November 18, 2018 - Trip to the VE7EGO Site on the Commonage for DR-2X Squelch Setting Adjustments
Summary:
Technical team members went to the VE7EGO repeater site to adjust RF squelch settings for our Yaesu DR-2X repeaters.
Attendees:
Terry VE7TRZ
Rick VA7EM
Ted VE7UIH
Mike VE7KPZ
Doug VE7VZ (remote tester from his QTH in West Kelowna)
Brad VE7WBM (remote tester from his QTH in Vernon)
Access:
The usual route was taken to access the VE7EGO Commonage site. The road was a good challenge with a little bit of snow in shaded areas. Ted very much enjoyed driving his new truck on the access road, as did Terry with his 4Runner. We saw 5 lovely mule deer does on the way up (sorry, no pictures of them).
Just before heading up to the site, Mike telephoned Kevin at 250-744-0732 who is in charge of exploding/disposing of WW2 munitions still in the hillsides. Upon departure from the site, Mike texted Kevin to notify him of our departure. Kevin likes to know both the ins and outs of our visits to the site.
Tasks Undertaken:
On this visit the team discussed and then adjusted the RF squelch settings on the DR-2Xes. For each repeater, we moved the squelch settings from "the middle" to "one step below the middle". Then, with the help of remote testers, confirmed that slightly lower intensity signals could indeed be received by the DR-2Xes without issues.
A little background: we do not currently run tone squelch on these repeaters as many of our club members have analog FM radios incapable of sending tones. No tone squelch means we can't just turn the RF squelch down to a step above the noise floor... we have to carefully turn it down, step by step, until we can let the weakest valid useable RF signals in without letting in anything else.
Next Steps:
We will continue to monitor the DR-2Xes to ensure that nothing other than valid radio signals break RF squelch.
FYI and 73,
Mike VE7KPZ
NORAC Vice President 2018/2019
