The original installation of the 220 repeater was in Lizard Lick NC in 1994, but I have lost all of the photos and documentation of this. Hopefully some will turn up and be added in, one day.
The voice of Debbie AC4QD is
heard on the ID of this powerful repeater during periods of inactivity. The voice ID says: "Wellcome to the
KD4WIW repeater with a PL of 88.5 and located in Zebulon, North Carolina. 'de KD4WIW/r' is the CW ID used during periods of operation. It originally carried the callsign of KD4WJD, and was changed to KD4WIW at a later date. This repeater is was located in Zebulon NC, on the old water tower beside of
the police department.
The first picture below is the Icom IC-RP2210
220 mhz repeater, complete with a repeater controller in the silver
enclosure on top of the repeater. An ARR GaAsFet receive preamplifier is located
directly behind the repeater, taking it's feed from the cavities on the shelf below.
The next picture, below, shows the Wacom
4 cavity duplexer on the shelf immediately below the repeater.
The controller is a MCC RC-1000 with
many auxillary functions added outboard. The repeater features a voice ID,
time of day information in voice, phone patch, direct 911 and 800 access,
speed dialing of memorized phone numbers, reverse phone patch, touch tone
pad tester, "instant drop" mode for crossband repeating, and an "on-demand"
NOAA weather receiver. A link to the UHF backbone of the TEARA linking
system is being installed. A pl of 88.5 is required for access, but the
repeater is an open machine and the PL frequency is advertised on the voice
ID'r.
The repeater/antenna occupy a private enclosure. The
large enclosure houses only amateur repeaters and digipeaters. The 224.800 repeater operates on AC mains, but is
battery-backed by a pair of 100ah. batteries (seen in the photo below). It is kept fully charged by an
automatic charging network within the repeater enclosure. Note the manual switches with green knobs mounted on each
battery terminal. The battery backup system kept us
all in contact during a 9 day power outage courtesy of hurricane Fran.
The repeater's primary antenna is a Hustler G-6 200 vertical top mounted
on the tower and fed through about 200' of 1 5/8" Andrews heliax. Zebulon is about 300 feet above sea level, and
has a pretty good radio path to southeast. Note the custom "top-hat", designed by Steve KD4WIW,
on the tower to support up to 4 antennas.
This repeater's primary coverage area is Eastern Wake, Southern Franklin,
Western Wilson, Nash, and most of Johnston county. It provides a coverage radius of about 30 miles in all
directions with considerably more range to the S.E. through the S.W.
Dave WB4IUY
