BeachNet Repeater System

BeachNet Repeater System

Pacific, Grays Harbor, Lewis, Mason, Thurston & Wahkiakum Counties, Washington

145.170 |  145.310 |  145.390 |  147.020 |  147.180 |  147.340 |  224.040 |  224.820 |  440.675 |  441.675 |  442.675 |  444.050 |  444.200 |  444.300 |  444.400 |  444.500 |  444.700 |  444.800 |  444.925 |  444.950
 

 

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North Cove

Pacific County, WA
46.734566, -124.047403
550 Feet
Call: NM7R

145.310  -600kHz  118.8Hz
444.400  +5MHz   118.8Hz


North Cove VHF Repeater



North Cove UHF Repeater


The North Cove repeaters
were both refurbished and
returned to service, August
of 2015 with upgraded
antenna, feedline, chassis,
RF decks and linking radios.

Location: The North Cove site is on the ocean bluff, overlooking North Cove, near Tokeland/Grayland, WA, above "Washaway Beach" on the north side of the mouth of Willapa Bay. The tower is visible on the headlands driving south-east bound on Highway 105, after making the turn to the east, about 3 or 4 miles west of the Tokeland turnoff.

Coverage: The two North Cove repeaters can be easily accessed north along State Route 105 to Westport, WA, and south along the ocean side of the Long Beach Peninsula, especially the beach area. Looking due south from the repeater site, the tip of the Long Beach Peninsula is only six miles away, with the repeaters looking down the beach. The Surfside community is only 12 to 14 miles away. The coverage to the east overlaps with that from the South Bend, Naselle and Megler repeaters. The North Cove repeaters can be particularly useful along Highway 101 while driving the eastern shore of Willapa Bay, especially the VHF repeater. The over-water path to most of Highway 101, from South Bend (Milepost 53) to the Bear River area (Milepost 20) provides nearly spotless coverage.

The one place that might be a little problematic is between Milepost 28 and Milepost 34 (the so called "Nemah" area), where the highway dives into the woods. To cover this particular area, we have installed a remote receiver at the Naselle site for use with the 145.310 VHF repeater, providing very good coverage in this area, and usable from Bay Center (Milepost 40), south along Highway 101 to the Highway 4 junction at "Johnson's Landing", and for a few miles east or west from there. To use this high-altitude receiver, shift your CTCSS (PL) tone from the usual 118.8 Hz to 114.8 Hz and your transmissions will be picked up loud and clear in this area.

The 444.400 UHF repeater works well along Highway 101, south of South Bend, between Milepost 55 and Milepost 22.

Linking: The 2-meter repeater is normally linked to
BeachNet, and like all of our repeaters, the link can be dropped to make this repeater stand-alone when that is desirable.

The 70-centimeter repeater may be linked to
BeachNet, but often is operated either stand-alone or linked to the IRLP net, as a local option.

When the 444.400 MHz North Cove repeater is linked to the IRLP Net, an independent Internet-linked system, one will usually hear out-of-area stations conversing. You are free to join the conversation. If you are traveling on Highway 101, between Milepost 55 (in the South Bend area), and Milepost 22 (the Willapa National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters) consider switching to the 444.400 MHz North Cove repeater. Once south of Milepost 22, or after turning onto Highway 4, the Megler IRLP 444.925 (82.5 PL) repeater covers south into Oregon to well south of Seaside. IRLP is an exciting way of bringing the flexibility of the internet to repeater linking, allowing repeaters from all over the world to be networked together. More information here.

Hardware: The VHF repeater consists of a GE Mastr-II station with PLL Exciter, and factory option UHS receiver preamp. The CAT-200B controller is housed inside the repeater chassis, on the control shelf. A custom-built plug-in card interface supports the GE Rangr transceiver, mounted to the top of the repeater chassis, used in conjunction with a tower-mounted multi-element UHF Yagi for system linking. The VHF duplexer is a 4-cavity Sinclair Hybrid-Ring unit, originally used at the historic 146.760 Nicolai repeater in Oregon. Mice had chewed the cable harness, destroying the device, and the Sunset Empire club sold me this unit as surplus. With careful reconstruction of the complicated and very critical phasing harness, this unit once again performs well. The duplexer is mounted to the ceiling well away from the equipment rack to conserve space in this small building. The VHF repeater runs 40-watts and shares the Diamond X510HDN dual-band antenna (8.3dB VHF/11.7dB UHF) with the UHF repeater using a diplexer. The Amateur antenna is sheltered from the weather inside a Stationmaster radome shell (from a retired commercial antenna), at the 100-foot level on the tower, fed with 120-feet of LDF5-50 7/8-inch hardline.

The UHF station previously used a duplex converted GE Mastr-II mobile. There once were several of these in the
BeachNet system, but they have all been replaced with station chassis units, which have superior performance in a number of ways. The UHF repeater runs 40-watts to a Motorola four-can bandpass type duplexer, sharing the feedline and dual-band antenna with the VHF station through a diplexer. The Arcom RC-210 controller, mounted inside the repeater chassis, manages the UHF repeater and GE-Rangr link radio, which uses a multi-element UHF Yagi mounted low on the tower. The basic controls for this link transceiver are mounted on a custom control card in the Mastr-II station's card cage. Other than the shared antenna and feedline, the two repeaters operate independently with separate power supplies, controllers and link systems.

History: The North Cove VHF machine was the first
BeachNet repeater. The original unit had been in service as the W7RDR repeater in Ilwaco, purchased new before 1980. That club had switched to a Motorola rig, in the mid-1990's. The GE machine became available and I adopted it, putting it on the air in 1998 from Pacific County's brand new North Cove radio site. In fact the site was so new, my repeater was one of the first pieces of equipment installed there. To start with, this repeater operated on the Western Washington Shared Non-Protected (SNP) frequency pair of 145.290. The SNP pairs are considered test pairs, open to anyone on a not-to-interfere basis. At the time, it was linked to the 146.660 W7FBM repeater in Astoria. Later the frequency was changed to its permanent pair, 145.310. Still later, in the 1998-99 timeframe, the KO Peak UHF repeater/remote base went on the air, and this North Cove repeater was linked to that. In 2010, after more than a decade of continuous faithful service (two decades, if you count the W7RDR chapter) in support of Amateur radio, I replaced that particular unit with a newer duplicate model, and the original was completely refurbished and returned to the Pacific County ARC. That machine is now, once again, the W7RDR 146.860 Ilwaco repeater.





 

145.170 |  145.310 |  145.390 |  147.020 |  147.180 |  147.340 |  224.040 |  224.820 |  440.675 |  441.675 |  442.675 |  444.050 |  444.200 |  444.300 |  444.400 |  444.500 |  444.700 |  444.800 |  444.925 |  444.950
 

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This Page Last Updated: 11/25/18.