[SMCARA] 64 repeater

[Clarke, Tom AIR4.0P NATOPS]

Hi Folks,

It has been reported that some have noticed a slight reduction in coverage for the K3HKI repeater.  That may be the case as we have changed the duplexer since installing the Kenwood repeater.  After the GE repeater suffered a significant sensitivity loss, it was returned to its owner.  That included the duplexer, which is that little bit of magic that allows a transmitter and receiver to simultaneously share one antenna and feedline. We replaced the returned duplexer with the original club owned duplexer used previously on the Motorola and taken out of service a few years ago.

The two duplexers use a different approach to accomplishing this; the uber-geek reason is that one is a Band Pass, Band-Reject type and the other is a Notch Type and the one in use now has about a 0.5 dB greater loss.  That means less signal into the receiver, ergo less range.

We do have a preamplifier to be installed that may offset the additional loss and hopefully will improve things.

Hope to see you all at the dinner on Saturday afternoon!

73 Tom/W4OKW