[CALV-AUXCOMM] Dealing with Unlinked Repeaters

[N5WTA N5WTA]

The dr-1x was notoriously a failure and I was honestly suprised that you guys still had one in service.  Yaesu had a replacement program for that model.  

I have a lot of experience with voip. I could probably set up something on two pi’s that run on ssd’s to avoid failure of flash cards.  I’ll start taking a look at the trigger mechanisms we could use for the initiation and termination of the voip connections.  Doesn’t have to be on sbc but they are small and low power.  

Regards,
Johnathan Ibert

> On Feb 20, 2026, at 10:08 AM, W. Hackett <n3xmz.md at gmail.com> wrote:
> Or we could ditch the Yaesu Junk and install some rock solid  Motorola,
> Kenwood ,  or Icom repeaters.
> 
> just a thought for discussion.
> 
>  Good Ideas last night guys and a good test.  Thank you all for trying the
> diffrent  work arounds .  Ham Radio at its best .
> 
> I may not talk a lot , but I listen.
> 
> 73'
> 
> Bill
> n3xmz
> 
> On Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 8:22 AM Shawn Donley via CALV-ARES <
> calv-ares at mailman.qth.net> wrote:
> 
>> All,
>> 
>> Here's a summary of the ideas for regaining county-wide coverage when our
>> 2M and 70cm repeaters are unlinked.
>> 
>> 1.  Set up a one-way (i.e. not duplex) crossband repeater at a QTH that
>> can hit both the south 70cm repeater and the north 2M repeater.  South
>> stations would use the 70cm repeater.  The crossband would repeat the
>> output of the 70cm repeater (444.950) to the input frequency of the 2M
>> repeater (146.385).  Stations in the south would need to listen to the 2M
>> output (146.985), which should be possible even though they might not be
>> able to hit the 2M input with a good signal. Note(1):  Most radios have
>> provisions for unusual splits, like transmitting on 70cm and listening on
>> 2M.   Note(2):  If you set up a cross band repeater to link to inband
>> repeaters (one on VHF and the other on UHF), AND both repeaters had
>> repeater 'tails' long enough that the cross band repeater could hear, then
>> you would get a continuous cycle, bouncing between the repeaters, that
>> would render the repeaters useless.  We proved this on our net last night.
>> 
>> 2. Have separate nets in the north and south using their respective
>> repeaters and/or simplex.  Both NCS stations capable of hitting both
>> repeaters and act as relays.  This approach could also employ 3# below.
>> 
>> 3. South stations use Echolink into the 2M repeater.
>> 
>> 4. Use our RACES crossband repeater located on the Barstow tower.  It's
>> there to serve as a backup if the LAN between the EOC's and the county
>> towers fail (EOC's use RemoteRigs and that LAN to tie to the radio RF decks
>> at the Barstow tower.  But coverage of the crossband to the south needs to
>> be checked.
>> 
>> 5. Transmit audio from one repeater over a service like Discord.  But
>> Echolink probably easier if the internet is up.
>> 
>> 6. Unless the county has dropped it due to lack of use, we should still
>> have a LAN connection between the Sunderland and Lusby repeaters.  With the
>> appropriate VOIP equipment, we could use this LAN link to add redundancy to
>> the current RF link.  But that doesn't help us in our current situation
>> where the 2M Yaesu DR-1X has failed and replaced by an Icom operating
>> stand-alone (not tied to the Arcom controller and link radios).
>> 
>> N3AE
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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