After over a year of planning and getting materials together, we are happy to announce the new Hutchinson 444.475 repeater is on the air.
After a long week of 100+ degree temperatures, we finally caught a break on Sunday, July 21 and put up the antenna and feedline. Justin (NV8Q), Jordan (K0JWH), and Charles (KB0SQL) assisted with the installation.
The antenna is a Decibel Products DB-420B top mounted, with a centerline height of 205 feet. Coax is Andrew LDF4.5-50A. The repeater is currently a Yaesu DR-1X running an STM32-DVM modem, but this repeater will soon be upgraded to a Motorola MTR2000. Update: The repeater was upgraded to an MTR2000 running the STM32-DVM-MTR2K MMDVM board on July 29. The repeater is on UPS battery backup as well as a 30 KW propane-fueled generator.
We would like to thank Eric (KD0WWX) for his generous donation of the DB420 antenna, the side mount kit, connectors for the LDF4.5, and the UPS backup.
The info page for this repeater is located here.
As this repeater was installed on a commercial tower, we were required to use a professional tower climber. As such, I did incur out-of-pocket expense for the climber. If you use the repeater and are able to donate, please click the donate button below. Thank you for your consideration.
