I really ned help here.
 

Ok you antenna gurus, I have a funny problem. Whenever I try to reach a
certain repeater on 2 meters, (146.700-), I can't do it. The repeater is
about 25 miles from here. I have an outside antenna with 6 db of gain
similar to a Diamond, a new coax and 50 watts of power. The base of the
antenna is about 15 feet fron the ground and the repeater doesn't need a
tone. What's funny is that I can reach repeaters that are a lot farther than
this one but not on the the same bearing. A friend of mine who lives about 3
miles from here has no problem whatsoever in reaching the same repeater.
Some hams who live farther from the repeater than me can use it with no
problem. The only difference I can spot is that there are a few houses
around mine that are 4 stories high while mine is a bungalow. Could this be
the reason or am I missing something here? Thanks for any help.

VE2CJW, Mike.

I really ned help here.
 

On 2006-07-06, VE2CJW wrote:
Ok you antenna gurus, I have a funny problem. Whenever I try to reach a
certain repeater on 2 meters, (146.700-), I can't do it. The repeater is
about 25 miles from here.

Have you gone to look at the repeater? Maybe the terrain creates a null
in your direction.

--
Ben Jackson AD7GD

http://www.ben.com/

I really ned help here.
 

VE2CJW wrote:
Ok you antenna gurus, I have a funny problem. Whenever I try to reach a
certain repeater on 2 meters, (146.700-), I can't do it. The repeater is
about 25 miles from here.

If you were where your antenna is, could you see the
repeater antenna through a telescope on a clear day?
If not, what is obstructing your vision?
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

I really ned help here.
 

From the antenna, I can't see the repeater because of a couple of condos
that are much higher than my house. That's probably the problem because I
can reach a few repeaters about 4 times farther but not in the same
direction. I wonder how high my antenna should be to solve my problem. I
also wonder if more power, say 150 watts would change anything. I am open to
suggestions.
VE2CJW.

"Cecil Moore" a écrit dans le message de news:
.. .
VE2CJW wrote:
Ok you antenna gurus, I have a funny problem. Whenever I try to reach a
certain repeater on 2 meters, (146.700-), I can't do it. The repeater is
about 25 miles from here.

If you were where your antenna is, could you see the
repeater antenna through a telescope on a clear day?
If not, what is obstructing your vision?
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

I really ned help here.
 

On Wed, 5 Jul 2006 22:23:17 -0400, "VE2CJW"
wrote:

Ok you antenna gurus, I have a funny problem. Whenever I try to reach a
certain repeater on 2 meters, (146.700-), I can't do it. The repeater is
about 25 miles from here. I have an outside antenna with 6 db of gain
similar to a Diamond, a new coax and 50 watts of power. The base of the
antenna is about 15 feet fron the ground and the repeater doesn't need a
tone. What's funny is that I can reach repeaters that are a lot farther than
this one but not on the the same bearing. A friend of mine who lives about 3
miles from here has no problem whatsoever in reaching the same repeater.
Some hams who live farther from the repeater than me can use it with no
problem. The only difference I can spot is that there are a few houses
around mine that are 4 stories high while mine is a bungalow. Could this be
the reason or am I missing something here? Thanks for any help.

VE2CJW, Mike.


Mike, in all of this, did you actually say whether you can hear the
repeater (when others key it up)?

Owen
--

I really ned help here.
 

hi mike,

perhaps the repeater antenna has a null towards your qth
or the repeater has a non standard input frequency.

can you tell us the callsign for the repeater ?

sometimes this will be by design so one repeater will
not key up another on the same split if band is open
in the same general direction.

73
nunzio

I really ned help here.
 

In article ,
VE2CJW wrote:

From the antenna, I can't see the repeater because of a couple of condos
that are much higher than my house. That's probably the problem because I
can reach a few repeaters about 4 times farther but not in the same
direction. I wonder how high my antenna should be to solve my problem. I
also wonder if more power, say 150 watts would change anything. I am open to
suggestions.

You may be running into a multipath-nulling problem.

