Kevin,
I enjoyed your story! I'm glad the hams forgave you. I've made mistakes,
especially when I'm in a hurry.
Ice tea is my favorite drink! Too bad you can't send it through cyber-space
or through the coax, (grin). I'd be glad to drink it for you, (grin).
Terri Amateur Radio call sign KF6CA.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Minor" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 6:18 PM
Subject: I learned the TS-2000 has good finals, the hard way.
> Hi.
>
> I'm telling this story about what happened today to hopefully prevent you
> cross band repeat users from doing what I did.
>
> It was about 1:00 p.m. I had a doctor's appointment to go to. At the
> last
> minute I decided to put the TS-2000 into cross band repeat mode. For
> those
> unfamiliar with what this mode is, it lets you receive on a band and
> retransmits what the radio picks up on another band. In my case I was
> cross
> banding between 2 meters and 440 Mhz. When it works right, you can, for
> example, have an HT which transmits a few watts on one band, the cross
> band
> radio receives the HT signal and rebroadcasts it on another band, either
> using more power, or using an antenna that is in a good location. When
> you're done transmitting with the HT, the cross band radio picks up what's
> on the other band and rebroadcasts it back to you, so the HT can receive
> the
> signal. I know this is the long way around telling you what cross band
> repeat does, but I wanted to explain what happens.
>
> Here's what I wanted to do. I have a 2 meter repeater that I like to use.
> I can't reach it well where I live with my HT, so I use my handy dandy
> TS-2000 in cross band repeat mode to reach it. I have a 440 frequency in
> the 2000 set up to use this great mode. I've used it before, and it works
> quite well. I can walk to the shopping center a quarter mile away and
> reach
> my 2000, which in turn reaches the repeater. That is in theory how things
> should work.
>
> Now let me tell you what happened today. As I said, I had a doctor's
> appointment. At the last minute I decided to put the 2000 in cross band
> repeat mode. I thought I had everything set correctly. The trouble began
> when I got into my Mom's car. I tried to bring up the 2 meter repeater
> with
> my HT on 440. I couldn't. Something was definitely wrong. I didn't know
> what happened until a little after 5:00 p.m., when I got home. I had a
> very
> warm 2000. The reason it was so warm was it wasn't on the frequencies I
> thought it should be, at least one of them. Here's a word of advice.
> Don't
> cross band repeat two repeaters. Do you know what happens if you do? The
> radio receives the signal from one repeater and transmits that signal to
> the
> other repeater. When the repeater being received quits transmitting, the
> other repeater is picked up, and it is retransmitted to the first
> repeater.
> When that repeater is done transmitting, the first repeater is picked up,
> and it is transmitted to the second repeater. Basicly, you have repeater
> ping pong going on. For about three and a half hours I had hams in
> Lexington and surrounding areas looking for the troublemaker. Someone
> finally guessed I was the station causing the problem, and I received a
> phone call. I wasn't home to get it, so things had to wait until I got
> home
> and turned off the cross band feature. I immediately got on the two
> repeaters I linked together and let folks know who caused the excitement.
>
> There are three valuable things I can think of. As the subject of this
> note
> says, the TS-2000 has good finals in it. I wasn't transmitting at full
> power, only 25 watts on each band. The radio was hot, but still working.
> Secondly, as my Father says, "If you're going to do something, make sure
> it's a quality job." I can definitely say I did that quite well. Lastly,
> the repeaters I linked together work well under heavy keying.
>
> I know this note is long, and some of it is redundant. I wanted to share
> this with all of you so you don't do what I did, and I got a good chuckle
> out of the incident. I apologized to all out there for my error, and
> there's no hard feelings. The only bad thing I may have to suffer is
> being
> forced to drink ice tea. YUCK!!!
>
> 73
> Kevin Minor
> [log in to unmask]
>
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