GTARC Task Book for the Position of: RADIO OPERATOR (RADO)

GTARC Task Book for the Position of: Communications Technician (COMT)

GTARC Task Book for the Position of: Incident Communications Center Manager (INCM)

Even though getting on the radio may seem difficult, you don’t have to do it alone!  GTARC provides on going licensing classes. Please see our home page & GTARC Calendar for details. 

Repeaters Quick Guide

Repeaters allow Hams (people with ham radio licenses) to talk to others across longer distances. To access a repeater, you need to know 3 things:

The repeater’s frequency – This is the frequency at which the repeater is re-transmitting all incoming signals. The most popular frequencies are in the 2M band, 144.000-148.000.

The repeater’s offset – This is the frequency difference between the receiving and the transmitting repeater frequencies. The difference is usually fixed for different frequencies. For example, for entire 2M band, the difference is 600kHz. It can be greater or less than the transmitting frequency, thus +600 or -600 kHz

The repeater’s PL (a Motorola abbreviation for Private Line) (or squelch Tone helps gives the repeater some privacy from people who would happen to transmit over the repeater’s receiving frequency. For analog transmissions to a repeater, it is usually a continual tone sub-audible tone of a set of acoustical frequencies (CTCSS). Most radios have a “T” for a CTCSS tone only when transmitting, but no tone required to receive. A “CTCSS or CT” mode is used if the tone is required both to transmit and receive. Many repeaters don’t transmit using a CTCSS. So, if you, if you can’t receive from your repeater, switch between “T” and “CTCSS” mode. One of them should work. The PL or “T” setting for GTARC 2M repeater is 100Hz. You won’t hear anything if you use a bidirectional setting of “CTCSS”.

The settings of the GTARC 2M repeater are 146.805MHz “-” 100Hz