What Makes an Amateur Radio Repeater System?
Article by Billy Gomban Jr. KH6JPL What is a 2 meter amateur radio repeater? Usually installed atop a building or mountain a repeater is like a FM broadcast radio station. The difference being that instead re-broadcasting program information from a DJ (excuse me, I’m with the DJ) the repeated information comes from a 2 meter receiver. So there you are driving around in your car at sea level. You pick up your 2 meter radio and start transmitting on a repeater frequency. The repeater, high atop a mountain, hears your voice and routes it to the transmitter where it is rebroadcast and heard by many more stations. Without repeaters hams would be limited to “line of sight” communications which would limit your communication capabilities. The theory is… the higher your transmitting antenna, the greater your communications coverage. So, if you can’t be atop the mountain every time you transmit why not use a repeater system. A typical amateur radio repeater system consists of the following co
