Virginia's Amateur DMR Linked Repeater Network
Virginia's Amateur DMR Linked Repeater Network
The W4DHW repeater system located in the Lexington area came on board the DMRVA system, enhancing coverage in the valley especially along I-81. The repeater is on 441.925 MHz (+) and uses CC1. The TG lineup for this system will be Virginia centric and slightly different than other sites. Full details on what TG’s are carried can be seen at the Talkgroup Matrix page.
We put the C’ville repeater on the air in 2016 at a high profile site that offers significant coverage. Of course sites of this magnitude also come with trades offs – in our case we have experienced a degree of desense in the repeater system. This has been an intermittent issue that is difficult to track. The desense is possibly a mixture of other transmitters on the tower or in the adjacent area.
We recently swapped repeaters and this did not change performance. As of today have now made changes to the antenna system. Presently the repeater is running on a pair of antennas instead of just one single antenna. We intend to leave it in this mode for at least a couple of weeks while we observe the performance of the repeater. In the C’ville area itself you may not notice much difference, but towards the east you may see the transmit signal of the repeater a bit higher, and towards Staunton area it may be a bit lower. Overall, the goal is to balance the TX and RX and eliminate as much desense as possible.
Please share this news and make use of the C’ville repeater in the coming days and send us any observations or experiences. You can click here to send us a report. Thanks to KG4HOT and WB4EOT for their assistance today.
Edit: Powhatan system returned to service in September.
The internet connection has been down at the Powhatan site since yesterday. Estimated restoration time may be several days. We will post an update when available. Thanks to Jim, KK4IUH and the team there.