Fitchburg Repeater

[Night_solstice]

Recently passed my exam and got my Tech license. (KC1AHS) Right now I'm just running a handheld with a whip (Yaesu), until my uncle can come down and help me run a proper antenna at the house. Does anyone know if the Fitchburg Repeater is still running/widely used? Driving, I get a lot of signal from the Derry, Waltham, Hudson repeater. At the house, I can ALMOST make out the Westford, but Fitchburg is much closer, yet, I never hear anything, even when driving (was thinking I may be in a valley from the repeater, so tried driving around a few nights to see if that helped).

Thanks

 

[cockpitbob]

I see two 2M repeaters listed in the New England Repeater Directory.

145.450 - MA Fitchburg W1GZ 74.4 74.4 Worcester 8433 MA Route 2 Net 2012/05/07
147.315 + MA Fitchburg WB1EWS 100.0 100.0 OFF Worcester 224.340 (Fitchburg, MA) 2013/06/10

Fitchburg is out of range for me so I can't confirm, but the 147.315 machine's info was just updated last month.

And congratulations on getting your ticket. Welcome to the hobby

 

[kartooo]

Welcome to the hobby. 2M was never my thing.
always been a HF DX guy with more ham friends around the world than localy.
i have a 2m ringo ranger on the roof that you can have if your ever in the area. S.E. MA
it's in good shape and should only take me 15 minutes to take it down.
Larry
N1YW

 

[cockpitbob]

Kartooo just made a generous offer. The ringo ranger is supposed to be an outstanding 2M antenna. Reps to him.

 

[kartooo]

The ringo ranger is supposed to be an outstanding 2M antenna. Reps to him.

Yup, i always found that aluminum colinear ant's always outperform them fiberglass junks !!
when using it you need to use low power or you will find yourself keying up a few repeaters on the same frequency.....

 

[drgrant]

The 147.315 machine is far better than 145.450, both are sparsely used although you're more likely to find people on .450.

-Mike

 

[Madball13]

Welcome to the hobby. 2M was never my thing.
always been a HF DX guy with more ham friends around the world than localy.
i have a 2m ringo ranger on the roof that you can have if your ever in the area. S.E. MA
it's in good shape and should only take me 15 minutes to take it down.
Larry
N1YW

I'll snag it if he doesn't. Need an antenna for a APRS project i'm working on. trying to get a digi-peater or an igate set up for the QTH

 

[Zappa]

Recently passed my exam and got my Tech license. (KC1AHS) Right now I'm just running a handheld with a whip (Yaesu), until my uncle can come down and help me run a proper antenna at the house. Does anyone know if the Fitchburg Repeater is still running/widely used? Driving, I get a lot of signal from the Derry, Waltham, Hudson repeater. At the house, I can ALMOST make out the Westford, but Fitchburg is much closer, yet, I never hear anything, even when driving (was thinking I may be in a valley from the repeater, so tried driving around a few nights to see if that helped).

Thanks

You don't specify what band.
Waltham 449.075 is very active, I've worked it mobile from Fitchburg because that's pretty high ground, but it's normal footprint is within the 495 loop.

 

[C-pher]

Welcome to the hobby. 2M was never my thing.
always been a HF DX guy with more ham friends around the world than localy.
i have a 2m ringo ranger on the roof that you can have if your ever in the area. S.E. MA
it's in good shape and should only take me 15 minutes to take it down.
Larry
N1YW

Kartooo just made a generous offer. The ringo ranger is supposed to be an outstanding 2M antenna. Reps to him.

That is. I have one on my roof and it's a GREAT antenna. I can sometimes reach repeaters in NH and I can hit repeaters out in middle/Westernish MA without any problems. If you can, I would grab it in a heartbeat...it is a very generous offer.

 

[Night_solstice]

Welcome to the hobby. 2M was never my thing.
always been a HF DX guy with more ham friends around the world than localy.
i have a 2m ringo ranger on the roof that you can have if your ever in the area. S.E. MA
it's in good shape and should only take me 15 minutes to take it down.
Larry
N1YW

Thank you so much for your generous offer! My uncle however has some spare equipment that he's going to help me setup. I do appreciate the offer though! (sorry for the delay in replying, but headed up to the Northern Kingdom of VT to decompress, and only just catching up on internet service.