I had a similar situation here at my house a few months ago. One of
the local repeaters is located about 5 miles away, with its antenna on
top of a 7-story hospital building. My antenna is a copper-pipe
J-pole, about 20' off of the ground (8' above a 12' roof).

There is an industrial/office building about 50' high, smack-dab
between me and the repeater. It's located around 100' from my antenna.

I found myself unable to open the repeater and get acceptable quieting
even with 50 watts of power. Another local repeater (further away)
gives me an S9+10 reading or better with only 5 watts.

I wandered around on my roof with an HT and a rubbber duck, while
another local ham transmitted through the repeater. I found that
there were places in which my HT received a perfectly good signal from
the repeater, and others where it dropped down pretty far into the
noise.

What I concluded was that my signal path to the repeater was really
messy. There was no direct line of sight, but multiple indirect
paths... knife-edge diffraction from the top of the office building,
with reflections off of numerous nearby trees and houses. By chance,
I had placed my J-pole in a spot where the various indirect-signal
paths summed up to a deep null on the repeater input frequency. When
I transmitted, the power ended up going in many directions, but none
ended up at the repeater :-(

I moved the antenna mast a few feet along the house wall and tried
again... and opened the repeater with acceptable quieting with only 10
watts. Problem solved.

So, I'd say that the brute-force way for you to solve your problem is
to raise your antenna until it clears the roofline of the condos and
has a direct line-of-sight to the repeater. If you do that, you can
probably open that repeater acceptably with only 5 - 10 watts even
using an omnidirectional vertical antenna - less if you aim a gain
antenna towards the repeater.

The subtle way, not requiring a huge mast, is for you to experiment
with moving the antenna around, both from side to side and in the
direction towards which it's pointing. You may find that moving it
places it in a spot where the reflections and diffractions work in
your favor (waveform reinforcement) rather than against you
(cancellation). You may also find that pointing it _away_ from the
repeater, towards some tall building or hill which is located in the
line of site of the repeater, will give you an acceptable (albeit
indirect) path.

You can do some of this testing by simply listening to the repeater
while other people are using it, but the fine-tuning will probably
requiring transmitting - the cancellation and reinforcement path
"sweet spots" can be different in the two directions, due to the
different wavelengths of the repeater input and output signals.

I really ned help here.
 

It could be at the repeater, or it could be at your end.

Can you HEAR the repeater? If so, how well?

I really ned help here.
 

I can hear the repeater very well, in fact, it comes in at S9+ all the time.
I noticed that my SWR is around 2.5, I wonder what can cause this.

Mike.

a écrit dans le message de news:
...
It could be at the repeater, or it could be at your end.

Can you HEAR the repeater? If so, how well?

I really ned help here.
 

Try using another VERTICAL POLARIZED antenna and mount it a few feet from
the first!

"VE2CJW" wrote in message
...
I can hear the repeater very well, in fact, it comes in at S9+ all the
time. I noticed that my SWR is around 2.5, I wonder what can cause this.

Mike.

a écrit dans le message de news:
...
It could be at the repeater, or it could be at your end.

Can you HEAR the repeater? If so, how well?

I really ned help here.
 

VE2CJW wrote:
(top posting fixed)
"Cecil Moore" a écrit dans le message de news:
.. .

VE2CJW wrote:

Ok you antenna gurus, I have a funny problem. Whenever I try to reach a
certain repeater on 2 meters, (146.700-), I can't do it. The repeater is
about 25 miles from here.

If you were where your antenna is, could you see the
repeater antenna through a telescope on a clear day?
If not, what is obstructing your vision?
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

From the antenna, I can't see the repeater because of a couple of
condos that are much higher than my house. That's probably the
problem because I can reach a few repeaters about 4 times farther but
not in the same direction. I wonder how high my antenna should be to
solve my problem. I also wonder if more power, say 150 watts would
change anything. I am open to suggestions.
VE2CJW.

Can the repeater reach _you_? If not, no amount of power will help you
receive it. If you're almost making it then yes, more power may make a
difference. You're only talking about a 3dB increase from 50W to 150W,
though, I'd expect that if it helps at all it'll just get you to the
stage where you're cutting in and out instead of not hitting the thing
at all.

