Chuck Scott – N8DNX
Ham Radio in Northern Michigan
Repeaters
The Stutsmanville Repeater Complex, located North of Harbor Springs Michigan, is the home of four Ham Radio repeaters serving Northern Lower and Eastern Upper Michigan.
The view at the right is the main repeater room built by the Straits Area Amateur Radio Club and home to the W8GQN SAARC club repeater and the N8DNX UHF repeater and the W8CCE UHF D-Star repeater and gateway. The WB8DEL 220 repeater is located in the main transmitter room right next door. The W8GQN, N8DNX repeaters run on a common controller and share a 1.6 to 450 MHz remote base, weather radio, and IRLP node 4450. The W8CCE D-Star repeater is functionally separate but shares antennas with the N8NDX analog UHF repeater.
Location
| Description | 1.5 Miles S.W. of Stutsmanville, MI |
| LAT: | 45 deg 30 min North |
| LON | 85 deg 1 min West |
| Ground Elevation | 1,250 ASL |
W8GQN SAARC Club Repeater
The W8GQN wide-area repeater is owned and operated by the Staits Area Amateur Radio Club. Incoming IRLP connections come up on this repeater.
| Frequency | 146.680 MHz -.6 MHz offset |
| PL Tone | RX 110.9 Hz (PL bypass code *00) TX 123.0 Hz (set your decode PL to this freq.) |
| Repeater | Kenwood TKR-750 |
| Amplifier | TE Systems 170W continuous |
| Final Power | 150 Watts (currently 80W till this spring) |
| Duplexer | 6 Can Custom |
| Transmission Line | 450′ 7/8" Heliax |
| Line sharing | TX/RX Crossband Coupler (shares with UHF TX) |
| Antenna | Sinclair 4 Bay Dipole Array at 405′, HAAT 748′ |
| Power to Antenna | 62.9 Watts (at 150W ouput) |
| ERP | 250 Watts (at 150W output) |
N8DNX Repeater – CCECPSCO RACES
The N8DNX UHF repeater is owned and operated by N8DNX and provides wide-area coverage. Using separate receive and transmitt antennas and a receive preamp up at the receive antenna, this system provides HT coverage upwards of 50 miles and mobile coverage for nearly 100 miles.
| Frequency | 442.375 MHz +5 MHz offset |
| PL Tone | Transmit 107.2, Receive 107.2 when necessary |
| Final Power | 250 Watts |
| Repeater | Vertex VXR-5000 |
| Power Amplifier | TPL |
| Receive Preamp | Angle Linear High-Level Redundant Pair Preamp |
| Duplexer | (none) |
| Transmit Line | Shared with W8GQN repeater |
| Receive Line | 550′ LMR-400 |
| Transmit Antenna | Sinclair 8 Bay Dipole array at 407′, HAAT 785′ |
| Receive Antenna | Sinclair 8 Bay Dipole array at 477′, HAAT 856′ |
| Power to Antenna | 55.9 Watts |
| ERP | 444.2 Watts |
W8CCE-B D-Star Repeater – CCECPSCO RACES
The W8CCE-B D-Star Repeater has now replaced the KO8P analog repeater. It uses the same transmission lines and antennas as its predecessor and therefore has similar coverage.
We are currently looking for a power amplifier for this repeater. Once that is in, we should have a good working model for a very high-profile D-Star system.
More information on this repeater is available at the following URL.
http://www.w8cce.org/dstar/index.html
| Frequency | 443.375 MHz +5 MHz offset |
| Final Power | 20 Watts |
| Repeater | Icom Dstar controller and VHF module |
| Power to Antenna | 7.5 Watts |
| ERP | 59.5 Watts |
Controller
This controller is used by the W8GQN and N8DNX repeaters. Having these two systems tied together this way permits the use of most of the controller features and accessories from either one of them and linking between these systems as desired.
| Controller | Link Communications RLC-3 |
| Port 1 | N8DNX Repeater |
| Port 2 | W8GQN Repeater |
| Port 3 | HF Remote Base Radio |
| Port 4 | VHF/UHF Remote Base Radio |
| Port 5 | (unused) |
| Port 6 | Weather Alert Radio |
| Port 7 | IRLP Node Computer |
| Port 8 | (unused) |
Remote Base
This remote base system covers the 1.6 through 440 MHz Ham bands, all modes, as well as general coverage HF receive. Having this remote base attached directly to the same controller permits full HF, VHF, and UHF remote operations (where permitted) from all three repeaters. In addition, this configuration permits direct linking, as desired, to most other repeaters within aproximately a 100 mile radius.
| HF Radio | Kenwood TS-450S, 160-10 Meter Transceiver |
| VHF/UHF Radio | Yaesu FT-736R, all bands from 50 Mhz to 450 MHz |
| HF Antenna | Hy-Gain 18HT |
| 6 Meter Antenna | Single folded dipole at 50′ |
| VHF/UHF Antenna | Diamond X3200A |
IRLP Node 4450
The IRLP node permits linking, via the Internet, to more than 1,000 other repeater and simplex radio systems around the world. More information about IRLP is available at http://www.irlp.net.
WB8DEL Repeater
The WB8DEL 224.560 repeater is also located at this site, but is very much separate from the other three repeaters. Del, who owns and operates this machine, maintains the broadcast systems here and at other sites. He also has an envious location for his repeater antenna right at the top of the tower, above the FM broadcast array. Needless to say, it covers the area very well — often outperforming the other repeaters at this site. He’s also taken his broadcast background to heart producing interesting ID announcements for this repeater Certainly a system to check out if you’re in the area with 220 equipment.