GB3CQ – 6 metre repeater Worthing

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West Sussex Coastal Repeater Group

GB3CQ
Six metre repeater 50.750
Worthing, West Sussex UK.

Technical Information:

Licensed since 25th March 2025 and first switched on at 12 noon.

RX: Yaesu FT-8900R
TX: Yaesu FT-8900R
Logic: AllStar
TX Antenna: Half wave vertical
RX Antenna: Half wave vertical
Power Out: 14 dBW
Repeater Keeper: G4WTV
Location: IO 90 SU
Repeater Output: 50.750 MHz
Repeater Input: 51.250 MHz
CTCSS tone 88.5Hz (on tx and rx)

Information about CTCSS.

Repeater status:

Beacon on air

Currently, it uses a Yaesu FT-8900r for TX and RX. Most, if not all 2 meter and 70 cm repeaters, use a single antenna for TX and RX with Duplex Cavities to enable single site use. This is possible on the 6 meter band with 500kHz split but cavities are expensive, so the TX and RX sites are separated by approximately 2 km. Most 6 meter repeaters operate in this manner and have some sort of audio link between the two sites. Some use an Internet link and others use UHF or Microwave radio links.

Coverage map.

GB3CQ predicted coverage map:

6 metre repeater coverage map

The Logic:

The Logic, which controls the transmitter and allows for a voice ID every 15 minutes, using a Raspberry Pi, currently uses AllStar-voip for the Internet connection between the receive station and that of the transmitter, some 2km apart.

A relatively undocumented feature is the ability to use an audio file instead of the usual courtesy tones of a ‘K’ or beeps. AllStar is unable to play the usual .MP3 or .WAV files and only a low sample rate of 8k mono can be used, so the audio file needs to be resampled with a program such as Audacity. This has been implemented on the repeater and it now plays a ‘ding-dong’ tune between overs. Other repeater keepers may be interested in explicit details on how to implement this feature, please contact the repeater keeper for GB3CQ (G4WTV) for further information.

CTCSS tone 88.5Hz is required to access the repeater.

Propagation reports are welcome and should be directed to the repeater keeper G4WTV – [email protected]

Below:  Receiver on the left and transmitter on the right.

Below:  RX node controller on the left and TX node controller on the right.

Below: Left, half wave receiving antenna. Right, half wave transmitting antenna.

 

Link to local 2 metre repeater:

The repeater is linked to our local 2 metre repeater GB3RW. This will allow people who don’t have a 6 metre radio or aerial to work through the 6 metre repeater. This system has been adopted by many repeaters world wide. Hopefully, it will encourage people to use the repeaters more often.

This was originally a 10-metre repeater but, due to the lack of openings on that band, it was reassigned to 6 metres.

Please note:

If you are local to the repeaters, it’s best not to listen to them both at the same time. Either use GB3RW, as you normally would. Or, use GB3CQ, as you normally would.  Listening to both at the same time will result in confusion!

Watch the video. Repeaters for beginners:

I’ve created a video here which might help newcomers to grasp the idea of repeaters.