Introduction

Two new C4FM digital mode repeaters were purchased in the spring/summer of 2015. These units were being offering at an introductory rebate price of $500 each USD. As a club NORAC members voted to purchase one with club funds. Another one was purchased with additional donations made by club members.

Duplexers

Terry Urbanowski (VE7DPD) generously retuned a set of duplexers stored in the NORAC trailer. These Sinclair Q201GR 2m VHF Duplexers were from a prior commercial situation and factory tuned to 154.935 & 153.875.

Terry used his skill and experience to tune these units into the top range of the 2m amateur radio band. The settings used are as follows;

New RX (uplink) frequency was tuned to 147.380.

New TX (downlink) frequency was tuned to 147.980.

Testing & Updates

Throughout the winter of 2015/2016 the repeaters were tested and kept up to date by Aaren VA7AEJ. During that period at least 3-4 different firmware versions were released by Yaesu to address known bugs in this brand new product, and to add features requested by owners and clubs using this new gear.

Both repeaters while identical in model # (DR-1X) were purchased months apart and have a slight difference in their internal radio hardware and therefore operate on alternate firmware versions. This is important to note when updating each unit. You must know which firmware is installed on each unit and then read what new firmware is available from Yaesu.

In June of 2016 Aaren VA7AEJ applied two new radio firmwares to each of the repeaters. On each repeater there was one new firmware for the radio hardware, and one more for the DSP.

Repeater #1 - Radio firmware 1.00n - DSP firmware 4.11

Repeater #2 - Radio firmware 1.00t - DSP firmware 4.11

Configuration

During testing period using the Sinclair duplexers each repeater was tested one at a time using the same configuration seen below.

Programming the DR-1X uses the terminology uplink and downlink. The 'downlink' is the repeaters transmit frequency used for sending it's signal down to other radios. The repeaters 'uplink' frequency is where the it's listening to receive signals from other radios.

- Uplink (Receive) Frequency = 147.380.

- Downlink (Transmit) Frequency = 147.980.

- Tone = none

- ID Announce = CW, every 3 min, high volume.

- ID Set = VE7NOR (testing use only).

- QSO Timeout = 3 min.

- Receive Mode = Auto (switches between digital narrow, digital wide, data, & analog FM.

- Transmit Mode = Fixed Analog FM (no matter what the input mode the repeater will sent out an analog FM voice for compatibility with all radios listening.

Testing

Testing of the repeaters with the latest firmware is going well so far.

When programming a repeater into your personal radio you need to tune opposite of the repeaters frequencies. When using these repeaters for testing here are the settings that you should put into your radio.

Tune your radio to 147.980 with a (-) minus offset

Your radio's receive frequency will be 147.980.
This will be listening to the repeaters downlink.

 Your radio's transmit frequency will be 147.380.
This is set by using a minus (-) offset to your receive frequency.
With the - 600 offset your transmit frequency will now match the repeaters uplink.