be an ADC reference voltage error, but I can’t see how as it is run off a 5v rail which shouldn’t have been affected. There is a heater in there so maybe it’s just a very good one!

Anyway great work by Phil G4BIK who not only updated GB3PY’s logic to send a ‘B’ between overs instead of a ‘K’ when on batteries, and for plumbing in the new rectifier and battery backup system which worked a treat over the 7 hours.

Gavin M1BXF

CRG Technical Coordinator

The story of GB3PE – from the CRG perspective!

In October 2010, the group operating GB3PE took the decision to close it down, together with GB3PB (70cm), partly due to equipment unreliability, partly due to those working on the kit having no time to do so. When I heard that this had happened, I immediately set about finding out if the original keeper – G1ARV – would transfer the NoV to the CRG, and we could then re-establish it.

He had already issued the “E0″ form to the ETCC to formally close the repeater down, so we would need to ask Ofcom. Sadly, Rod Wilkinson was on extended sick leave, so was unable to help.

I contacted the original site owner, Dalmark Grain, and asked if we would be able to re-establish the repeater on their site. They were most accommodating and agreed – subject to licencing. The NoV appeared on my doormat in early January 2011, and to be honest, caught me unawares! I was expecting it to take a number of months, not a number of weeks!

Work commitments meant that I had no time to really work on the repeater until June/July, even though I had a base station programmed and tested, with a controller, all ready to go at the CRG Rally at Easter. The delay was caused by the filtering.

The grainstore at Thorney Toll has a loft cavity (where the repeater is housed), and this is subject to some large swings of temperature through the year. I expect to see temperatures in excess of 45degC in the summer, and ambient external type temperatures during the winter (so could be freezing!).

I’ve covered the filtering woes and issues in previous posts, so won’t go into that any further now. With everything finally ready to go in late October, all that was needed was some kind weather, and site owner’s permission to get in there and do it.

The first week of November was sporadic with its weather, though I had quite a lot of work on, so couldn’t spend the time. I planned for Thursday 10^th November, the long range weather forecast looked favourable, low wind levels, no rain, and reasonably temperate for the time of year. Dalmark grain were happy for us to go on Thursday, they only operate the site one or two days a week, and Thursday was one of those days. Once on site, Andy G6OHM, struggled up to the loft to see what we were dealing with. He admired the view, and took a few pictures.

Starting with me….

Getting the LDF4-50 and bits out of the van ready to go up the silo.

Looking out to the south west over the A47.

Looking from the end of the building where the kit is, a little dusty!! At the other end, you can just see the top of the stairs where we enter the loft.

The building, with the aerial hoisted up, but not fitted properly yet. The top is 30m AGL.

To get the equipment up there, we threw a rope down, attached it to a large black bin, and I pulled it all the way up. A touch tiring!!

Having a breather…..

Bolting the mast (6m pole) in place took a bit of work, Andy held on to the pole for dear life, while I climbed up and attempted to kick him off the gantry! (Sorry Andy!)

Luckily the electric motor was not going to be on while we were working!!

Final tweaking of the folded dipole for the planned MB7PE APRS relay.

With it all up there, and our breath back, nearly all of it went into the cupboard. The batteries had to be placed on the top of the cupboard for now – until a suitable box/shelf can be built to put the batteries and the charger under the main cupboard.

There is room in the rack for the APRS relay, and at the bottom is a 19″ radial fan that will eventually be used to offer airflow/cooling for the repeater in warmer times.

I’m still thinking about ways of keeping the whole thing cool for stability and reliability, but the issue will be getting stuff up into that loft! I’m thinking about a fan blowing air from outside into the cupboard in the summer months – all temperature controlled.

Within minutes of GB3PE going back on air, we had calls from around the area. Reports of end-stop signals in areas where I would have expected it, and other areas where I would not! G4KSW(?) reported end-stop at Colsterworth on the A1, and later that it was S7 in the centre of Grantham.

