144.390 APRS digipeaters

W9SM-1, KA9BAB-11

last update 08/24/2008

The W9SM-1 digipeater is located at the Fox 55 tower located in the town of Hewitt, northeast of Wausau.  The radio is a GE Delta SX rewired to work without the control head.  The TNC is a Kantronics KPC3+ running firmware version 8.3.  This APRS system is run into a Wacom WP-639-SP duplexer that is shared with the 145.030 Packet node of W9SM-7.  Then the duplexer is fed into a Comet triband triplexer (2M/220/440) and combined with the 220 repeater and the voting receiver links on 440 , onto one 1 1/4″ hardline coax to run up the tower.  The hardline runs up the tower to approx 600 feet and is connected to another triband diplexer to split the signals out to their respective antennas.  A 1/2″ hardline jumper comes from the triband triplexer to the Telewave antenna which is mounted standing up on the antenna mount at this level.  The 220 repeater antenna is on the same mount, however is hangs down from the mount.  The radio is set to 80 watts out, however after running through the duplexer and a reject cavity and the triband triplexer, there is only about 35 watts out to the antenna.

 10/15/07 – Set the clock on the TNC to the correct time and date.

12/7/07 – Reprogrammed the “uidigi” setting in the TNC to eliminate the wide1-1 setting.  This was causing duplicate packets to be sent out.  Also got the digi running on UPS power.

8/22/08 – Reprogrammed the TNC to a new SSID of -1 from -10 and changed the position packets to show the correct SSID.  Also programmed the beacon text to send out the position of the 147.135 repeater.

 The KA9BAB-11 APRS digi north of Abbotsford is a WVRA/ N9QIP sponsored digi..  This digi and a 147.735 satellite receiver are located on a tower a mile north of Abbotsford on hwy 13 owned by Badger Towers.  This Digi consists of a GE MDX 45 watt radio with a Vectronics TNC running UIDigi firmware.  This radio runs into a TX/RX duplexer (which is shared with the 147.735 receive radio), through a VHF/UHF diplexer, and then up the tower on 7/8″ hardline to another VHF/UHF diplexer and finally to a Celwave PD340 6db gain omni directional antenna at the 160′ level.

6/4/08 – Installed updated UIDigi Eprom in TNC.

Also, check out this link for other digipeaters in Wisconsin that we have helped support.

How to send Winlink messages through the APRS network

For more information on APRS, check out AB9PJ and N9MEA’s APRS page.

Packet and APRS Equipment at the Hewitt (Fox55) tower