|
Rain was not uncommon this time.
Much of the activity migrated into the Pentucket ARA tent.
Several GEMOTO participants are members of the PRA
who were also extremely gracious hosts! |
A Nearfest first...
Due to a significant unflux of surplus and very
inexpensive 900 MHz equipment, several new New England
repeaters seem to be going up every month. Many but not
all will be linked. 27 Motorola 900 MHz MSF
repeaters and 58 Motorola MTX9250 portables recently
arrived. All of the portables have been programmed,
sold
and delivered. Most of the repeaters will soon
have an operational home. Many hams comment that this
is like a flashback to formative years of VHF-FM in the late
1960's and early 1970's. These are exciting times
!The first semi-organized meeting of the 900 MHz
stakeholders was held at Nearfest-III .
|
|
Al Muise, K1ZNQ & George Maier, W1LSB
|
|
Roger Coulson, WA1NVC with his new ride... trying to pick up some
hot babe
|
Rick Zach, K1RJZ & Roger Coulson, WA1NVC
Roger's "score" of an old, low-tech, low-end, low-band Handi-Com
walkie.
|
John Mullaney, K1BOS programming a fellow-hams's commercial
portable.
John has dedicated much of his personal time to create most of the
GEMOTO
900 MHz codelpugs for the unflux of new MTX9250
portables.
|
If you had a surplus commercial radio, K1RJZ & K1BOS would do
their best to
program it for you.
Much of the older software requires access to a semi-rare DOS-based 486
computer.
As one of his prize possessions,
K1RJZ keeps this old DEC PC on long-term life support.
|
All that work to sell one walkie ?
|
Warren Stiles, W1LO and George Maier,
W1LSB
Both are work veterans of
MRC.
|
The beard thingy of Dave Earl, N1GSC
|
 !
The PRA club members were also extremely gracious hosts.
Chief chef Dave Robertson, KD1NA with Al Muise, K1NZQ.
|
| May 3, 2008 was the very first semi-organized meeting of New
England
900 MHz repeater owners and influencers. IRLP-linking of 900
MHz repeaters was discussed.
Many repeaters are planned to link while others may choose to remain
as standalone operations.
Randy Krenz, N3HFK has led the way to facilitate a common 900 MHz
IRLP gateway for all willing systems to leverage. This was
an excellent opportunity for the players to meet face-to-face.
The next 900 meeting is scheduled as an official,
formal event of the ARRL Boxboro Convention on August
23, Saturday 1-2 PM in the Cotilion Room.
|
|
|