SPARCS Ham Radio Emergency Communication

146.70 STARS’ MAIN REPEATER HUB - BLUE TOWN TEXAS

As we sail into August 2009 the STARS radio technicians were hard at work this past weekend adjusting and upgrading the STARS repeater backbone and related network components. KD5ZZE, WB5BMB, N5SLI and K5RAV installed an emergencybackup power system at the Brownsville 147.04 site that will deliver emergency power to that repeater for up to 3 days.

While KD5ZZE and WB5BMB were busy with Brownsville, N5SLI with assist from K5RAV put the tweak on 146.70 MHz primary repeater at Blue Town (La Feria).  The Blue Town repeater offers complete lower Rio Grande Valley-wide coverage between Hidalgo and Cameron Counties from the Coastal towns to McAllen providing excellent coverage to all ham operators along the Rio Grande.  Farther west, the STARS 146.76 repeater takes over in the McAllen - Edinburg area which was also recently upgraded with new antenna, transmission line adjustments, and a maintenance once-over for various settings and levels done by KD5ZZE. The 146.76 McAllen-Edinburg repeater is linked by UHF back to 146.70 MHz in Blue Town, ditto on the other repeaters in the STARS linked repeater network as well.

Finally after much planning and special effort from key hams in the Valley the repeaters listed below are now powered by automatic emergency backup systems with the remainder available for backup power connection as determined by the specific event at that time and until additional backup power supplies are available.

Brownsville 147.04                     Cameron County to South Padre
Harlingen    147.14                     Harlingen Vicinity
Blue Town   146.70                     Port Isabel To Mission - McAllen
Port Isabel  147.12                     Manual generator switch over as required