The Heart O’ Texas Amateur Radio Club Repeaters
The Heart O’ Texas Amateur Radio Club currently owns and operates two 2meter repeaters. This document contains information about each repeater and guidelines for proper use of the repeaters.
All of these repeaters operate under the club call sign of W5ZDN and are open for use by any licensed amateur.
The primary local-coverage repeater operates on 146.98 MHz (–600kHz, tone 123Hz) atop the City of Waco water tower located at the end of Panther Way in southwest Waco.
Giving excellent wide area coverage, the 145.15 MHz repeater
(–600 kHz, tone 123Hz) is located on the KXXV (Channel 25) tower near Moody, TX at a height of about 500 feet.
Guidelines for Repeater Use
Courteous and legal use of a repeater is the responsibility of every amateur radio operator. Individuals who do not abide by the following guidelines may be asked to refrain from using the HOTARC repeaters.
1. Emergency use of a repeater always takes precedence over all other use.
2. Organized activities—such as weekly nets, drills, or special-events—have priority over routine conversations.
3. Before keying your transmitter, listen for any activity on the repeater frequency.
4. Keep individual transmissions short. The timer on most repeaters is set to three minutes to follow FCC regulations. However, someone who talks for that long in one transmission may be using valuable time if someone else has an emergency.
5. Please limit your continuous use of a repeater to a reasonable length, i.e., less than 20 minutes.
6. It is considered bad etiquette to interrupt an ongoing conversation unless you have an emergency or something meaningful to contribute to the conversation.
7. While we want our repeaters to be active, it is discourteous to use a repeater to talk to someone who is within easy simplex range. If you can hear each other on the repeater input frequency, please switch to a simplex frequency. Similarly, don’t use a wide-area repeater if one with more local coverage will do.
8. Most repeaters have a courtesy tone to indicate that the other party has released the repeater. Wait for the courtesy tone before transmitting. An even better operating practice is to listen a second or two after the courtesy tone. This gives someone with an emergency ample opportunity to break in.
9. When using a repeater autopatch, identify yourself before dialing and after the phone call is over.
10. Remember to identify your call sign every ten minutes, and at the end of a conversation. It is also a common courtesy to identify at the beginning of a conversation.
11. Whenever you transmit on a new frequency, always identify your station, even if you just key up the repeater for test purposes. “Kerchunking” (a short, unidentified transmission to “bring up the repeater”) is illegal.
12. “CB”-style talk and off-color remarks or comments have no place in amateur radio. Keep your activities on our repeaters responsible and courteous.
13. The FCC rules permit the use of amateur radio for transmissions of a technical or personal nature. Unfortunately, some amateurs use the repeaters to discuss what they don’t like about the actions of another amateur or a particular group. Such comments have no place on our repeaters. Keep them to yourself or take them off the air directly to the individual(s) involved.
14. As in all of amateur radio, transmissions for business purposes are illegal. Please be especially mindful of this whenever using our Club’s repeaters.
General Repeater Use
Tune your receiver to the repeater output frequency. This is the frequency you will monitor.
HOTARC repeaters operate with a receive offset of –600kHz. Thus, when you key your transmitter it should automatically transmit with a frequency 600kHz lower than the receive frequency. Consult your radio’s manual on setting this “negative offset.”
HOTARC repeaters require a subaudible tone of 123Hz. This will usually prevent signals on the input frequency that are not intended for our repeater (e.g., DX) from opening the repeater squelch. Again, consult your radio’s manual on selecting and transmitting with this subaudible tone.
The repeater controllers have an activity timer that will automatically shut down the transmitter if a carrier is received continuously for 3 minutes. So, allow a brief pause between transmissions and the timer will reset. If the timer expires, the transmitter remains shut down until the received carrier drops, at which point the timer is reset and the repeater is again available. (See Guideline 4.)
Visit HOTARC website: http://hotarc.org
Members Only Login:: W5ZDN
Members Only Password: hotarc
Area Ham Clubs
BARC, Baylor Amateur Radio Club. Check web site for next meeting date and place.
