Tag: michigan

0

Download Your Repeater Settings To Your Ham Radio

June 6, 2009

I had the pleasure recently to help a lovely woman (my fiancé at the time of this writing) set-up her brand new Yaesu FT-857d mobile ham radio.  We did it the right way.  Or – more correctly – the easy way!  When I set mine up, I did all the input of all the repeaters into memory locations by hand.  First dial in the frequency.  Then specify which type of tone setting.  Then specify the tone frequency setting.  Then specify the memory number.  Then switch to memory mode.  Then dial in each letter of the alpha tag.  Then set to tag display mode (instead of just frequency).  Then switch back to VFO mode.  And repeat.  About 200 times, plus or minus…  Rewarding when you’re done and it’s all set and works and is informative, etc..  But a pain…

Jane, Kd8KRS had a better idea.  She passed her general class license exam at the AES Ham Fest in the spring of 2009.  At the ham fest was a vendor selling some slick software.  RT Systems (http://www.rtsystemsinc.com).  At first glance it seemed to be just some database software of some sort.  There were no crowds at that time, so we let the rep do his song and dance.  And dance he did!

He showed us how to use the A.R.R.L. Travel Plus CD for Repeaters (http://www.arrl.org/catalog/?item=1417) with their software to download a quickly customized list of ham radio repeaters for any given trip in literally a few seconds.  My way had taken a few days!  Oh geeze I thought.  Of course, I didn’t have a lap top at the time.  But Jane did.  Lucky lady!

The software from RT Systems worked with the repeater and road maps from Travel Plus.  Drag the cursor down the travel route, specify the radius and bam!  The system instantly built a database (or spreadsheet – whatever) of all the repeaters that would be within range of the road travelled.  AND it had all of the settings for the repeaters.

Jane bought the system.  Given the price of the radio and the time involved to input everything I thought it was quite reasonable.  I’ll let you make your own judgment.  It was nice to have two people to work through the instructions – one familiar with the radio and one familiar with the laptop.  It could easily be done alone.  But so much nicer with a good friend.  And NOW she has to buy me lunch at “Elmer’s” Restaurant in Escanaba, MI…  chuckle.  Within a couple of minutes we were able to connect the laptop (check cable type and connection type on the PC side!) to the radio and download a complete list of repeaters for Michigan and Wisconsin travels!

You still have to customize the tags for the repeaters – the software will load the FCC callsign for the repeater as the tag.  But MAN!  What a nice little system for busy hams.  Another nice thing is, since we have the same mobile radios we now can clone each other’s radios and have back-up files of them.  Believe me…  that comes in handy.  I did a full reset of my radio once already.  That was not a good day…

I would check to see if your HT, mobile or base could use the software and data described above.  I’m not big on making plugs for products – marketing types get paid quite nicely and probably do a better job of them than I ever would – but this little system gets my thumbs up!

Stay radio active!

Jon Kreski, AB9NN

http://www.HamRadioResources.com

 

 


Related Blogs For HamRadioResources.com

: Uncategorized Ham Radio Subjects
: , , , , , , , , , ,

About the author

AB9NN (Jon Kreki) is an Extra Class ham radio operator and Auditor / Financial Analyst. Jon loves HF mobile as well as 2 meters. Jon is a trained severe storm spotter, active ARES / RACES and Skywarn member in Outagamie County (Appleton, Wisconsin) area. Jon's lovely wife is Jane, KD8KRS!
www.hamradioresources.com