How high is the terrain where you live? I'd expect 2 meters to get
through (or around) a condo OK, but a hill between you and there would
certainly kill the signal. If the condos weren't there would you be
able to see the repeater?

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Posting from Google? See http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/

"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" came out in April.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html

I really ned help here.
 

Verify that you are really dialed into the proper frequency. It is
very easy to select the wrong offset or plus/minus 5khz.

The high swr is likely causing the transmitter to "safety" itself by
reducing power. Verify that this coax is in fact connected and that it
is not shorted somewhere. It sounds a lot like what happens when I
plug the wrong coax into my transmitter!

Coax problems usually happen at the connectors.

John, W8CCW
On Thu, 6 Jul 2006 10:33:40 -0400, "VE2CJW"
wrote:

I can hear the repeater very well, in fact, it comes in at S9+ all the time.
I noticed that my SWR is around 2.5, I wonder what can cause this.

Mike.

a écrit dans le message de news:
. com...
It could be at the repeater, or it could be at your end.

Can you HEAR the repeater? If so, how well?


John Ferrell W8CCW

I really ned help here.
 

On Thu, 06 Jul 2006 09:45:51 -0700, Tim Wescott
wrote:

VE2CJW wrote:
(top posting fixed)
"Cecil Moore" a écrit dans le message de news:
.. .

VE2CJW wrote:

Ok you antenna gurus, I have a funny problem. Whenever I try to reach a
certain repeater on 2 meters, (146.700-), I can't do it. The repeater is
about 25 miles from here.

If you were where your antenna is, could you see the
repeater antenna through a telescope on a clear day?
If not, what is obstructing your vision?
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

From the antenna, I can't see the repeater because of a couple of
condos that are much higher than my house. That's probably the
problem because I can reach a few repeaters about 4 times farther but
not in the same direction. I wonder how high my antenna should be to
solve my problem. I also wonder if more power, say 150 watts would
change anything. I am open to suggestions.
VE2CJW.

Can the repeater reach _you_? If not, no amount of power will help you
receive it. If you're almost making it then yes, more power may make a
difference. You're only talking about a 3dB increase from 50W to 150W,
I think you mean a ~5dB increase, Tim (pedant mode off) but with an FM
repeater a few dB can make a huge difference.

Pete

I really ned help here.
 

"VE2CJW" wrote in message
...
I can hear the repeater very well, in fact, it comes in at S9+ all the
time. I noticed that my SWR is around 2.5, I wonder what can cause this.

Mike.


If the repeater is S9+ on your receiver, unless the repeater is runing very
high power (300 watts +)
you should be able to hit it with a few watts. Sounds as if you need to
take your rig to another place and see if you can hit the repeater at all.
Maybe the repeater needs a subaudio tone to activate it and you do not have
it programmed in ?
You did not say what kind or how much coax you have between the rig and the
antenna. A SWR of 2.5 seems way too much. If you had about 100 feet (30
meters) of rg-8 and a very bad antenna, the swr would not be too much
higher.

Some new facts and maybe an explanation.
 

In fact, I found out that I can hit the repeater sometimes if I let the
carrier run for at least 5 seconds. I did reach it this afternoon every time
I tried but can't reach it tonight. It is as if not enough power is reaching
the repeater, probably because of distortion caused by the large condos in
the path, that would explain the long time needed for the repeater to react
to my signal. The antenna I am using is a Quantum QT-6A dual band with 6 db
of gain on 2 meters. My coax is 60 feet of RG-8X mini foam ( I think this is
too small ) and the radio is a Kenwood TM-G707A with 50 watts out on 2
meters. The repeater does not use a tone and is on a mountain at a height of
about 1000 feet, it is 24.5 miles from here and I am 60 feet above sea
level. The SWR was measured with a meter that is supposed to be unreliable
on 2 meters so I don't trust the reading, anyway, my radio seems to find the
antenna acceptable. The thing that proves that my setup is working right is
that I can reach a couple of repeaters that are more than 70 miles from here
but not on the same heading as the problematic one. I think I will get my
antenna higher and maybe move it a few feet from where it is. Thanks for
your help and suggestions guys, it is much appreciated.

