Physical Description of the RMRA System
The RMRA frequencies has been coordinated by Wisconsin Association of Repeaters and authorized by the FCC. Both repeaters are equipped for 24 hour emergency power.
The 146.82 equipment we use presently is a Motorola Radius receiver and Motorola Micor combination exciter/110 watt power amplifier transmitter. The two are combined through a 4 cavity 6" dia. Q-Switch filter Sinclair duplexer.
The feedline is a combination of 1/2" and 7/8" Heliax hardline feeding a Phelps Dodge Super Station Master antenna. The Superstation Master is a 6.2 dB gain antenna, omnidirectional, vertically polarized.
As you may know the 82 system is a wide area repeater with coverage from Coloma to Tomahawk. It's located on Rib Mountain in Marathon County. At 250 feet on the tower, it puts the antenna at 950 feet above average terrain for excellent range.
Autopatch in the Wausau exchange is available to members along with open access to Marathon County Sheriff, emergency services and other agencies.
The RMRA autopatch is completely computerized. When you make a call you are actually dialing all the information into the computer. The computer may regenerate the tones or replace it with a predetermined number.
Two way link to Marshfield is available and used weekly during the Sunday night swap net at 9pm. Following the swapnet is the weekly newsline report. This was carried many years by Marshfield Amateurs but currently is being carried by RMRA.
RMRA has also obtained the use of a second hand ACC RC-850 Controller, which is presently in operation. The controller provides a multitude of new features to the repeater, including autopatch, reverse autopatch, autodial, emergency autodial, paging in several different formats, touch tone pad testing, repeater linking, courtesy tone, synthesized voice ID's, and voice announcements of such information as date, time and temperature.
The membership did vote to enhance the 82 system with remote receivers at the Nov. 1995 meeting. The remote receivers will give better handheld coverage in the outlying areas. The implementation will be gradual due to limited equipment and funding currently.
The 444.3 system is a UHF repeater that is made up of Motorola radios. At this time it has a loaner Connect Systems controller, with PL 114.8. It has auto patch with also two tone paging ability. This system went on the air in December of 1995.
The feedline is standard Belden 9913. The antenna is a dual band Diamond with 10 dB gain.
Repeater users may also access NOAA weather broadcasts through the 82 repeater. This is accomplished via an interface between the repeater and the phone line from Green Bay National Weather office that feeds the audio to the NOAA transmitter located on Rib Mountain.