G1SAA reported end-stop in Histon!! Later, Gavin M1BXF, worked it from his IC92 portable on it’s rubber duck, in Trumpington, Cambridge. OK, there were lift conditions, but still, it was working well.

On my journey home, I was able to work it right back to the Bedfordshire border on the B1040, and then in my yard at Sutton, Bedfordshire. That was using a 1/4wave and a Motorola GM950 PMR rig, so no 50W radios with 7/8waves!!

The Cambridgeshire Repeater Group can now stand up and say clearly that it covers Cambridgeshire!! (having not checked coverage out to the far west properly, it’s a bold statement, but PI covers out to the Northants border and beyond!).

I have to re-iterate my thanks to Andy G6OHM for his help on the day. Without him, there’s no way it would have been installed. A Mk2 version is going to be built, using the fabled G1YFF logic, which will pip and bing and do lots of things! The basic controller at the moment does CTCSS detect, ID, and timeout – which is set at THREE minutes.

Comments on the operation of the repeater and its performance are welcome to technical@cambridgerepeaters.net.

Remember – the CRG AGM is on Wednesday 23^rd November, to be held at The Sun public house, Waterbeach, Cambs. Members and Non-Members are welcome to attend, however, only paid up 2011 members (and life members) may vote.

VY 73

Rob

M0ZPU

Chairman

The Cambridgeshire Repeater Group

A short – but very BIG update.

GB3PE is now operational as of 1530hrs Thursday 10^th November 2011.

Many thanks to Andy G6OHM for his help on site getting it all bolted in place.

Reports please to technical@cambridgerepeaters.net or post via the Camb-hams reflector

A full report on the kit and installation will be posted later.

Vy 73

Rob

M0ZPU

Chairman

The Cambridgeshire Repeater Group – serving the whole of Cambridgeshire!

And there’s more….

GB3PE’s hardware is now complete, sorted, and ready for installation on-site.

The last issue was one of noise/interference causing up to 20dB of de-sense. Spending a number of hours on it, tuning, re-tuning, tweaking, perfecting the filters I reached a point where the answer was staring at me, but I couldn’t see the wood for trees!

So a call to one-time CRG Technical Co-Ordinator – Phil Richardson – GW8MLA pointed me in a number of directions to resolve the issue.

The first was to decipher the cause of the de-sensitisation, even though the filters were giving 95dB of TX to RX isolation. Was it due to noise caused by a transmitter instability? FX5000′s are known to become unstable if the exciter produces too much RF. Was it due to transmitter generated Intermod? Receiver generated intermod?, Aerial generated intermod? Broadband noise generated by the transmitter, or in the receiver? So many questions.

So, let’s start at the start.

Transmitter instability brought on by an over excited exciter! : The FX’s transmit driver needs to be set to a maximum of 1.5W o/p. Checking this with my test set showed 1.59W, and with a Bird Wattmeter, 1.7W. So I turned it down to 1w, and then checked the output level through the filters. Still at 11W where I’d set it before (more on that level later).

Now while I was at it, I decided to double check the receiver tuning. I found another dB of RX sensitivity taking it from -124 to -125dBm (better than 0.2uV).

When I put the whole thing back together and checked it, I noticed a intermittent change in the noise level on received weak signals when the TX was on, which happened when I moved some of the internal cabling. Setting about that, and checking for damaged cabling, I found that careful re-routing of the receiver aerial feed tail minimised the noise to reduce the de-sense to around 0.5dB, and then it was only an increase in the noise level on the signal.

Going back to the TX output – 11W, we’ll call it 10W. That’s 10dBW in new money. The aerial has a gain of 6dBD, add them together and you get 16dBW. We’ll, we’re only allowed 14dBW ERP for a 2m repeater. What about the other 2dB, that’s feeder/system loss.

