As you may have noticed two of our repeaters are currently off the air. Both the 146.76 and 444.1 repeaters are off the air as the repeaters and antennas are being relocated.
If my recollection from this morning's breakfast conversation is correct, the antennas have been relocated already and are being fed with new hard line to the new location in the building for the repeaters.
Tim got the message on Wednesday evening that the building was ready to have us relocate the equipment, and he and Roger and another person were busy last night actually moving the .76 repeater from its old location to the new room.
This coming Monday night we are planning on relocating the 444.1 repeater as well.
Tim has ordered new connectors to connect the new hard line that we have to use in the new room to the repeaters' duplexers. One of the requirements for this new location is that all exposed cabling has to be plenum rated, which does affect availability of materials.
Once the equipment has been moved and mounted in the new room, its connections attached, etc, Tim and others will be spending some time realigning the repeaters. Once that's done the repeaters should be back on the air and back into normal operations.
At this time the echolink node is connected to the link radio operating in reverse. You should be able to work stations if you can get to the echolink link radio. It will not have the range of the 146.76 repeater, but if you can hear it, you can probably work stations to it. It will not be retransmitting what it hears however, so if you hear the echolink side of a simplex connection, and you want to know who the other end is connected to, use the reverse button on your radio. If you are in range of that station as well, you should hear them, though you'll lose the Echolink side.
While the 76 repeater is off the air, the Saturday morning 76 Swap Shop will be on the 146.85 repeater. Stop on by, say Hi! Buy, Sell, Trade, and find out the latest news and where the next set of testing is being done to get or upgrade your ticket. Learn where the upcoming Hamfest and swap meets are going to be, and join in all the fun.
And remember, if you can't sell or find it on the swap shop, drop on in here and visit the buy and sell forum and who knows, you might just have the opportunity to get that piece of equipment moving or working.
It sounds like most of the .1 morning ride people have discovered that they need to move to the .125 repeater. Good to hear that it's getting some use.