History of the repeater

The association has a history of delivering a service to its members and other community that even private enterprise would be envious of. The "up time" of the repeater would be close to, if not exceed, the Telecommunications industry accepted standard of 99.6% up time.

Through its history, from those who conceived the idea in 1987 to the current members, all achievements have occurred because of our members and volunteers giving their time to "get the job done".

This is a collection of information collated from stored notes, past minutes and local knowledge. It is by no means a complete diary of our history, merely the information that was chosen to be included from that information.

Following is a complete retype of a letter sent by Dale Simpson to the then Secretary of the UGRA Inc., Mr Geoff Moreland, on what appears to be on or before 26th of February 1992. This date is only 4 years after the repeater first transmitted, so its accuracy is accepted as a very true and correct part of the association's early history.

THE WOODS POINT REPEATER

A BRIEF HISTORY

by Mr. Dale Simpson

(Founding and respected Member)

The idea of the Repeater was born in the winter of 1987, in a kitchen at Woods Point.

A Philips F.M. 828 Repeater was made available and testing to find a suitable site began around September 1987.

The most effective situation was found to be Mount Skene, giving good coverage from Woods Point to Mansfield.

This location, however, would have been inaccessible in winter, easily vandalised in summer and permission to use the area was unlikely to be given by the C.F and L. 

Eight locations were tested on at least two separate occasions and finally Mt. Terrible was selected as having fair coverage, access during most of the year and C.F. and L. (1) approval.

Dept. of Transport and Communications approval to conduct tests at Mt. Terrible using the call sign V.L.3.C was received on the 17.12.1987

Tests started the next day using channels 8/38. A channel change to 7/37 was tried from 25.12.1987 for one week.

After determining that channels 8/38 gave the least interference to other services a license was granted and the call sign T.E.R.08 issued.

Service started on the 8.1.1988 using corner reflector aerials transmitting S.S. East  this was the first C.B. Repeater in Victoria to be given permission to operate a restricted coverage Repeater with directional aerials.

Poor coverage at Jamieson and no coverage at Mansfield resulted in two small outrigger directional aerials being installed pointing North on 20.1.1988.

Transmission and receiver coverage balance generally wasn't good and Woods Point was worse.

A beam aerial was fitted to the Repeater receiver in mid 1989 to correct balance problems at Woods Point. Balance on other areas was still only fair  (the same aerial was later removed and installed at the Woods Point Hospital).

In May 1990 a Diplexer was purchased and installed the same month. This upset the bank balance but improved the radio balance immediately and allowed for further improvements in the aerial system.

A new channel 8 repeater at Red Hill started operating during September 1990, making it necessary for us to aim our aerials further east than is ideal to overcome interference.

Because of increasing interference with Red Hill, it was decided to replace the corner reflector aerial with a much sharper beam aerial,  this was done during April 1991.

A new tower was erected on Mt. Terrible on 22.9.1991 and our equipment fitted one week later.

During the period 8.1.1988 to 15.1.1992 the Repeater has been off air five times for various reasons. Total down time has not exceeded 28 days except for power supply problems which occurred during 1991 and were beyond our control.

A down time of less than 2% would be the envy of any commercial Repeater let alone a citizen Band Repeater.

(1) Department of Conservation, Forests and Lands. Victoria now part of the Department of Sustainability and Environment. DS&E