With that all done, the next thing is to install it on site at Thorney Toll. For that, the weather needs to be right. 20mph gusts are not good when you’re trying to manhandle a 6m long co-linear at the top of a 90ft high grain silo! The forecast for the end of next week (10^th/11^th November) is looking favourable, though I’m keeping a “weather eye” on things!! The site owner – Dalmark Grain – need 24hrs notice so they can arrange for someone to be on site when we want to be there, to unlock, and supervise.

More news as it happens!!

Just a quick update.

GB3PE is close to being back on air. It’s currently on test in my workshop – just needs a little fine tuning as the latest test has shown a 14dB de-sense when it looked like it was spot on before!!

I am looking for a nice beech tree so I can find a good branch to thrash it with!!

I have clearance from the site owners to go an install now, something I’ve been trying to get sorted for a few weeks. Just need to give them a couple of days notice so someone can meet us on site (weekday) to let us in.

With the weather looking a bit breezy (or wet) for next week, and with a 6m co-linear on a 6m pole to man-handle up a 90ft elevator tower, it needs to be quite calm for the sake of safety. The best day looks like Friday at the moment, though the week after may be better, I’ll keep an eye in the forecast as I obviously need to contact the site owners ahead of the day of action.

It’s take far too long to get to this point, but work commitments, filtering issues (!), as well as family, etc.. have all played their part in holding things up. It is a hobby after all, but a great learning process for those involved!!

More news as it happens!!

vy 73

Rob

M0ZPU

Chairman

The Cambridgeshire Repeater Group

Just so you are all aware GB3PI seems to have suffered a failure which means the transmit signal level is intermittently very low.  we have had reports from users who can still hear it in this state which seems to indicate that the receiver seems to be working.

Thanks to all those who let the committee know about it, your help is always appreciated.

The CRG are currently speaking with Arqiva, the site owner, about gaining access to look into the problem but for now please bare with us and keep the reports coming in.

The Camb-Hams, the social side of the Cambridgeshire Repeater Group, are going to be out in Flossie ( http://www.camb-hams.com/flossie ) to run an Outside Broadcast unit for Cambridge 105 ( http://cambridge105.fm/ ) on Friday 18th March. Cambridge 105 is a community station serving the city of Cambridge England, and the station decided to do some outside activities to raise funds for Red Nose Day ( http://www.justgiving.com/105 ).

Neil G4HUN, the RSGB regional manager for region 12 (East Anglia), is actually also the DJ for Cambridge 105′s Breakfast show. He approached the Camb-Hams about providing facilities to do outside broadcasts, and of course Flossie makes an ideal radio platform, with her 20 meter pump up mast able to carry fairly extensive antenna head loads. In this instance, a very light V2000 tri-band co-linear will be used for a back-feed to the studio on a licensed commercial band, where Neil will mix in the content and broadcast it live on 105.0MHz FM.

Just for tomorrow, Neil will be staying on air beyond his normal 09:30 closedown, keeping Cambridge entertained until 16:00 and linking in the outside broadcasts, which hope to include live performances from some local unsigned bands, and interviews with local residents and minor celebrities!

The outside broadcast crew will consist of Rob M0VFC and Lawrence M0LCM from the Camb-Hams, the Cambridge 105 News team and Tim Willett, the Drive time DJ, as well as engineering support from Steve (also licensed) who is responsible for Cambridge105′s transmitter and studio engineering. Flossie will be beaconing APRS as G3PYE-9 as she navigates around Cambridge and the G3PYE twitter feed will be updated as the day goes on so keep an eye out on http://aprs.fi/?call=g3pye-9 and http://twitter.com/#!/g3pye.

Listen out for the station on 105FM next time you are in Cambridge!

Our chairman Rob M0ZPU received the NoV through for GB3PE at Thorney Toll on 17th January 2011.

More details on GB3PE on the CRG page or at UK Repeaters.

The CRG Events page has been update so an agenda of events the group is active in or interested in is shown.

To see some videos of the Camb-Hams in action get yourself over to the Camb-Hams Youtube channel.

