[W4FHU] Repeater

[Ron Means]

I have been asked by the Club President, Joe (AG4QC), to send the
following message to all of the club members in order to clarify the
repeater ownership/trustee/maintenance issue:

 

When the, then, FHU Amateur Radio Club was organized back in the fall of
2001, a 2-meter repeater was purchased for use by area hams.  This
repeater was assigned the same frequency as the repeater owned by Mike,
K4TC, at the Public Safety Building.  The K4TC repeater used there was
showing signs of problems and the antenna was not very high.  Mike
agreed to turn his repeater off and use it as a "backup repeater" in
case something happened to knock the new repeater off the air.

 

The new repeater was purchased by me using funding that I had arranged
through Freed-Hardeman.  A special "Ham Radio Account" was created by
FHU and has been funded since 2001 through non-traditional revenue
resources that I have obtained.  These funds have purchased and
maintained ham radio equipment owned by the university ever since.

 

The 2-meter repeater located at the radio station's transmitter site and
on the top of the WFHU broadcast tower is owned by the university.  I
was the overseer of the purchase of the repeater, feedline and antenna
and thus became the "Trustee" of the equipment on behalf of the
university.  We were EXTREMELY fortunate that FHU agreed to fund our ham
radio equipment and emergency communication mission at the time as we
had zero dollars to work with when we first organized our club.  

 

This being said, funds are still set aside in a reserve account for ham
radio equipment and maintenance.  I was recently contacted by Joe about
the club's discussion and decision to purchase a new repeater to replace
the existing one.  I need everyone to understand that the club does not
currently own the existing repeater.  It is owned by FHU and the site
that it is on is owned by FHU.  

 

I have informed Joe that I will be working with him in the coming days
to research the best option for FHU to replace the current repeater.
Funds are available for this purchase.  There is no sense in the club
draining its account to replace a repeater that we do not own.  I have
already requested funds to be released from the reserve ham radio
account and that release was approved this morning.  Funds are now
readily available to move forward with the new repeater purchase.
However, there will still be some research involved, which has already
begun, to compare repeater specifications for receive sensitivity, RF
shielding, etc., before we make a final purchase decision.

 

I hope this has provided some history and clarification for everyone.  I
am excited about getting a new repeater for our use.    I will work with
Joe, Kevin and others to ensure we move in the right direction in regard
to equipment that will meet our needs and work well in the high RF
environment.

 

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns you may
have and I will be glad to discuss this issue further.

 

73,

Ron Means

W5DAT

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://w4fhu.org/pipermail/w4fhu_w4fhu.org/attachments/20091007/1085357b/attachment.html>