WA7GOK-Larry is going to set up and show us our “new” repeater. So,

The program for the MCARC meeting on Saturday, March 17 will be on the new Tait 2-meter repeater.  Larry Hughes, WA7GOK, will do the presentation, which will include an over view of the hardware, an explanation of some of the firmware programming, and an actual live demonstration in which you can participate.

To participate, before the meeting, set up your handheld so that it can operate on our normal frequency pair (146.72 MHz receive and 146.12 MHz transmit), but with a different CTCSS tone of 123 Hz.  Also, set your transmit power as low as your handheld can go as you only need to be heard within the meeting room.  You could do this by going to VFO mode and setting it all up from scratch, but most modern handhelds have a way to copy a memory channel to the VFO, a function you may have never used.  Since I don’t recommend modifying your normal memory channel for this exercise, I suggest that you copy your normal channel to the VFO, change the CTCSS tone to 123 Hz and the power to low, and then write it to a spare memory channel, a good exercise in itself.  (When we actually install the new repeater at the repeater site, the CTCSS tone will be our normal frequency so you don’t need to keep this special set up.)

Larry Hughes, WA7GOK

Meanwhile, someone put okra in my Beef Pot Roast TV Dinner so I think I’ll see what the folks on 40-meters think of that.