On November 25th Gavin M1BXF and Rob M0VFC will be giving a presentation to the members of the Kings Lynn ARC. The presentation will cover the current CRG repeater line-up, what the CRG are planning and a talk about the DX’peditions and activities the Camb-Hams get up to.

We will be bringing Flossie along also to demonstrate her abilities.Flossie is the CRG mobile amateur radio demo van and is available to CRG and non CRG members to use to help promote the hobby, or to just use on a radio activity event…

More info at http://www.klarc.org.uk/

CRG Chairman, Rob Compton, M0ZPU, has submitted an application to (re)establish GB3PE from it’s previous Thorney Toll site. The group hopes that it shouldn’t take the RSGB ETCC long to process the application, and that GB3PE can be returned to service in North Cambridgeshire/Peterborough as soon as possible.

Following agreement with the site owners – Dalmark Grain, the CRG is to apply to re-instate GB3PE from it’s site at Thorney Toll.  An application is being put together to send the the ETCC for approval, and it’s hoped to have that back quickly.

It is planned that the initial installation of the repeater will be using a Philips FX5000, controlled by a Zetron Repeaterman. The aerial installation is going to be tricky as there is only space for one aerial pole on the site, and that will determine what we can use. The original aim was for two aerial working, with the TX and RX aerials separated to give greater than 40dB of isolation, then the use of a barrel filter in the RX leg to increase that to over 80dB of isolation which is what’s required for 600KHz split operation.

The RX aerial will be at the top of the pole, with the TX below it by around 15ft. The RX aerial will have 6dBD gain, where the TX aerial will have 3dBD. ERP will be 25W (14dBW).  As this will be a new application for the repeater, it will be CTCSS access only, with 94.8Hz required in accordance with RSGB ETCC guidelines for Cambridgeshire.

A brief spec is as follows:

Repeater callsign – GB3PE
Input/Output freq – 145.175 / 145.675
CTCSS (decode/encode?) – 94.8Hz
1750Hz Access? – No
Lat/Long – TBA
Antennas height – TX – 30m, RX – 35m AGL (site at -1m ASL)
Antenna type – Omni – two aerial working
Timeout period – 3 minutes.

Any comments or suggestions, please send them to chairman@cambridgerepeaters.net

After some concern about the lack of information about the conditions such as voltages, main status and temperature at the Madingley site, Gavin M1BXF designed a PIC interface which monitors all these parameters and updates MB7UMs APRS beacons accordingly which can be displayed here: http://aprs.fi/telemetry/a/MB7UM?range=month

MB7PI was upgraded on Saturday.  The new hardware consists of a KPC3 TNC (thanks Bob G1SAA), an MC Micro radio (thanks Rob M0ZPU) and additional to before an AFL bandpass filter.  The new configuration has allowed us to complete the iGate upgrade to MB7PI so it now passes RF traffic directly to the APRS-IS using Peter Loveall’s javAPRSSrvr software.

On Saturday April 10th The Cambridgeshire Repeater Group (CRG) put their second APRS digipeater onair at Barkway IO92XA. MB7PI, a callsign in keeping with the co-located GB3PI – the UKs first voice repeater – provides much needed coverage to South Cambridgeshire, North Hertfordshire, North West Essex and West Suffolk including the A1(M) and M11. The group’s existing digipeater MB7UM at Madingley NW Cambridge provides good coverage to central and North Cambridgeshire. See the MB7PI page for more info…

GB3YL (RB14 ) is now CTCSS Only Access using 94.8Hz. The repeater has been upgraded to a Motorola Compact Base Station with a G1YFF logic system. Reports Via  http://www.gb3yl.co.uk/

The Norfolk Broads D-STAR repeater GB7NB went live on Friday 11th September at 15:00 and the first QSO was with M0KXK Ray.

GB7NB has an output frequency of 439.6875 MHz with the input 9 MHz lower at 430.6875 MHz.