http://www3.baylor.edu/BARC
BCARC, Bosque County Amateur Radio Club, meets 7:00 p.m., second Saturday of each month, at Clifton Fire Station, 204 N Ave. E, Clifton TX
http://www.w5bcr.org
HOTARC, Heart O’ Texas Amateur Radio Club, 7:00 p.m. fourth Thursday of each month, Automotive Building on the Texas State Technical College Campus, Waco TX
http://hotarc.org
HOTDXS, Heart of Texas DX Society, 9:00 a.m. second Saturday of each month, Flying J Travel Plaza, 2409 W. New Road, Waco, TX
http://www.geocities.com/w5dxs
LWARS, Lake Whitney Amateur Radio Society, 10:00 a.m. third Saturday of each month, Whitney Fire Station, 115 W Jefferson, Whitney TX
http://www.lakewhitneytexas.com/lwars/fp03.htm
NFLARC, Navarro-Freestone-Limestone Amateur Radio Club, 7 p.m. first Tuesday of each month, Heritage Oaks Retirement Village, 3002 W. 2nd Ave., Corsicana, TX
http://www.nflrc.org
TARC, Temple Amateur Radio Club, 7:00 p.m. first Thursday of each month, Church of Christ in Western Hills, 210 N General Bruce Dr., Temple TX
http://tarc.org
TSGARC, Texas State Guard Amateur Radio Club, 7:00 p.m. second Monday of each month, 3292 Speegleville Rd, Waco TX
http://www.geocities.com/w5tsg
Area Nets
Daily
Slo-Scan TV Group / 9:00 pm (Sun-Thu) / 147.24 / 97.4 + / CTSSG7290 Traffic Net / 10:00 am (M-Sat)
1:00 pm (M-Sat) / 7.290
TX Traffic Net (TTN) / 6:30 pm / 3.873
TX CW Net / 7 pm, 10 pm / 3.643
TX Slow CW Net / 8 pm / 3.719
Mondays
TARC / 7:00 pm / 146.82 / 123 –HF ARES / 7:30 pm / 3.873
ARES McLennan Co. / 8:00 pm / 145.15 / 123 – / W5ZDN
Tuesdays
BCARC / 8:00 pm / 147.18 / 123 + / W5BCRHOTARC-ATV / 8:30 pm / 439.25
147.24 /
97.4 + / KC5UOZ
HOTDXS / 8:00 pm / 28.437 / W5DXS
Wednesdays
All-State HF Net / 7:00 pm / 3.972 / W5TSGEmergency Relay Simplex Net / 7:30 pm
(last Wed
of month) / 145.55 Bell
147.50 Bosque, Coryell
146.50 Hill
146.46 Johnson
146.55 Limestone
147.55 McLennan
145.39 Navarro, Freestone
146.46 Williamson / W5TSG
TSGARC / 8:00 pm / 147.24 / 123 + / W5TSG
Thursdays
Lake Whitney ARS / 8:00 pm / 146.78 / 123.0 – / WB5YFXFriday
DigTrx (SSTV) / 9:00 pm / 147.24 / 97.4 + / CTSSGSaturday
TSG Roll Call Net / 9:00 am (1st Sat) / 7.272 / W5TSGDigTrx (SSTV) / 9:00 pm / 147.24 / 97.4 + / CTSSG
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Area Repeaters
Location / Output / Input / Call / PL Tone / Sponsor / Distancefrom Waco
Moody / 145.15 / –600k / W5ZDN / HOTARC / 20
Killeen / 145.19 / –600k / KB5UMG / 45
Temple / 145.31 / –600k / N5ZXJ / 123 / 35
Mexia / 145.39 / –600k / W5ZMI / NAVARC / 40
Lake Whitney / 146.62 / –600k / KJ5OL / LWARS / 30
Waco / 146.66 / –600k / AA5RT / 123 / —
Belton / 146.72 / –600k / NU5D / 123 / 45
Eddy / 146.72 / –600k / NU5D / 88.5 / 20
Killeen / 146.76 / –600k / WA5RZQ / 94.8 / 45
Hillsboro / 146.78 / –600k / WM5L / 136.5 / 30
Temple / 146.82 / –600k / W5LM / 123 / TARC / 35
Gatesville / 146.96 / –600k / N5DDR / 35
Hewitt / 146.98 / –600k / W5ZDN / HOTARC / 10
Whitney / 147.00 / –600k / W5WK / 103.5 / 30
Killeen / 147.02 / +600k / N5TLS / 88.5 / 45
Eddy / 147.14 / +600k / W5BEC / 123 / Bell Cnty ARES / 20
Waco / 147.16 / +600k / WA5BU / BARC / —
Clifton / 147.18 / +600k / W5BCR / 123 / BCRA / 29
Temple / 147.34 / +600k / W5ARO / 162.2 / 35
Waco / 147.36 / +600k / AA5RT / 123 / —
Waco / 421.25 / 439.25 / W5ZDN / HOTARC ATV / —
Whitney / 442.200 / +5 MHz / W5WK / 103.5 / 30
Waco / 442.450 / +5 MHz / WA5BU / BARC / —
Waco / 442.875 / +5 MHz / AA5RT / 123 / —
Hillsboro / 443.275 / +5 MHz / WB5YFX / 162.2 / 30
Temple / 444.025 / +5 MHz / NU5D / 123 / 35
Waco / 444.150 / +5 MHz / AA5RT / 123 / —
Waco / 444.475 / +5 MHz / AA5RT / 123 / —
Temple / 444.700 / +5 MHz / W5LM / 123 / TARC / 35
Waco / 444.725 / +5 MHz / AA5RT / 123 / —
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