VE2CJW, Mike.

"Ralph Mowery" a écrit dans le message de news:
. ..

"VE2CJW" wrote in message
...
I can hear the repeater very well, in fact, it comes in at S9+ all the
time. I noticed that my SWR is around 2.5, I wonder what can cause this.

Mike.


If the repeater is S9+ on your receiver, unless the repeater is runing
very high power (300 watts +)
you should be able to hit it with a few watts. Sounds as if you need to
take your rig to another place and see if you can hit the repeater at all.
Maybe the repeater needs a subaudio tone to activate it and you do not
have it programmed in ?
You did not say what kind or how much coax you have between the rig and
the antenna. A SWR of 2.5 seems way too much. If you had about 100 feet
(30 meters) of rg-8 and a very bad antenna, the swr would not be too much
higher.

Some new facts and maybe an explanation.
 

"VE2CJW" wrote in
:

In fact, I found out that I can hit the repeater sometimes if I let
the carrier run for at least 5 seconds. I did reach it this afternoon
every time I tried but can't reach it tonight. It is as if not enough
power is reaching the repeater, probably because of distortion caused
by the large condos in the path, that would explain the long time
needed for the repeater to react to my signal. The antenna I am using
is a Quantum QT-6A dual band with 6 db of gain on 2 meters. My coax is
60 feet of RG-8X mini foam ( I think this is too small ) and the radio
is a Kenwood TM-G707A with 50 watts out on 2 meters. The repeater does
not use a tone and is on a mountain at a height of about 1000 feet, it
is 24.5 miles from here and I am 60 feet above sea level. The SWR was
measured with a meter that is supposed to be unreliable on 2 meters so
I don't trust the reading, anyway, my radio seems to find the antenna
acceptable. The thing that proves that my setup is working right is
that I can reach a couple of repeaters that are more than 70 miles
from here but not on the same heading as the problematic one. I think
I will get my antenna higher and maybe move it a few feet from where
it is. Thanks for your help and suggestions guys, it is much
appreciated.

VE2CJW, Mike.

"Ralph Mowery" a écrit dans le message de
news: . ..

"VE2CJW" wrote in message
...
I can hear the repeater very well, in fact, it comes in at S9+ all
the time. I noticed that my SWR is around 2.5, I wonder what can
cause this.

Mike.


If the repeater is S9+ on your receiver, unless the repeater is
runing very high power (300 watts +)
you should be able to hit it with a few watts. Sounds as if you need
to take your rig to another place and see if you can hit the repeater
at all. Maybe the repeater needs a subaudio tone to activate it and
you do not have it programmed in ?
You did not say what kind or how much coax you have between the rig
and the antenna. A SWR of 2.5 seems way too much. If you had about
100 feet (30 meters) of rg-8 and a very bad antenna, the swr would
not be too much higher.

2.5 to 1 measured at the transceiver is an enormous SWR. If it were
INFINITE at the antenna end, you'd still only get 3.2 to 1 or so at the
end of 60 feet of RG8X. Replacing that coax with LMR400 or, better yet,
heliax would, the problem is with the antenna, give you a much higher
SWR.

The trick is to find some way to measure the SWR at the antenna. If it
is atrociously high, then you have an antenna problem (something is
broken or not connected properly). Measuring SWR at the transceiver on
VHF is almost useles unless the coax run is very short or very low loss.

60 feet of RG8X will only transmit about 53 percent of your signal
anyway. The rest goes to heating the coax. If the SWR at the
transceiver end is 2.5, it's probably well over 10 at the antenna, which
means you're probably not getting more than 1% of your folded back signal
out into space.

If it was mine, I'd bring the antenna down and test it at ground level
until I got it taking power properly. If you can borrow an analyzer,
even an MFJ 259b and measure the antenna directly at its terminal, that
will help you see what the antenna is doing.

--
Dave Oldridge+
ICQ 1800667

I really ned help here.
 