The group’s website says that initial reports were good however but there is an issue with drop outs which may be due to mixing products from other transmitters on the site.

Phase 2 of the project will be getting GB7NB connected to the gateway, this is well underway with the PC Server already built and tested and the Icom G2 s/w loaded thanks to Darren G7LWT.

More details on GB7NB here, and the Norfolk Repeater Group here.

The second and third prizes at the CRG rally were APRS tracker kits complete with GPS receivers to compliment the groups new APRS digi MB7UM.  These were won by Graham, M0GRP and Ben, G6YQJ who both thought they would not utilise them and generously though others would have better use for them.  To that end the CRG decided that Cambridgeshire Raynet would be a good beneficiary from them and as luck would have it David G8IDL the Cambridgeshire Raynet group controller was among the crowd the pie and pint so we stood him up to accept the presentation of both APRS trackers.  David and all other Raynet members in attendance would like to thank Graham, M0GRP and Ben, G6YQJ (Ben was also there on the night) for their generosity.

At the May Pye and Pint Rob M0ZPU, the CRG Chairman, presented Olly M0OLY with a Yaesu FT-60r which was the first prize at this years CRG rally.  Olly thanked the CRG for all the efforts and commitment to amateur radio in Cambridgeshire and hoped to win the first prize next year!  It was fun to note Olly is a die hard Icom fan so presenting him with a Yeasu brought some smiles to those at the Pye and Pint.

The South Anglia Repeater Group has just launched a new website,www.sargroup.co.uk. This site highlights the work carried out by the repeater group and its supporters. It includes details on the group’s five repeaters which cover Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex and Norfolk. The site also includes contact details for all group members, details on how to donate to the group, pictures of the repeater gear and much more.”

New CRG Polo shirts beautifully embroidered with the CRG logo in sizes small to xxxl, go to the products page to order yours now!

Camb-Hams DX’Pedition Ready To Go (15th April, 2009)

With the trailer packed and Friday 17th April fast approaching the long awaited Camb-Hams DX’Pedition to the Island of Harris is about to start.  With activity planned on all bands from 80m to 70cm using GS3PYE/P, the Scottish variant of the CRG clubcall, you should manage to make a QSO!  Follow the groups progress on the Harris diary pagehere.

SARG AGM – April 21st 2009 (20th March, 2009)

Another year has passed and it is once again time for the AGM of the South Anglia Repeater Group on Tuesday 21st April 2009 at 19:15 for 19:30 start. Location is St John Ambulance (Suffolk) Headquarters, Priory House, Duckamere, Bramford, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP8 4AJ.  Directions and a map can be found here.  More info on the SARG webpage here.

Agenda
1- Welcome and Introductions (inc domestic arrangements  *Keith Hotchkiss )
2- Apologies for absence
3- Minutes from the last AGM
4- Matters arising from those minutes
5- Chairman’s Report
6- Treasurers Report (including any Repeater Group Subs)
7- Auditors Statement
8- Nominations and Election of Officers:
- Chairman
- Secretary
- Treasurer
- Auditor
9-  Repeater News
10- TV Repeater (Jason Flynn and Chris Irish)
11- Web Site Update (Keith Hotchkiss)
12- Any other business
13- Date of Next Meeting

MB7UM Now On-Air (3rd November, 2008)

After a few weeks of effort from lots of CRG members and with various HW issues to overcome the groups APRS digi-peater MB7UM is now on-air and operational.  You can see local users on MB7UM page.

• GB3PV Digital TX Active (29th September, 2008)

On Sunday 29th of September GB3PV was upgraded to include a Digital DVB-S transmitter.  Analogue or digital transmit can be switched by DTMF, plans are already underway to integrate a digital receiver.

• Latest Newsletter Out (19th September, 2008)

The latest newsletter from the CRG is out.  You can Download Newsletter with that link or go directly to the Newsletter Page and find the previous installments available for download.

