6 Meter FM Repeaters

[N0AZZ]

Our local 6m repeater 1 of 6 ran by our club here in SW, MO. is linked to 2 in the Kansas City area so it's well used. The latest venture entered into is a state wide MO. and all the Eastern counties of Kansas from Nebraska to the Oklahoma line into KS about a 100 mi or so.

Our club president is the repeater designer/project manager and repair of the units for the Missouri State Highway Patrol state wide. Also the frequency repeater coordinator for the southern half of MO. I don't think many small clubs like ours has so many repeaters 6/2/222/440/1.2 oh yes I forgot a D-Star also.

[N7GH]

6M repeater operation can be interesting, the coverage is much better than 2M/70cm, but in our area there is only 1 and it is linked with 2 others in the state, so it does give good coverage, but since I didn't support the owner in a local club issue, it seems that our local link goes down frequently when I'm on it.

Just curious how many of you use 6 M FM repeaters. Seams like there would be more interest than there is currently.

Years ago when I worked for a electric utility they use Low Band 48 Mhz state wide repeater network. Coverage was excellent. For example a repeater located in west of Henryetta could work from Tulsa to the north, to Hugo to the south or a radius of over 100 miles. Then they moved to 800 Mhz and had to set repeaters up all over the state.

[K1MAL]

Just curious how many of you use 6 M FM repeaters. Seams like there would be more interest than there is currently.

There are a few here. They are just as much of a ghost town as the 2m repeaters are. I think they get more use as propagation beacons then as actual repeaters.

Years ago when I worked for a electric utility they use Low Band 48 Mhz state wide repeater network. Coverage was excellent. For example a repeater located in west of Henryetta could work from Tulsa to the north, to Hugo to the south or a radius of over 100 miles. Then they moved to 800 Mhz and had to set repeaters up all over the state.

The power and gas co here still use low band (39mhz) and I don't even think they use a repeater. Same for a small town PD near me. I never understood the big push to 800mhz for low traffic systems.

[KC8QMU]

6m FM is a lot of fun, when you can find other folks to operate with......... remember, even if there isnt much in the way of repeaters there is always simplex.... you dont necessarily always NEED repeaters to operate FM..... I regularly monitor 52.525, the national 6m simplex frequency, and not only is it a fun during band openings, you may surprise yourself how well it works as a local band provided you have a decent antenna system......

To me, 6m FM is often an overlooked medium for local comms......

[K0RGR]

I was always impressed with the 6 meter coverage, particularly in urban and suburban settings vs. 2 meter simplex.

I remember one time when a friend of mine had a 2 meter rig in his car, and a Red Cross 47 MHz portable in the front seat - no external antenna for 6. He drove across town, and we never lost him on 47 MHz - even in some freeways that were below ground level, where 2 meters was useless. Ever since then, I've wanted to see more 6 meter FM, but haven't been where there was really anything. Quite a few HT's have 6 meter capability, but I doubt they can match the old hand-carried lowband portables from a few decades ago.

[KC8QMU]

I've noticed something of the same thing, myself. It seems like 6m is more consistent over the areas where I am kind of fringe on 2m, and it always seemed to me that 6m seemed to work down in the valleys and behind hills a little better that 2m.......

[N3AWS]

We have so little FM activity here on the MS Gulf Coast compared to 15 or even 10 years ago even on 2 meters. Some of that, I'm sure, is the aftermath of Katrina.

We used to have a very active 2 m FM ARES/RACES nightly net which I used to operate with my Rat Shack HTX-202 while walking laps on the local exercise track. Now...well, even the exercise track is gone!

[W2TXB]

Yaesu VX7R has 6m capability. I have used it a few times.

...and it works quite well. I had one of those, but now have thew VX-8DR. On the '7R, I had a 6-FM contact with a gentleman in Tennessee one afternoon. I was in the Jeep south of Dryden, NY at the time. Good stuff!

Using the FT-8900R, I regularly use the 53.63 (PL 110.9) repeater at Bristol, NY on my way to and from Ithaca, NY. There is also a 53.05 south of Auburn, NY (PL 71.9) with excellent coverage, and a 53.67 (PL 103.5) just south of Syracuse with (despite a horizontally polarized antenna left over from TV channel 3) that does very well, too.

[K0RGR]

We have so little FM activity here on the MS Gulf Coast compared to 15 or even 10 years ago even on 2 meters. Some of that, I'm sure, is the aftermath of Katrina.

We used to have a very active 2 m FM ARES/RACES nightly net which I used to operate with my Rat Shack HTX-202 while walking laps on the local exercise track. Now...well, even the exercise track is gone!

Maybe the conditions were unusual when I went through there on I-10 recently, but I was hearing repeaters from all around the north end of the Gulf from there. There was a tropical storm forming off the east coast, so I would think tropo was below average at that time, but perhaps not. I checked into a Houston area net from western La. and I was hearing Florida repeaters from Alabama, with a smattering of both from Mississippi. I had heard that it's pretty easy to work across that part of the Gulf, and I'd say I agree based on that one trip. But maybe conditions were bizarre.