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The UARC 146.62 Repeater
Scott's Hill |
An aerial view of Scott's Hill from March, 1999.
The UARC building is the second from the left.
(Photo courtesy of Norm Anderson, KC7YCA)
Updated October 19,
2009
The long-awaited Scott's Hill and Farnsworth synchronous and voting repeater system is now online!
This system combines the coverage of the Farnsworth Peak repeater with that of Scott's Hill, acting as a single repeater! The two repeaters are now linked and operating on the same frequency so you can seamlessly go between Farnsworth and Scott's Hill coverage without having to change frequency!
More details on this system will soon follow.
To look at a full 360 degree panoramic view from atop the
UARC
building, click here!
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The Plan:
UARC, the Utah Amateur Radio Club has implemented a linked repeater system to increase coverage of the 146.62 repeater consisting of two sites: The long-established 146.62 repeater atop Farnsworth Peak, west of Salt Lake City and the new 146.62 repeater on Scott's Hill above Brighton, near Guardsman Pass.
The Scott's Hill site can see northeast into Wyoming, to the east
into the Uinta
mountains, and southeast toward Duchesne and provides coverage
into
Evanston, Heber, Park City, and many of the other high-valley
communities
in northeastern Utah. It should also provide better coverage into Cache
valley than the current Farnsworth Peak site alone.
The building on this site
consists of a cinder-block and concrete slab building that had been
abandoned
for 20-plus years. When the project was started, the first order of
business was to secure the
building,
perform repairs and aesthetic improvements and this work was completed
almost immediately after the rights to the building were obtained.
For reports on the initial work to improve the building, see the Scott's Hill 1998 work party and the 1999 work party pages
Little steps...
Progress has been made in fits and starts since 1997, but work is
finally nearing completion.
The plan was to have installed and operating, during the winter of 2005 and into 2006, a repeater on-site using the 145.17 (minus offset) repeater pair. This repeater, using carrier squelch (that is, no tone) would use the same equipment that was to be used for its ultimate reconfiguration as one of a pair of repeaters operating synchronously with and linked to the Farnsworth 146.62 repeater and during its operation we could determine the extent of the coverage of this site. Unfortunately, unforseen circumstances delayed final testing and installation until after the site became snowed-in and inaccessible via normal 4-wheeled vehicles.
In the summer of 2009, work resumed in earnest on the project.
This work party, which occurred on August 29, saw the installation of
the transmit and receive 2-meter antennas plus the installation of a
70cm Yagi for the link to Farnsworth. This trip was followed by
another trip to Farnsworth on September 9 to make initial preparation
for the installation of the gear at that site in the existing 146.62
rack.
On October 10, 2009, another work party was assembled and
the radio gear was installed at Scott's Hill for the first time - using
much of the same gear that was to be used on the 145.17 test
pair.
Initial testing with the repeater in a "stand-alone" mode (that is,
Scott's Hill acting as an independant 146.62 repeater) showed that its
coverage was more-or-less as expected, including the Park City and
Heber.
Over the "3-day weekend" of October 17-19 the rest of the gear was
installed at Farnsworth Peak, completing the system and making it fully
operational. As with any new system - especially one as
complicated as this one - we expect that some bugs will pop up and
tweaks will be required. We encourage reports from those using
the system - especially in those areas east of the Wasatch where the
coverage will be via Scott's exclusively.
The Scott's Hill portion of the system provides coverage of the Park
City area and the
Heber
valleys, and should have good coverage of many areas in the south and
west
slopes of the Uinta ranges. Additionally, it is expected to
provide
coverage
into Southwest Wyoming and along the I-80 corridor to Evanston Wyoming,
with
spotty coverage
continuing
about halfway to Green River, Wyoming.
The
Scotts_Hill 145.27 repeater
- A description of the 145.27- repeater, also on
Scott's
Hill in a nearby building, with more pictures.