I snapped a few pics of the home-brew D-Star repeater setup. If you're interesting in seeing the cabling inside the box, let me know and I'll open it up.
The main repeater components are housed in this Motorola GR300 repeater case, which includes two GM300 radios, a 20 amp power supply and an inexpensive Chinese UHF cavity filter / duplexer. The radios supply audio in/out to the MoenComm Star*Board which is enclosed in the little silver box sitting on top of the repeater. This is the board that encodes/decodes the signal to GMSK. That little box is attached to the PC running DV Node, which is the control software.
A thermal controlled fan forces cool air across the heat sink of the radios in the back.
Last week I walked into a coworker's office where I noticed a huge WiFi antenna with hanging, disconnected coax and a nice little lightning surge arrestor attached. He didn't know what it was for and indicated that it was no longer in use. Of course I asked for and obtained the low loss surge protector, which I've put to good use right before the coax enters the shack.
On Jan 1, 2013, fellow club member K6PMG (Acidrod / Mark) came over to help permanently mount the inexpensive 440Mhz antenna with brand new LMR-400. Here it is about 35 feet up on it's new home:
And there you have it, the W9WDX B home-brew D-Star repeater, providing coverage to the entire San Gabriel Valley of Southern California.
The main repeater components are housed in this Motorola GR300 repeater case, which includes two GM300 radios, a 20 amp power supply and an inexpensive Chinese UHF cavity filter / duplexer. The radios supply audio in/out to the MoenComm Star*Board which is enclosed in the little silver box sitting on top of the repeater. This is the board that encodes/decodes the signal to GMSK. That little box is attached to the PC running DV Node, which is the control software.
A thermal controlled fan forces cool air across the heat sink of the radios in the back.
Last week I walked into a coworker's office where I noticed a huge WiFi antenna with hanging, disconnected coax and a nice little lightning surge arrestor attached. He didn't know what it was for and indicated that it was no longer in use. Of course I asked for and obtained the low loss surge protector, which I've put to good use right before the coax enters the shack.
On Jan 1, 2013, fellow club member K6PMG (Acidrod / Mark) came over to help permanently mount the inexpensive 440Mhz antenna with brand new LMR-400. Here it is about 35 feet up on it's new home:
And there you have it, the W9WDX B home-brew D-Star repeater, providing coverage to the entire San Gabriel Valley of Southern California.