On Thu, 6 Jul 2006 10:33:40 -0400, "VE2CJW"
wrote:

I can hear the repeater very well, in fact, it comes in at S9+ all the time.

Ok, finally, that is an important observation. Don't forget the S
meters on FM radios are not usually calibrated to the popular S9=50uV,
more like 10uV fsd. That aside, the repeater should be workable if you
address the issues below. (You have indicated in another post that you
can key it up with a long carrier burst, so that clears away access
tone issues, however some repeaters may use the Motorola smart mute
idea where the carrier squelch is set at a relatively higher level
that that which will open the CTCSS.)

Over here, repeaters are not always balanced in terms of rx and tx,
they are usually designed to be a little easier for mobiles to hear
because of the higher noise environment, so it may under normal
conditions hear you a little poorer than you hear it if you are
running ~25W. Is that the practice in Canada?

I noticed that my SWR is around 2.5, I wonder what can cause this.

Firstly, because of the inherently higher loss of coax (I assume coax)
at 2m, you can not usually afford high VSWR on most practical coax
runs. As an indication, most commercial antennas intended for 50 ohms
coax connection would specify a max VSWR of 1.5 or less.

Secondly, the VSWR at the antenna end of the line is even higher, and
you wouldn't normally be using an antenna that would exhibit such a
high VSWR if it were operating properly, so it is a sign that the
antenna / feedline system has a problem.

Thirdly, standing waves set up in space around your antenna as a
result of the interference of waves arriving by different paths. A
similar effect occurs on transmit. It is possible that your antenna is
located in one of these nulls, and moving even slightly might make a
large change. If that is happening you need to find a sweet spot that
works for both transmit and receive on that frequency without messing
up operation with other repeaters on other frequencies.

You could choose to play with the third issue, but your antenna /
feedline has a problem that should be attended to as a priority,
regardless of whether you trick your way into the repeater.

Owen
--

Some new facts and maybe an explanation.
 

On Thu, 6 Jul 2006 21:46:39 -0400, "VE2CJW"
wrote:

to my signal. The antenna I am using is a Quantum QT-6A dual band with 6 db
of gain on 2 meters. My coax is 60 feet of RG-8X mini foam ( I think this is
too small ) and the radio is a Kenwood TM-G707A with 50 watts out on 2
meters. The repeater does not use a tone and is on a mountain at a height of

If the VSWR at the tx end of your line is 2.5, it is likely to be
around 4 at the antenna if the line is in good condition. That antenna
cannot be designed to be such a bad match, so antenna and/or line have
a fault.

Of your 50 watts, less than half is reaching the antenna right now,
whereas if the antenna had a VSWR 1.5, you would get about 60% to the
antenna. Is that OK for you (antenna/feed faults aside)?

Do you use this on 70cm? The cable is even lossier with around 40% of
power reaching the antenna. You might be happy with that, it might
work the repeaters that you want.

Owen
--

I really ned help here.
 

VE2CJW wrote:

Ok you antenna gurus, I have a funny problem. Whenever I try to reach a
certain repeater on 2 meters, (146.700-), I can't do it. The repeater is
about 25 miles from here. I have an outside antenna with 6 db of gain
similar to a Diamond, a new coax and 50 watts of power. The base of the
antenna is about 15 feet fron the ground and the repeater doesn't need a
tone. What's funny is that I can reach repeaters that are a lot farther
than this one but not on the the same bearing. A friend of mine who lives
about 3 miles from here has no problem whatsoever in reaching the same
repeater. Some hams who live farther from the repeater than me can use it
with no problem. The only difference I can spot is that there are a few
houses around mine that are 4 stories high while mine is a bungalow. Could
this be the reason or am I missing something here? Thanks for any help.

VE2CJW, Mike.

TX Power doesn't solve everything...


If you can hear the repeater and it's in the same range of tx power that you
use, you can reach it.

Your problem is probably an error in the subtone setting...

Have you checked if the repeater use a subtone?

If the tone settings and frequency shift etc, are correct. Take your rig to
your mate and connect it to his antenna.


Cheers


Dan / M0DFI