Mark your calendars, for the Winter Hamfest 2016.

The 2016 Hamfest – Saturday January 23, 2016 – will be located at the Larimer County Fairgrounds, in the Thomas M. McKee 4H Building at The Ranch in Loveland Colorado.  Doors open to the public at 8:30am.

The ARRL 2016 Rocky Mountain Division Convention is coming to Colorado, May 13-15th, next year. They’re working on the website, and will have more information coming as plans  progress.

Recently, we took the 2m and 70cm repeaters on Centennial Cone out of service for a couple of days, to improve the interconnect between them. Both machines are functioning well now. Bob – KE0SJ installed a transmit delay board, so anyone hitting the machine without using PL will need to wait about a half-second after keying up, before speaking.

However, there is an ongoing problem with an intermittent signal triggering the 2m, which we have so far not been able to isolate. There have been some reports of other repeaters having a similar problem as well. The upshot, until we, or someone else, can figure out where the noise is coming from, is that we’ll probably have to leave the PL tone requirement on for the 145.280 machine. We’ll continue to turn it off at times, to see whether the problem has simply gone away, but that doesn’t seem likely at the moment. We’d sure like to leave it off, for the benefit of hams operating older rigs without PL capability, but for now, we advise everyone to just use the PL.

We hope to have updates on this situation soon, but the nature of the beast, being intermittent, means it could be a while.

Coming up on Sunday, September 27th, Intermountain Repeater Group will be at BARCfest 2015.

Please stop by our table and say hello.

On Saturday, August 29th, IRG members were on hand to provide communications for the Cystic Fibrosis Cycle for Life 2015. On hand to help out were:

• KE0SJ – Bob
• N0OCL – Carmen
• KD0MEX – Tim and his wife, Jennifer
• KI0FV – Bill and his wife, Susie
• W0SBS – Tony
• KB1SGJ – Norm
• KE0AVK – Dick

Thanks to everyone who helped out, and to all the cyclists who rode the course to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis, and the sponsors.

We hope to have more pictures here soon, but here are a few from the aide station near I-25 and Castle Pines Pkwy.

The club did pretty well at this year’s PPRAA Megafest. We took in $17.61 in donations for repeater operation, and some folks picked up applications, so we should be picking up some new members.

I’m hoping we’ll hear some additional operators on the Sunday Night Net as well.

Upcoming activities: Denver Radio Club 2015 Hamfest. I don’t know yet whether the club will have a table. If I can get a couple other folks to commit to helping staff it, then probably so, otherwise, probably not. Check back here at the website for updates.

Don’t forget that the Pikes Peak Megafest 2015 is next weekend, July 11th, opening at 8AM.

Intermountain Repeater Group will have a table there, so please stop by and say hello!

Over at eHam.net there’s a thread about RF burns. Looking back through the lens of time, told as amusing anecdotes, they’re still good reminders that our hobby has its hazards.

(Via Sipsey Street Irregulars)

Starting at about 6:30 AM at the Echo Lake visitors’ center, members of Intermountain Repeater Group were on-site to provide communication assistance, along with Alpine Rescue, for the Mt. Evans Ascent foot race. First on the scene were KB1SGJ – Norm, KE0SJ – Bob , and N0OCL – Carmen. Bob & Carmen took the portable repeater up to the summit, later accompanied by WY0J – Jan. Manning the aid stations along the way, and the race start line, were KD0MEX – Tim and his wife, Jennifer, KD0YMG – Jed, KD0LZB – Ken and his wife, Betty, and W0SBS – Tony. Norm stayed at the bottom, coordinating with race personnel there. While a few of us left once our station duties were finished, we had radio operators on the mountain until 2PM.

Here is the action at aid station 6

We had great weather all day, and communications using the repeater worked quite well. Five of the Alpine Rescue volunteers on site are also ham radio operators, so we were able to communicate very well with them, which made for an easy time coordinating race activities.

Thanks to everyone who volunteered their time.

9News has some coverage of the Mt Evans Ascent.

Greetings from Intermountain Repeater Group! We’re setting up a new web site, managed by Jed – KD0YMG. We’ll be fiddling around with settings and themes and templates and other stuff for a while, so don’t be surprised if the site looks completely different a few times, while we settle in. We should be providing updates on club activities, repeater status, pictures from the field, and – I don’t know – whatever else comes to mind, as we grow into our new home on the web.

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