The Avonlea (46/06) repeater located on the Dirt Hills west of Avonlea enables 2 meter communications over a large area in southern Saskatchewan. It provides coverage from Assiniboia and Melaval in the southwest, to Chamberlain in the northwest, to Balgonie in the east and Weyburn in the southeast. It covers #1 highway from Caronport to McLean, #6 highway from Pangman to Southey, #11 highway from Regina to Chamberlain and #39 highway to Weyburn. Included in this area are the cities of Regina, Moose Jaw and Weyburn.
This repeater facility is operated by the Avonlea Repeater Group (ARG). The ARG is a group of amateurs who joined in a non-profit corporation to share the operating expense and maintenance cost to keep communications available over the repeater's coverage area. Founded in 1986, the repeater group's first priority was to secure continued communications on the VHF (144 Mhz) band. This was completed in early 1987. Later that year, communications were added on the UHF (440 Mhz) band. Approximately 1989, a packet TNC was added to provide a hub for digital communications.
The Avonlea Repeater Group is an open repeater group. We are open to new members joining the group; indeed, we encourage amateurs to join the group and help us keep the repeaters operating. These repeaters are also "open repeaters". Any and all amateurs within range of the repeaters are free to use them. We only ask that the repeaters be used in a mature manner respecting the mixed ethnic, age and gener audience that may be listening.
The first step in using the ARG repeater, is to program the repeater frequencies into your transceiver. We refer to the VHF repeater as the 46/06 repeater. This means that the repeater hears your signal on the 146.46 Mhz and transmits on 147.06 Mhz. So for you to use the repeater, you will need to set your transceiver to transmit on 146.46 Mhz and receive on 147.06 Mhz. When you have your rig programmed properly, you should hear the call VE5ARG transmitted in Morse code along with a courtesy tone.
The UHF repeaters transmits on 444.15 Mhz and receives your signal on 449.15 Mhz. This repeater is linked to the VHF repeater so you will hear the same VE5ARG call that is transmitted on VHF.
Avonlea's digital repeater (or digi-peater) operates on 145.01 Mhz. This is a simplex repeater (that is it uses the same 145.01 Mhz frequency for both transmit and receive). This is made possible by the special "terminal node controller" (TNC) needed for digital communications via packet radio. To connect to the digital repeater, you need to connect to VE5ADR. Services provided on VE5ADR include a simple digi-peater by connecting to VE5ADR, a K-Node by connecting to VE5ADR-7 and a small BBS by connecting with VE5ADR-1.
The ARG Two Meter Net meets at 9:30 p.m. each evening. The net is an on-air meeting place for amateurs in south-central Saskatchewan. For new amateurs, the net is an opportunity for them to get to know other amateurs in the area. For other amateurs, it is a place to connect up with old friends and arrange a time and place to chat for a while. The net also serves as a forum to pass news, read bulletins and to pass messages to other people.
Over the last few years, the net has welcomed a multitiude of new amateurs to the hobby. Over this same period, the net has taken on a new and important role; that of coaching amateurs in net procedures and protocol. We thank our net control stations for their patience and kindly hints on ways to improve our operating skills. We may be "amateur radio operators" but through on-going skill development, we become professional communicators.