146.775

146.775 Repeater - Ozark, MO

On-Air Date:                   February 11, 2016 (Date that Nixa ARC took ownership)

Repeater Transmit:         146.775

Repeater Receive:           146.175               (-600 kHz)

Modes:                              DMR

Color Code:                       5

Color Code Direction:      Encode & Decode

Bandwidth:                        Narrowband – 12.5 kHz

Transmit Power:               100-Watts

Antenna System:              Andrew DB-224E - 225' AGL

Link antennas:                   N/A

Coax Cable:                       Commscope LDF7-50 - 1-5/8" Heliax

Controller:                         Motorola

Repeater                            Motorola MTR-3000

Duplexer:                            Sinclair Q2330E

Link Radios:                       N/A

Backup power:                  Verizon site generator

Router:                               Ubiquiti Edgerouter X

Internet:                             Yes - Liberty Connect

Nets:                                   Wednesdays @ 7:00 p.m. - Ozarks All Digital Net- TG 31291 - TS 1

                                           Wednesdays @ 7:30 p.m. - Missouri Statewide DMR Net - TG 3129 - TS1

In March 2001, Doug Schumpert, K4DPS (formerly K0DPS) obtained the 146.775 repeater from Tom Abney, KE0HN.  Tom passed away in January 2020 so we were not able to gather a lot of history from his ownership.  Tom operated the repeater under his wife's callsign of KA0WFC.  Miles Brusherd, N0NBL, who worked for Alltel at the time, was instrumental in getting the 146.775 installed on the Alltel tower - today the repeater is still located on that tower!  The repeater was installed in the early 1990's and the staple net on the repeater for many years was the Bible Belt Christian Fellowship Net which started on August 1, 1995 on Tuesday evenings at 8:00 p.m.  Tom and his wife, Vergie, had a vision of the repeater being used to spread God's word but didn't know how that would look until Jerry Thieman, AD0BC, brought the idea to them.  The repeater's callsign stood for "Keep Always Witnessing For Christ (KA0WFC).  The net ran on the 146.775 repeater until the repeater was switched to D-Star in 2005 at which time it switched to the K0NXA Nixa ARC 145.270 repeater in Nixa for several years. For the close to 10 years the net was on the repeater, they had check ins from 130 different ham operators from 4 different states.

Doug replaced the vintage VHF Engineering repeater and phone patch with a newer Vertex VXR-7000 and replaced the 4-cavity DB Products duplexer with a 6-cavity Sinclair.  In the 7 years Doug owned the repeater, he also moved it from the old wooden shed which was in bad shape and worked with Jeremy Tannehill, KC0UJZ, of Alltel (and later Verizon) to move it into the Verizon shelter.  In addition, he installed a new DB224 antenna at 250' and abandoned the Comet dual band antenna that had been fed with 75-ohm cable TV hardline at 150' AGL.  In 2005, Doug partnered with the Ozark Mountain Amateur Radio Group (OMAR) and replaced the analog equipment with D-Star equipment.

In 2008, Doug Schumpert transferred ownership to the Ozark Mountain Amateur Radio (OMAR) group, W0OMD and they continued operation of the repeater in the D-Star mode until the club dissolved in February 2016.

On February 11, 2016, the OMAR (Ozark Mountain Amateur Radio) group transferred ownership of the 146.775 D-Star repeater and controller to the Nixa ARC when their group dissolved.  With D-Star activity pretty sparce, the club sold the repeater and controller and was able to purchase the Sinclair Q2330E duplexer from Terry Zembsch, KC0SQE.  On March 5, 2016, the club then installed a Yaesu DR-1 repeater in its place and made it a mixed mode analog / System Fusion repeater.  In August 2017, the club approached Yaesu about their upgrade program where Yaesu would take a DR-1 repeater in for trade with $500 cash for the new DR-2X repeater.  Yaesu agreed and shipped the repeater to the club.  However, the day the club received the repeater, Yaesu went back on their offer and said the club did not qualify after all.  That same day the club requested Yaesu pick the repeater up and requested the $500 be refunded - something that took Yaesu several months to do.  After this, the club opted to move the repeater to DMR and abandon any buildout or support of Yaesu Fusion in Southwest Missouri.

On October 6, 2017, the club installed a 100-W Motorola MTR-3000 repeater and moved the repeater to DMR on the Brandmeister network.  To date, the repeater covers most of Southwest Missouri and is the most used DMR repeater in the area.