[CALV-ARES] Portable repeaters, do you already have one?

[Eric Christensen]

I was just reading about the amateur radio response[0] to the earthquake in 
Nepal, earlier this year.  There are few hams in the country and it seems that 
many of them lost their radio stations as the buildings in which they were 
located were damaged or destroyed.  Nepal only has a single repeater as well.

Planning for disasters lead many to go crazy (just look at me!).  There are so 
many things that you can plan for and then have them all go wrong by having 
the building holding all the equipment being completely destroyed.  One thing 
I did notice, however, is the repeater[1] that they installed (well before the 
earthquake) that many hams were using.  It's located near the city of 
Kathmandu and is a simple Kenwood V71A.  Input frequency is 434.5 MHz with an 
output of 145.0 MHz.  Wait, you say, that's quite an offset!  Well, yes it is.  
But, by establishing a one-way, cross-band repeater one can easily setup a 
relay station that doesn't require a lot of equipment to fill a gap.  No 
duplexers needed, no fancy repeater, just a dual-band radio that supports 
cross-band repeat (and how many of us already own one?) and an antenna and 
feedline is all that's necessary.

Now is probably as good a time as any to make sure you know how to enable this 
feature, if your radio supports it, and maybe create a cheat sheet so you 
won't have to remember when you need it.

T-MARC doesn't specify frequencies to use for cross-band repeaters but they do 
list simplex frequencies and repeater frequencies[2].  Utilizing a couple of 
simplex frequencies would probably be best (to reduce the possibility of 
interference to a coordinated repeater).

[0] http://www.arrl.org/news/view/amateur-radio-volunteers-in-nepal-india-continue-to-aid-earthquake-response
[1] https://9n7ak.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/nepals-first-repeater-9n1ks-145-000434-500/
[2] http://www.tmarc.org/bandplan.html

73,
Eric W4OTN/3