The
History of the Monroe
County Repeater Association 146.04/64
The very earliest beginnings of what became the Monroe County Repeater
Association (MCRA) can be attributed to students at IU who where members of
K9IU radio club. Bloomington Amateur Radio Club
(BARC) had talked about getting a 2M repeater going but it never really got
past the discussion stage, except that BARC did apply for a repeater license
and had the assigned call of WR9AMO. Several local
hams on 2M were really anxious to get a 2M repeater going and hopefully have
an autopatch on it. Remember
this was back in the days before cell phones, so an autopatch
could be very useful. K9IU had access to the
top of the IU Student Union building and they
were trying to get a 2M repeater going using an old tube type Motoralo 80D that belonged to student Tom Williams
WB9DZS. This was in mid 1973.
It was at this time that some local hams who were not a part of
K9IU got together with the K9IU students and decided to work together as
one in the effort to get a good repeater going.
It was soon decided that for the repeater to be reliable, we needed
a solid state XMTR/RECVR. The money to get a solid state machine, which cost
us $600 was decided to be by a $100 donation by six hams who agreed to stick
their necks out for the advancement of a good 2M repeater.
So the real beginnings of recorded info on MCRA began with this donation
and loosely written articles of association. Those
who donated were to get their $100 back if the repeater was successful in
collecting membership dues. The six donors were
Deon Osman WB9HXN, Tom Hartman K9OK, Richard Landgrebe WB9HXP, Brad Noblet WA8WDQ, Leon
Little N9NX (silent key) and Frank Reid W9MKV (silent key). The unit purchased was a Johnson Fleetcom 527 mobile radio modified for repeater use
by Talley Electronics in Ohio. This unit was used until 1992.
Back in 1973 the FCC had a repeater license application that had
to be filed to obtain a repeater license. This
paper work was completed and accepted by the FCC and the MCRA went on the
air as WR9ADJ at 146.04/64 in October of 1973 from atop the Union Building.
Because
Bloomington
was the only town within about 50 miles of the nearest repeater, MCRA
had dues paying members
not only from Bloomington but the surrounding
towns of Bedford, Martinsville
and Bloomfield.
So the MCRA prospered and the six donors all got their $100 donation back
in about 3 years.
Back in 1973, you couldn’t buy a ready made controller to do what
we needed. So the controller logic for the repeater
was all homebrew out of TTL logic ICs. Frank W9MKV
made the carrier operated relay (COR) and time out timer, Deon WB9HXN made
the audio mixer and Richard WB9HXP made the CW identifier, touch tone decoders,
autopatch control, autopatch
recorder control and telephone line transmitter control.
The autopatch recorder was, at the time,
a FCC requirement to record who the autopatch
call was with. We did this by turning
on a reel to reel recorder and recording about 30 sec when the patch was
controlled off by the user. At this time the
patch user would give a short description of who was called and then his
call sign.
Autopatch was always somewhat problematic
back in the early days. It took a lot of trips
to the repeater site to keep it functioning. There
were no affordable commercial touch tone decoders and the circuit used was
prone to drift in frequency decoding ability. It
was not always easy to get touch tone encoding devices for your own 2M rig
either. As some of you may remember this, back in the days when only the
telephone company had phones. Therefore the tone
encoder from a touch tone phone was a prized possession of any 2M ham.
As I said before, the repeater prospered and it wasn’t long before
the push was on to get a better site for the repeater.
As all 2M hams know, height is very important for the repeater.
Some contact was made
with the Eigenmann housing manager and other IU officials about MCRA being
allowed to operate from the top of Eigenmann. Eigenmann
was still using TV antennas on the roof for the TV distribution to the building.
So, we had to pass an interference to TV test with a transmitted signal on
146.64. Almost all 2M rigs at the time were crystal
locked to just a few channels and would not have a repeater output crystal
in them. But Dwight (WB9TLH), who had passed his
license test but didn’t have his license in hand yet, had a synthesized Clegg
FM27 which could transmit on the 146.64 output freq. ( In the 70’s it took
several weeks to get your license from the FCC after you had already passed
the test. ) This transmitter was used by Frank
W9MKV to test for TV interference. The test passed
and we got IU approval to be on Eigenmann. So
in the summer of 1975, with the help of several hams the repeater was moved
to Eigenmann. With antennas and feedline already in place, we were only off the air
for 3 hours during the move.