• D-Star Gateway Now Live – GB7PI (5th September, 2008)

The long awaited gateway for GB7PI became live at 23.15 on Thursday 5th of September.  Don G3YQO was the first to have a QSO over the gateway with Darren G7LWT who also spent his evening commissioning the gateway install with local help from Bob G1SAA.  Information on GB7PI can be found on our GB7PI page here and if you require registration please go to our online registration here and fill out the form.  Thanks go to Darren and all the team at UKIT for their help.

August 2008

• Frequency Change – GB7PI (16th August, 2008)

On Tuesday August 19, 2008 our UHF D-STAR Repeater GB7PI will have it’s input frequency changed per orders from ofcom.  The output frequency of 439.9125 MHz will remain the same, however, the input frequency will change to 430.9125 MHz.  This move is inline with the new 9 MHz split for GMSK repeaters.

• New APRS UI-Digi NoV Issued – MB7UM (8th August, 2008)

The CRG have been issued with an NoV to run a 2m (144.800Mhz) APRS UI-Digi from Madingley under the callsign MB7UM.  We hope to have the UI-Digi operational soon…  More info here.

June 2008

• Donation of a Simoco PRF10 base station (15th June, 2008)

The Cambridgeshire Repeater Group is thankful for the generous donation of the Simoco PRF10 base station, which is one of small number of commercial units built by Simoco to operate on PMR frequencies just above to the 6m band.  It is hoped that this will be used as a spare for GB3PX subject to a spot of re-programming, the addition of a logic, and a tune-up.

May 2008

• Camb-Hams Mull DX’peditions A Success (9th May, 2008)

The Camb-Hams trip to Mull between April 26th and May 3rd 2008 was a great success! More information with all the updates are available on the Camb-Hams Mull Page

• IC-E91 Presented To George Gunn, G8ACT (7th May, 2008)

At the May 7th Pie and Pint George Gunn, G8ACT was presented with his IC-E91 by the CRG chairman Rob Compton, M0ZPU which George won at the CRG rally.

April 2008

• GB7PI Gets CW Ident (13th April, 2008)

As part of the ongoing technical development of the groups repeaters GB7PI has been equipped with a CW ident.  Every 16 minutes “GB7PI IO92XA DSTAR” is sent.  Reports welcome.

• E91 Raffle (6th April, 2008)

The groups Icom IC-E91 radio, initial used for testing GB7PI was raffled at the groups annual rally.  The draw took place at 1.30pm and the first name out the hat was George Gunn, G8ACT from Bishops Stortford.  Well done George!  A presentation will take place on May 7th at the next Pie and Pint.

• CUWS Loan Scheme – Radio Issued! (21st March, 2008)

The first radio as part of the CRG and CUWS loan scheme was presented to Jordan Skittrall on Thursday 20th March at the CUWS meeting in Cambridge.  More information and pictures will be in the next news letter.

• GB7PI Gets CW Ident (13th April, 2008)

As part of the ongoing technical development of the groups repeaters GB7PI has been equipped with a CW ident.  Every 16 minutes “GB7PI IO92XA DSTAR” is sent.  Reports welcome.

• E91 Raffle (6th April, 2008)

The groups Icom IC-E91 radio used for initial testing of GB7PI was raffled at the groups anual rally.  The draw took place at 1.30pm and the first name out the hat was George Gunn, G8ACT from Bishops Stortford.  Well done George!  A presentation will take place on May 7th at the next Pie and Pint.

February 2008

• GB7PI Makes It Onto YouTube!

Watch and listen to a D-Star QSO on GB7PI between G1SAA, 2E0GYZ/M and M1BXF on YouTube.  Thanks Matt!

• RadCom Article (16th February, 2008)

Our very own technical coordinator got his name in print in the March 2008 edition of RadCom, page 26.  Gavin M1BXF wrote a sub article ‘D-Star.. What is it?’ to help enhance the review of Icoms IC-E2820 radio.