He (my uncle) is pushing me to move into my General license so I can partake of more of his 'excess equipment" *laugh*

 

[Night_solstice]

You don't specify what band.
Waltham 449.075 is very active, I've worked it mobile from Fitchburg because that's pretty high ground, but it's normal footprint is within the 495 loop.

I've been trying the 145.450 band. However I've been limited to my Yaesu 60 radio for now, so I even with the whip antenna, I'm not sure I'm hitting it. (hence my Uncle wanting to set me up with anetena, I can use it with his radio for now, and then move up). Driving to work (with the hand held antenna outside my window), I've talked to several people on the Waltham, Andover, and Derry repeaters. We're hoping to add an antenna to my Grand Cherokee in the next few weeks so I don't have to drive one-handed *laugh*, just trying to do some research on swr rating for the placement without having to drill a hole through my roof. I met some great people at my test, so planning on attending a few of the local meetings of the HAM groups around my area and get tapped into to additional knowledge. Plus if I'm going to use their repeaters, I'd like to support them with membership.

 

[kartooo]

Thank you so much for your generous offer! My uncle however has some spare equipment that he's going to help me setup. I do appreciate the offer though! (sorry for the delay in replying, but headed up to the Northern Kingdom of VT to decompress, and only just catching up on internet service.

He (my uncle) is pushing me to move into my General license so I can partake of more of his 'excess equipment" *laugh*

your welcome. i had an old ham pushing me along too in my early days. WB1AOK there were 5 classes of licences.
took me about a yr to get through the 1st 4 with his help. the 5th came a little later. he gave me a 33ft aluminum sailboat mast that he strapped down to my little dodge ram 50 truck. that was one heck of a ride home !!! my 15m beam still sits on top of it to this day.
he had 3 homemade quads built with bamboo spreaders sitting on top of sailboat masts.
sorry to say he has been a SK for a few yrs now.
good luck.

 

[Night_solstice]

The 147.315 machine is far better than 145.450, both are sparsely used although you're more likely to find people on .450.

-Mike

I think my basic problem maybe the limited antenna I'm using. I'm next door, but just not getting anything with my whip. We're looking at a September 'antenna raising' with my uncle and cousin-in-law, and I should be good to go after that.

 

[Night_solstice]

your welcome. i had an old ham pushing me along too in my early days. WB1AOK there were 5 classes of licences.
took me about a yr to get through the 1st 4 with his help. the 5th came a little later. he gave me a 33ft aluminum sailboat mast that he strapped down to my little dodge ram 50 truck. that was one heck of a ride home !!! my 15m beam still sits on top of it to this day.
he had 3 homemade quads built with bamboo spreaders sitting on top of sailboat masts.
sorry to say he has been a SK for a few yrs now.
good luck.

This morning my uncle helped me finally correctly connect my antenna in my car (grounding issue)....what a difference. I was out there this evening just listening and driving around. This is not good. *laugh* Like I didn't already have an expensive enough hobby, I'm running down this one. It was just weird...but I was excited that I could clearly pickup a few repeaters that I couldn't before (I was using a whip, and moved into this antenna, but now that I'm correctly grounded, I can grab so much more....now I can't wait to get my home antenna setup...before my uncle was more excited than I was about helping me get setup (now we are sharing another hobby), but the bug is really starting to grow in me...plus after talking to some guys at the HRO show, I want to join some of the groups around here as I have some serious space on my property if I want to expand...) I was trying to explain to my wife how I could be thrilled to be talking to someone on the Hudson-NH repeater when it's not that far away, but I was like "I did it on this little tiny HT radio!!!" (she still thinks I'm nuts *laugh*)

 

[kartooo]

great to hear you and your Uncle are having a ball. get all your outside ant stuff done before winter sets in.
radio makes winter pass a bit faster while your stuck inside till spring. my thing has always been HF DX. doing it mobil is fun.
i like to park alongside the ocean and work accross the pond into Europe. A few yrs ago i went a little crazy with grouding on my ol pick up.
grounding the exaust, doors, hood, grille, bed etc. every little bit cut down on noise and hopefully gave me a lower angle of radiation.
22yrs now and i still enjoy the magic of radio.

 

[RUT]

>>there were 5 classes of licenses.<<

And the "Advanced" was the hardest of the lot for me. Of course, that was back in the day when we had to take the exams at the Custom House in Boston.