Because Eigenmann was still using the tower top for TV antennas,
we used split site for our antennas. The homebrew duplexer we used was not
the best either and the split XMT/REC antennas gave us a little more isolation. We had receive dipoles mounted around the tower and
a Ringo for transmit attached to a roof ladder
that was attached to the building. But in the
summer of 1979 (cable TV had arrived on campus) we were allowed to take down
the tower top TV antennas and put a Phelps Dodge Station Master antenna on
the tower top. We used this antenna until 2003
when we determined it had problems when the wind was strong.
In the early years we operated with a homebrew duplexer made from
3” copper pipe and brass tubing. This was made with the help of some hams
who worked at IU Chemistry and had some connections with the machine shop
there. But in 1977 the homebrew duplexer was replaced
with the best duplexer available then or now. We
purchased a Wacom WP641 Bandpass
Reject duplexer of four 8’ cans. This duplexer
has served us well and is still in operation today.
In the 70’s, the IU phone system was not touch tone compatible, so
when an autopatch was made the access code would
cause the repeater controller to dial a 9 to get an off campus line that
was touch tone compatible. This was done by using
a relay to pulse the telephone line 9 times. It
wasn’t until December of 1981, that we were able to be touch tone only with
no phone line pulser.
The homebrew power supply that Richard WB9HXP had donated was replaced
with an Astron 35A power supply in 1992, which we are still using today.
1992 was also a good year for MCRA upgrades as we replaced
the first solid state repeater, which was purchased in 1974. It was replaced with an ICOM IC RP 1520 commercial
rated repeater, which is still in use today. This
was about the same time that all the homebrew controller logic was replaced
by a S-COM 7K commercial repeater controller.
We had some problems with the ICOM repeater back several
years ago but it has been reliable since then. We
have a new Kenwood TKR 750 repeater in the equipment rack as a stand-by replacement
if needed.
A new equipment rack that is bigger than the original was obtained
free of charge by Richard WB9HXP in 1999. This
allowed us to get the duplexer in the rack with the rest of the repeater.
Over the years, the tower has been repainted twice and the guy wires
replaced twice, all volunteer work by various local hams.
The backup battery has been replaced several times in the last 30
years. The Station Master antenna was replaced
with a narrow band version, a Celwave P200 in
2002. It had internal intermittent problems within
a year and was replaced with Decibel Products DB224E exposed four bay stacked
dipoles in 2003. New 7/8 inch hardline was installed when the stacked dipoles were
put into operation. We thank Mike KB9SGN for the
help with the antenna and hardline installation. A new controller, an Arcom
RC210, is presently being set up by Dwight WB9TLH to someday replace the
aging S-COM 7K controller.
MCRA has been a member
of the Indiana Repeater Council since 1974.
We want to thank those
who have taken on the job of being treasurer for MCRA.
Those who have done this thankless job are Tom K9OK, Richard WB9HXP,
Brian N9LKT, and John N9TFS our present treasurer.
Only recently has the
repeater ID changed from K9OK to WB9TLH as Tom K9OK no longer lives in the
area and the new trustee is Dwight WB9TLH.
One question that may come to mind is, when are the MCRA meetings? There are no scheduled meetings but when things need
to be done, it is usually Dwight WB9TLH and Richard WB9HXP who get things
started and then with the help of other hams, get the job done. We are always open for help and suggestions from other
hams and it would have been impossible for 04/64 to be where it is today,
if is hadn’t been for the help of many hams over the past 30+ years.
This history of MCRA was compiled by Richard Landgrebe WB9HXP with
info taken from the pages of the repeater log book.
April 2005
Some MCRA WB9TLH 146.04/64
Repeater site info
Repeater site is atop
Eigenmann Hall at 10th and Union Streets in Bloomington, IN.
The elevation at the front
door is 825 ft. ASL.
The main building is 14
stories at 154 ft.
On the roof of the 14th
story is a 22 ft. high elevator/utilities building that is all metal.
The repeater is inside
this building. On top of the metal building is
a 30 ft. tower on which the stacked dipoles are mounted at the top.
This all added together
puts the top tip of the antenna at about 226 ft. above the ground, or 825
ft. plus 226 ft. = 1051 ft. ASL.