With the installation of the new Yaesu DR-2X repeater, the ACARA’s W8UKE/R 2-meter (145.15 MHz) repeater is now a System Fusion Repeater.
The ACARA’s DR-2X repeater is configured to operate in “Automatic Mode Select” (AMS), which means the repeater will work with both analog FM and Yeasu’s C4FM digital voice and data modes. (For an overview on C4FM, visit http://systemfusion.yaesu.com/what-is-system-fusion/.)
As has been the case for decades, the ACARA 2-meter remains “open” in that no CTCSS tone is required on the input frequency.
For the benefit of those who are not running Yaesu System Fusion radios, the ACARA’s DR-2X repeater is configured to include a CTCSS tone of 88.5 Hz when it transmits in analog FM mode. This means that analog FM mobile rigs and HTs can be configured to ignore (i.e., not open the squelch for) signals that lack a CTCSS of 88.5 Hz so users of analog FM radios will not have to hear the digital “hash” of a C4FM QSO in progress. An additional benefit is that one can now drive around Athens without hearing leaky-cable noise all over town on 145.15 MHz.
Long-time users of the ACARA 2-meter repeater will notice some significant changes in the repeater, the most obvious of which is the lack of a reset-beep. A less obvious but still significant change is that the ACARA 2-meter repeater is no longer connected to a telephone line and, thus, no longer has autopatch functionality. A third change is that the repeater ID is, at this point, CW-only; this might change sometime in the future with the addition of a voice-synthesizer unit to the DR-2X repeater.
For questions and/or comments about the ACARA’s 2-meter repeater, please contact the Repeater Trustee, Eric McFadden, WD8RIF, at repeater@ac-ara.org.