Southeastern Massachusetts Amateur Radio Association, Inc.
54 Donald Street - Dartmouth, MA 02748 - Tel: 508-997-7070

Affiliated with:

The SEMARA 147.000 Repeater

The W1AEC repeater runs 100 watts into a Super Stationmaster antenna at 180 feet over local terrain.. The repeater features a wide coverage footprint for the Southcoast, western Cape Cod and the Islands and eastern Rhode Island. Extending coverage beyond the limits of RF, the repeater system supports a locally connected EchoIRLP client via broadband. Our IRLP node number is 4347 and our Echolink node is 44347 and is an open system available for inbound and outbound connections. In addition to regular 2-meter amateur radio communications the repeater system features the ability to keep it's members informed with programmable audio announcements and critical alarm notifications including loss of power or heat in the club hall.  The repeater site is situated at the end of our property below a 180 foot multiple tennant tower hosting numerous cellular providers along with commercial and public service repeaters. SEMARA, which has exclusive rights to the top of the tower has three dedicated 1-5/8" Andrews Heliax feedlines, one of which supports the existing 2 meter repeater. Dedicated control, alarm, network and telephone lines are connected to the clubhouse on Donald Street via a dedicated underground conduit system and is protected with polyphasers.

If the If commercial power to the site is lost, the 100 watt amplifier is bypassed and the repeater operates at 20 watts output to conserve battery power.

Photo by W1BUG

Operating Notes

1)  Please don't transmit until AFTER the courtesy beep.  This gives other stations a chance to break into the conversation, either to join in or pass emergency traffic as well as allowing the time-out time to reset.

2)  A PL tone of 67 hertz is required to access the repeater.  If your radio is capable of PL decode (tone squelch), it is recomended to leave this on.  It will block unwanted interference and other repeaters (such as Somers, CT) from opening your squelch.  One and a half seconds before the repeater tail drops, the repeater sends a reverse burst and stops encoding PL.  This eliminates the squelch "crash" for both ham and commercial radios.

3)  If you are in a room with another radio listening to the output of the repeater while you are talking, you may notice the illusion of reverb.  This is because the repeater digitally delays the audio by 60 milliseconds.  This is done so that approximatley 60 ms at the end of each transmission is chopped off, eliminating the squelch "crash".

PLEASE NOTE: The repeater is equiped with a 2 step Motorola Micor squelch circuit. This means if you are strong into the repeater, the squelch gate is less than 50 ms and you will not hear a "crash".  If you are weak beyond a certain threshold, the longer gate of approximatley 150 ms takes over (this is so that the squelch will not close on you while picket fencing).  As a result, you WILL hear a squelch crash when weak users unkey.