Stutsmanville Repeater Complex
The Stutsmanville Repeater Complex, located North of Harbor Springs Michigan, is the home of four Ham Radio repeaters serving Northern Lower and Eastern Upper Michigan.
The view at the right is the main repeater room built by the Straits Area Amateur Radio Club and home to the W8GQN SAARC club repeater and the N8DNX and KO8P UHF repeaters. The WB8DEL 220 repeater is located in the main transmitter room right next door. The W8GQN, N8DNX, and KO8P repeaters run on a common controller and share a 1.6 to 450 MHz remote base, weather radio, and IRLP node 4450.
Location
| Description | 1.5 Miles S.W. of Stutsmanville, MI |
| LAT: | 45 deg 30 min North |
| LON | 85 deg 1 min West |
| Ground Elevation | 1,250 ASL |
W8GQN SAARC Club Repeater
The W8GQN wide-area repeater is owned and operated by the Staits Area Amateur Radio Club. Incoming IRLP connections come up on this repeater.
| Frequency | 146.680 MHz -.6 MHz offset |
| PL Tone | RX 110.9 Hz (PL bypass code *00) TX 123.0 Hz (set your decode PL to this freq.) |
| Repeater | Kenwood TKR-750 |
| Amplifier | TE Systems 170W continuous |
| Final Power | 150 Watts (currently 80W till this spring) |
| Duplexer | 6 Can Custom |
| Transmission Line | 450' 7/8" Heliax |
| Line sharing | TX/RX Crossband Coupler (shares with UHF TX) |
| Antenna | Sinclair 4 Bay Dipole Array at 405', HAAT 748' |
| Power to Antenna | 62.9 Watts (at 150W ouput) |
| ERP | 250 Watts (at 150W output) |
N8DNX Repeater
The N8DNX UHF repeater is owned and operated by N8DNX and provides wide-area coverage. Using separate receive and transmitt antennas and a receive preamp up at the receive antenna, this system provides HT coverage upwards of 50 miles and mobile coverage for nearly 100 miles.| Frequency | 442.375 MHz +5 MHz offset |
| PL Tone | Transmit 107.2, Receive 107.2 when necessary |
| Final Power | 250 Watts |
| Repeater | Vertex VXR-5000 |
| Power Amplifier | TPL |
| Receive Preamp | Angle Linear High-Level Redundant Pair Preamp |
| Duplexer | (none) |
| Transmit Line | Shared with W8GQN repeater |
| Receive Line | 550' LMR-400 |
| Transmit Antenna | Sinclair 8 Bay Dipole array at 407', HAAT 785' |
| Receive Antenna | Sinclair 8 Bay Dipole array at 477', HAAT 856' |
| Power to Antenna | 55.9 Watts |
| ERP | 444.2 Watts |
KO8P Repeater
The N8DNX repeater is owned and operated by N8DNX. Jim, KO8P, was kind enough the offer the use of his call for this repeater in order to comply with the MARC policy for not coordinating two repeaters on the same band, in the same location, with the same call.This repeater shares transmission lines, antennas, and receive preamplifier with the N8DNX repeater. However, since it runs considerably less power than the N8DNX UHF repeater, and is slightly out of the bandpass of the receive preamp at the receive antenna, the coverage of this repeater is somewhat more limited.
This machine is intended for more local use and for long-term remote base and IRLP operations.
| Frequency | 443.375 MHz +5 MHz offset |
| PL Tone | Transmit 107.2, Receive 107.2 when necessary |
| Final Power | 25 Watts |
| Repeater | Vertex VXR-5000 |
| Power to Antenna | 7.5 Watts |
| ERP | 59.5 Watts |
Controller
This controller is used by the W8GQN, N8DNX, and KO8P repeaters. Having these three systems tied together this way permits the use of most of the controller features and accessories from any one of them and linking between these systems as desired.
| Controller | Link Communications RLC-3 |
| Port 1 | N8DNX Repeater |
| Port 2 | W8GQN Repeater |
| Port 3 | HF Remote Base Radio |
| Port 4 | VHF/UHF Remote Base Radio |
| Port 5 | KO8P Repeater |
| Port 6 | Weather Alert Radio |
| Port 7 | IRLP Node Computer |
| Port 8 | Autopatch |
Remote Base
This remote base system covers the 1.6 through 440 MHz Ham bands, all modes, as well as general coverage HF receive. Having this remote base attached directly to the same controller permits full HF, VHF, and UHF remote operations (where permitted) from all three repeaters. In addition, this configuration permits direct linking, as desired, to most other repeaters within aproximately a 100 mile radius.
| HF Radio | Kenwood TS-450S, 160-10 Meter Transceiver |
| VHF/UHF Radio | Yaesu FT-736R, all bands from 50 Mhz to 450 MHz |
| HF Antenna | Hy-Gain 18HT |
| 6 Meter Antenna | Single folded dipole at 50' |
| VHF/UHF Antenna | Diamond X3200A |
IRLP Node 4450
The IRLP node permits linking, via the Internet, to more than 1,000 other repeater and simplex radio systems around the world. More information about IRLP is available at http://www.irlp.net.WB8DEL Repeater
The WB8DEL 224.560 repeater is also located at this site, but is very much separate from the other three repeaters. Del, who owns and operates this machine, maintains the broadcast systems here and at other sites. He also has an envious location for his repeater antenna right at the top of the tower, above the FM broadcast array. Needless to say, it covers the area very well -- often outperforming the other repeaters at this site. He's also taken his broadcast background to heart producing interesting ID announcements for this repeater Certainly a system to check out if you're in the area with 220 equipment.