Friday, December 14, 2012

Repeaters of the Utah Amateur Radio Club

The 146.020 receive antenna at
Farnsworth Peak, west of Salt
Lake City, Utah
The Utah Amateur Radio Club supports three repeaters in the Salt Lake City area:
  • 146.620 on Farnsworth Peak, about 18 miles (29km) southwest of Salt Lake City at about 9000 feet (2740 meters).
  • 146.620 on Scott's Hill near Brighton Utah, about 17 miles (28km) southeast of Salt Lake City near the top of Big Cottonwood Canyon at an elevation of about 10000 feet (3050 meters).
  • 146.760 on Lake Mountain about 12 miles (19km) west of Orem, Utah on the west side of Utah Lake at an elevation of approximately 7600 feet (2320 meters).
 None of the above repeaters require subaudible tone for access. 

The 146.620 repeater system:

The two 146.620 repeaters operate as one repeater.  Using simulcasting transmitters allows minimal interference between the two repeaters in overlap areas and the voting receiver system automatically selects the best signal coming from the system's several receivers.  The end result is that the coverage of these two repeaters is greater than the sum of its parts!

For a typical 50 watt mobile installation, the 146.620 repeater system provides coverage west of Wendover, Nevada on Interstate 80 to a bit east of Evanston, Wyoming and a bit past the Idaho border on Interstates 15 and 84 and to approximately Santaquin, Utah to the south.  The '62 system also provides coverage in the Heber and Park city areas as well as parts of Cache and Morgan valleys - and a few other surprising, remote locations throughout northern Utah, southern Idaho, southwest Wyoming and eastern Nevada!

You may read more about the 146.620 repeater system at the 146.620 repeater system page on the Utah Amateur Radio Club web site.

The 146.760 repeater:

The 146.760 repeater covers mainly in the Utah County area (from Nephi to to Provo to Alpine) and surrounding communities as well as into the Salt Lake City are and to a lesser degree, points north into Davis, Weber and Box Elder counties.  Due to geography, there are a few places in the Salt Lake area and northwards that are "shadowed" and do not get good coverage of this repeater.

For a typical 50 watt mobile installation, coverage is possible from well south of Utah county (near Levan, Utah) along Interstate 15 to Brigham City to the north.  It also has good coverage into the southern portion of the Tooele valley as well as some areas in the west desert in Tooele and Juab counties.  Due to geography, its coverage east of the Wasatch range is a bit spotty.

The 146.760 repeater is linked to the internet via IRLP (node 3352) as well as Echolink (node #703269).

You may read more about the 146.760 repeater at the 146.760 repeater page on the Utah Amateur Radio Club web site.

For more information, be sure to visit the Utah Amateur Radio Club web site!

About the Utah Amateur Radio Club

Welcome to the Utah Amateur Radio Club blog page!

The Utah Amateur Radio Club is the oldest extant radio club in Utah and in his book 200 Meters and Down, Clinton Desoto describes a radio club in Salt Lake City as the very first organization of its kind - that was formed in 1909. and it is possible that UARC's roots go back to that organization.

However, the records extant show that the Utah Amateur Radio Club was formed under its current name in 1927 and the club still has records containing the minutes of the first meeting. UARC became affiliated with the American Radio Relay League (UARC is #1602) the following year.

The Utah Amateur Radio Club holds monthly club meetings (except in July and August), typically on the second Thursday of the month starting at 7:30 PM.  These meetings are usually held in the Warnock Engineering Building on the campus of the University of Utah.

UARC also holds an information net on Sunday evenings starting at 9 PM on the 146.620 repeater system.  This net disseminates the week's "Amateur Radio Newline" news report as well as announcements related to the Utah Amateur Radio club, license testing as well as notable events and information about other local radio clubs.  At the end of the net is a question/answer session where one may pose technical or informational questions to the host of that portion of the net.

Please visit the Utah Amateur Radio club's main web site at:  http://www.utaharc.org