To all of the members of the greatest ham radio club in existence – the IPRC – you are all killing it with regard to your generosity and donations for the repeater project. We are close to raising $1,500 now, and that puts us well within reach of getting the repeater up and functional in the basic (version 1.0) configuration. We are still not sure whether the amount raised will allow us to explore enhanced options like battery backup power, etc., nor are we sure that we will even have space in the cabinet for such options. More to come on that soon, but the generous outreach from our members and friends will also allow us to put up the repeater with a far better quality of antenna than we expected to be able to afford at the start, which should vastly improve the coverage, efficiency, and longevity of the system. So in short, great job, and thank you for your generosity!
As an update to the project, John has submitted the application to the FCC VFC and CCARC to ask for the frequency pair that we will operate the repeater on. We also met with Doug over the weekend, and he has started ordering and gathering up the hardware components for the system. He is going to build the repeater in a lab environment at his company and get things working, tuned, and tested in the lab before invoicing us for the gear.
So things are moving much more quickly and much more positively than I ever could have expected. Thank you again, and stay tuned for more updates.
73,
Charley
K4NYN
