52.890-

52.890 repeater

PL 114.8 (2A)

 last update 05/17/2008

The WVRA 52.890 6M repeater is currently located at the Aspirus Wausau Hospital, located near Hwy 51 and Bridge St. in Wausau.  It is comprised of 2 Motorola Micor mobiles.  One is for transmit (52.890)and the other is for receive (51.190).  They are connected together through a SCOM 5K controller.  The transmit and receive radios are run into a Sinclair 8 cavity duplexer which feeds a Comet GP15 tri-band antenna.  The antenna is approximately 40 feet up the tower on top of the hospital penthouse and is feed with Belden 9913 coax for a total height above the ground of about 100 feet.  The GP15 antenna replaced the old Cushcraft Ringo Ranger antenna that had been at the old site and had been up at the hospital since it was moved.  The antenna was for the commercial 42-50 band and never worked as well as we thought it should.  So, on October 7, 2006, it was replaced.

Originally, the WVRA 6M repeater was located at Fred Prehn’s home (WX9W) and was on a frequency of 51.24-51.74.  Back then, the standard split was 500Khz.  Now, Wisconsin goes with 1.7Mhz.  This was an old tube type Motorola Motrac that the club had received through a donation.  It got to the point that every couple of months, we would have to take a trip to Fred’s house and re-tune the PA and reset the crystal for the transmit frequency.  When the move took place from Fred’s house to the hospital, the frequency change was made and the Motrac was replaced with the Micor mobiles.  The move from Fred’s house didn’t really give us any better range, however it improved the access to work on it and we also now have emergency power.  We also have a better partnership with the hospital.

In the future, we hope to replace the aging Micor radios with Motorola Radius M216 radios.  These are basically the same radios that make up the rest of the WVRA systems, except the 220 repeater.  The radio cabinet also houses a satellite receiver and UHF link for 147.135 system.

10/7/06 – Replace the Ringo Ranger antenna with a Comet GP15.