Welcome to ARRG and the K7RPT Repeater
System Supporting the Emergency
Radio Responder in all of us!
The Amateur Radio Relay Group, Inc.
(ARRG) is an Oregon Non-Profit 501C (3) public service
organization. ARRG owns and operates the eighteen plus VHF
and UHF repeaters that make up the statewide K7RPT Repeater
system.
ARRG provides professionally built
communication repeaters, radios and support at no cost to
the Amateur Radio Community, members of the Amateur Radio
Emergency Service and Community Emergency Response Teams,
Mountain Wave Search & Rescue, Washington/Multnomah County
Sheriff’s Office Search & Rescue. Oregon Emergency
Management and hundreds of Emergency Radio First Responders
during time of need.
Our
system ARRG’s repeaters are located on mountain top repeater
sites, many of which are co-located on Broadcast Radio/TV
towers and hardened Public Safety sites around the state.
ARRG supports many Public Service
events in the community. We do this by setting up and
operating portable repeaters and dispatch gear for events
like the Hood to Coast and Portland to Coast Relay, Reach
the Beach, Cycle for Life ride and Race for the Cure events.
ARRG was founded in 1977 and we are
currently celebrating our 42nd year of providing quality
repeater service to the Amateur Radio Community. We provide
our repeaters and technical expertise free to the community
and to any Emergency Services group which needs
communications. ARRG survives solely on your tax-deductible
donations, so consider supporting ARRG by clicking on the
'donate' button below.
If you are New to Amateur Radio or just
new to ARRG and the K7RPT Repeater System, our technical
team members are here to assist you by answering questions,
chatting up your Ham related questions and generally going
above and beyond by providing you in person help and
support.
If you
are interested in becoming a trained repeater technican for ARRG or your
local club,
please download, read & study the following .pdf
help guide 2020
Technical Team Helper Guide
K7RPT
Repeater News Note: Almost live
Tech Team updates and project pictures are available
by checking out
the live Facebook scroll window above/right.
March 1st, 2020:
New, beefed
up 442.225 System Fusion repeater
installed. The new 442.225 will sport a new external
amplifier capable of three time the current
operating power of .225. Notes that due to
illegal use of the 442.225 input and tone of 100.0
hz by certain imported walkies, th new 442.225 will
operate on 103.5 HZ. Please reporigram your radios.
February 10, 2020 - South Saddle Issues: The
147.320 antenna and feedline suffered major water
damage during Januaries record rainfall.
South Saddle is such a harsh environment and often gets up to 125 mph
wind gusts from the Pacific Ocean.
Even if everything is installed to spec, with perfect connector and
antenna weatherproofing used, a single drop of salt
water can find its way into any crevice or hairline
crack by the high winds and this builds up both
water and damaging corrosion inside our antenna
radome and cables.
Members of the ARRG Technical Team 4X4'd through ice
and snow on 02/09/2020 to reach and then diagnose
the system. Currently, the 147.320 is operating at
reduced power on a much lower gain Diamond base
antenna. Both 147.320 and 442.325 are linked back
together again. Thanks to all your donations in
2014, ARRG purchased a new $1500.00 Telewave
Commercial antenna and hardline for the site.
Unfortunately, it looks like we will be once again
purchasing either a new antenna or hardline once
again when spring hits.
December 26, 2019:
The new K7RPT DMR 440.5125 +
Repeater was installed on the Sylvan
Tower and is operational and linked to the entire
world DMR system. We also have a special ARRG Talk
Group available for current ARRG members and
supporters. Visit the
www.arrg.org/digital.htm page to learn more. If you need help
programming your DMR Radio or have questions about
the PNWDNO DMR system, please contact any of the
following users over the air on the ARRG Tech
Repeater at 442.225 + 100Hz: Marc-W7PM,
Paul-K7PN, Joel- N7LF or Evan-KJ7BRE.
November 1st, 2019: Changed the Sylvan
444.400 back to our old frequency of 442.225 + 100hz
and the Quantar was swapped back out to the Yaesu
System Fusion Repeater (which is running in AMS
mode).
The 444.400 Quantar Experiment has ended. It did
help reduce the adjacent channel interference to a
good degree, however, we were still getting squelch
crashes on the Motorola. The TV station (whom we
share antenna space with) added two new high powered
digital repeaters for their field users and we
learned that their output on 450.025 and 450.050 was
near our input on 449.400. Our three antennas are
also just a few feet apart on the tower. As soon as
we changed frequency and retuned our duplexers down
to 442.225, the noise went away. We plan on keeping
442.225 as the defacto repeater frequency from this
point forward. We are sorry for any inconvenience.
September 24, 2019:Tonight, with the help of
KF7JCK and KI7AML, the Sylvan 444.400 repeater,
which is a Yaesu DR2X FM/C4FM machine, was swapped
out to a Motorola Quantar. We did this as a test to
see if the loud white noise and squelch tail crashes
would go away, by using a higher quality, tighter RX
front end repeater. The Quantar appears to be
working well, but might need a bit of touch up
tuning, as the Quantar seems to have less
sensitivity compared to the Yaesu we replaced it
with. Obviously, there is no digital available on
444.400 while the Quantar test is going on.
September 20, 2019 -K7WW, W7JDT and W7PM
travelled to Timberline to work on the ailing
147.120 repeater system. We found the panel antennas
to have a pretty high SWR of 1:8:1, so we installed
a single bay VHF loop antenna facing Portland, which
the repeater will run on for the next week or so.
KE7CF and W7PM plan on
going up to the site again on 09/26/2019 to install
a new set of cans (duplexers) and replace coax the
mice have chewed through. We intend to go ahead and
hook back up to the higher gain wall mounted panel
antennas, even with their higher than usual SWR.
They simply have more gain and consist of two
co-phased bays looking South into Bend and West into
Portland.
K7RPT Repeater Fund Upgrade Fund
You can donate any amount, you decide!
ARRG is an approved Oregon Charity and is a
501 (c)3 Public Service Team. All donations are
tax deductible.
Click in the donate button to securely donate any amount to the
ARRG Antenna fund.
K7RPT Community Assistance
Did you know that ARRG often refurbishes donated gear we receive so we
can in turn repurpose the gear by getting it into the hands of new Ham's
in our Community?
We are always looking for your tax deductible donation of good used gear, repeaters and mobiles to use
as linking radios. We also appreciate receiving your donation of test equipment,
wattmeter's,
coax, hardline, commercial and ham antennas, towers and rotors.
You name it, we'll help you get rid of it by picking it up and providing you
an itemized tax deductible receipt.
Long
Distant Communications Long distance walkie QSO
from Mary's Peak to the Mt. Hood Timberline repeater on 147.120.
Check out Roland, KG7FOP
who was working Josh Richesin, K7JLR, via a 5 watt radio.
Mary's Peak is about 100 miles from the
Timberline repeater.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=NIEu4gh4yW0
Web Hosting for ARRG is provided as a Public Service by our
friends over at Canvas Dreams, Portland, Oregon USA