January 2008

• Icom D-Star Press Day(31st January, 2008)

Due to the CRG’s continual support and promotion of D-Star, Gavin M1BXF and Daryl G0ANV were invited down to a D-Star Press day at Icom UK’s HQ in Herne Bay.  Besides the main D-Star information lots of interesting developments and topics where presented and discussed by Icom, the RSGB (RadCom), Monitoring Monthly and Practical Wireless.  It was a chance for us to form better ties with the various people and let them know what the CRG are upto.  You will likely see more information about the CRG in coming editions of each magazine.  More information about the visit will be in the next edition of the newsletter.

• Spring Newsletter Out (11th January, 2008)

The latest CRG newsletter is out!! It’s really starting to look like a proper newsletter now folks, there’s stories, information, history… don’t wait any longer, just click to download the CRG Update – Spring 2008. If you know someone that would like to read it but isn’t a member (yeah I know, hard to imagine, get them to join!) or doesn’t have internet access kindly print it off and pass it along to them!

November 2007

• GB3PX – Back On-Air[ish] (26th November, 2007)

GB3PX (6m FM Repeater) is still suffering issue with it’s antenna. It’s intermittent. The logic was now been modified to provide the much asked for courtesy tone. Please submit reports on coverage and the pip to the CRG forum here.

• GB7PI on-air from 11.30am Monday 19th November 2007!(19th November, 2007)

CRG Chairman Rob Compton, M0ZPU and CRG Technical Co-ordinator Gavin Nesbitt, M1BXF installed the group’s new GB7PI D-Star repeater at Barkway today. –More info about the repeater here –

• CRG AGM (16th November, 2007)

The minutes of the AGM will posted to the website as soon as they are prepared after Friday’s meeting. The big news from the meeting is of course the successful vote to approve the go ahead of GB7PI – the CRG’s newest addition – a D-STAR Repeater. Initially the D-STAR repeater will work only in a local mode as currently there is no internet access at the repeater site, this is required for connection to the D-STAR backbone. Besides having to meet the requirements for backbone connection this will also give the local users the chance to figure out how to operate their equipment as well as the repeater requipment. There will also be pleny of testing and experimenting during this time which will include possible interference issues with not only our equipment but that of other unprotected users of the 70cm band. There were issues raised in the AGM from members south of Cambridge that have very strong telemetry signals being heard on and near our allocated frequencies. These will need to be located and identified to determine if operating on our allocated frequencies will be causing any major issues for these users. More about that in the minutes once they are posted.

• GB3PY gets Echolink (10th November, 2007)

GB3PY now has Echolink running on it in a part-time testing mode.   G4HUN will be hosting the attended Echolink connection to PY and it is expected to run most weekday evenings between 1930hrs and 2300hrs.  There may be some daytime service – users should check the On-line status indicator on the CRG homepage.  The long term plan hasn’t been decided yet, it’s really up to how well it’s used and received and if there are interference problems.  The Echolink node assigned has been It is hoped that people will respect one simple rule, local traffic comes first and mobile traffic ahead of all other, this is normal expected code of conduct on repeaters so there should be no problems in this working.   There is a 2 minute time out on the Echolink connections both for RX and TX.

October 2007

• New UK D-STAR Repeater GB7PI (22nd October, 2007)

Back in 1971 GB3PI run by the Cambridge (PYE) Repeater Group from the Barkway Ridge pioneered FM Repeater operation in the UK. Now 36 years later Barkway Ridge will be at the forefront of the Digital Voice revolution with the licensing of the D-STAR repeater GB7PI. —Continue reading this article –

• GB3PX Antenna (October 10, 2007)

The long and much awaited fix to the antenna system for GB3PX is finally finished. PX is back on the air in it’s full glory. Rob, M0ZPU, was on site today with some riggers to get the antenna changed. So far, one report we have on it’s improvement is from Bob, G1SAA, yesterday took a reading from his house in Histon using his horizontal beam and he was only receiving PX at S3. Today after the fix he’s getting PX 10 over 9.