Limerick Radio Club 70cm Repeater on-air

The new repeater has completed its testing phase and was installed on site in Co. Limerick on the 13th of July. The site is not Keeper Hill.

Paul EI6FE, President of Limerick Radio club had the first QSO with the installers on site while mobile near Shannon. This was more by chance than an inaugural ceremony!

Good 70 centimetre coverage is expected in West Clare,
most of Limerick and parts of East Kerry, Tipperary South Riding and North Cork. Low power "rubber duck" handheld access should be available in Shannon Town and Limerick city. The repeater is permanently linked to Limerick R5 2 metre only. There may be mobile or base station access in Mallow, Blarney, Tralee and Tipperary Town. Please send reports to Mike "ei9feb at eircom dot net".

Within minutes of operation Hugh EI2HI in Bandon was Q5
on 5 Watts base station and EI5HE good signal mobile in
Mallow area. John EI5FOB gave 59+40 from Shannon /
Limerick road and Jackie EI3FU had coverage in 2 metre
blackspots near Castletownroache. Don't forget to wait for the 3rd pip from the 2 metre Repeater when operating on 70 cm or the 2 metre repeater will timeout.

Mike EI9FEB, Brendan EI0CZ and Albert EI9IY assisted the commercial aerial rigger who did an excellent job mounting the Watson 50 about 90 feet up the mast. Fitting the compression N-Connector on the cable end at the repeater took a few minutes and the repeater worked perfectly on first "switch on". WX was smashing with no wind and sharp sunshine. The actual location will be announced in a few weeks, so have fun guessing the QTH and trying to access it! The site is of course a hill top and has both Seefin and Mt. Lienster 70 cm signals S9 on a handheld with rubber duck.

The settings are 433.125 for your receiver and 434.725 MHz on your transmitter (standard RB5, 1.6 MHz plus split) with CTCSS or PLTone of 103.5 Hz. The RB5 repeater is permanently linked to Limerick R5 repeater, which uses a 1750 Hz tone burst to open.

Listening on 2 metres you can tell if a QSO is with a 70cm user as a distinctive "tuning fork" mechanical tone burst will preface every 70cm transmission. 2m to 2m QSO sound as before. Listening on 70cm, a 70cm QSO has no preface, but a tail of three beeps, the first is the 70cm "pip", the second indicates the 2m link is active and the 3rd is the pip from the 2m repeater. It is after a slight pause (in the 2m repeater controller), so wait for it or 2m will "time out". A 2m QSO heard on 70cm simply has the 2m pip at the end of
each over, no 70cm pips.

On "70cm RB5" any DTMF tones are "blanked" by the controller. If you need to send DTMF via the controller
prefix it by "5". If you want to test your DTMF keypad on 70cm, press "# 5" and you will hear the ident in CW.
To echo any keypad DTMF, press "# 8" and it will echo in CW. This feature turns off after about 45 seconds of no carrier.

If emailing a report indicate aerial type, power, QTH and if a handheld, mobile or base station.

Source: Irish Radio Transmitters Society

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