See WA7RO Amateur Radio Operations Group for general information about the club's operations.

WR7DS

Dual mode (digital/analog) repeater (Decommissioned)

WR7DS repeater history:

2007-03-10

The Icom D-STAR ID-RP2000V, ID-RP4000V, & ID-RP2D repeater modules, and ID-RP2C repeater controller, were ordered.

2007-03-17

The Icom D-STAR 2m & 70cm repeater modules & controller were received.

2007-03-21

The Icom D-STAR 2m & 70cm repeater modules were placed on the air as WA7RO, on 145.13MHz and 440.350MHz.

2007-03-27

Sequential callsign KE7MCH was obtained for D-STAR repeater operations, since the D-STAR US-Trust repeater system requires a unique & non-user (eg, club) callsign. This freed up callsign WA7RO for use by normal (eg, non-repeater) D-STAR radios.

2007-04-14

Vanity callsign WR7DS (Western Washington Repeater – D-STAR) replaced sequential callsign KE7MCH.

2007-08-04

Due to the rigidity of the design and implementation of the Icom D-STAR gateway software at that time, the entire D-STAR repeater stack was donated to the Federal Way Amateur Radio Club. It operates there today as WA7FW.

2015-01-31

A Yaesu System Fusion DR-1X dual mode (C4FM and traditional FM) repeater was ordered.

2015-04-04

The Yaesu DR-1X repeater was received. And, on the same day ...

2015-04-04

The Yaesu DR-1X repeater was installed, configured, and placed on the air as WR7DS (Western Washington Repeater – Digital System) in Mill Creek, Washington (47°51'40.2"N, 122°11'23.4"W, 485ft), operating on 444.075MHz (offset +5.0MHz), with a CTCSS tone of 103.5Hz (for analog input and output). It's currently operating in "AMS" (ie, "Automatic Mode Select" between analog & digital) modes on input, and analog FM on output. The antenna elevation is currently 485 feet above sea level, so check the coverage area map.

2015-04-18

In testing, we discovered that a Vancouver, BC repeater (VE7TOK) is on 444.075MHz, running 120W with (usually) no CTCSS tone squelch on the input. As a result, we have reconfigured the repeater to 442.725MHz (offset +5.0MHz), with a CTCSS tone of 100.0Hz (for analog input and output).

2015-05-30

Now that it appears that operation on 442.725MHz is not causing or receiving interference, we did a better job of tuning the duplexer. This has improved the effective receiver sensitivity by about 11dB, and the effective transmitter power by about 1dB. This should more than double the radius of the effective coverage area, particularly for low-power/handheld communications.

2015-06-18

Now that we have a YSF handheld transceiver and can remotely monitor digital output, we've changed the repeater Tx mode from FM (analog) to "AMS" (analog & digital).

2015-07-01

We've removed the antenna selection switches and cables that we used for initial deployment. This has slightly increased the effective coverage area.

2015-07-30

We've decided to try using DCS (code 125-NN) instead of CTCSS for access control. This will eliminate the "squelch tail" being heard from the repeater, which it currently does not suppress when using CTCSS. All modern FM transceivers support both CTCSS and DCS (sometimes called DTCS).

2015-09-20

The repeater is now officially coordinated by the Western Washington Amateur Relay Assocation.

2017-06-30

We've switched the DCS code to 172 for consistency with the future Snohomish ACS repeater plans.

2021-05-07

We've returned the repeater to Yaesu for a hardware/firmware upgrade to provide for FM narrow-band operation. Current specified Tx bandwidths are 16K0F3E (FM) & 9K36F7W (C4FM).

2021-06-29

We've received the upgraded repeater back from Yaesu. Yaesu has not released the FCC emission designators for the narrow-band modes of their repeaters. We have switched the repeater to exclusively narrow-band operation (both FM & C4FM modes. However, our very limited testing indicates that the repeater receiver bandwidth filters have not been modified, & that user radios operating in wide-band mode will apparently work OK. However, that may not continue in the future, & we do not recommend using wide-band modes with this repeater.

2023-03-16

The repeater has been sold.

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