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It finally happened. On Sunday November 2 2008 a group of 6 people met at Spectrum Health to remove all of the WMPORN repeaters belonging to Sam K8SN. Both the 442.175 and 224.760 repeaters have lost their home of more than 15 years.

The 224.760 repeater was moved into the "new" radio room right after the building was constructed. That repeater along with another local club repeater had been located in the hospitals former radio room. The club repeater was moved to a different location, but the 224.760 repeater was moved into the new radio room followed shortly by the K8SN 442.175 repeater. Several years ago the 224.760 repeater was purchased by Sam and became the K8SN 220 MHz repeater.

The reason that the repeaters had to be removed is due to the helicopter crash that took place several months ago. In that crash the pilot managed to clip a webcamera belonging to TV13 (WZZM) with the tail-rotor of the bird, leading to a fiery crash that caused the necessity of an evacuation of the hospital. During this evacuation Hospital Communication Volunteers (HOSCOM) used the 442.175 repeater as a primary means of their communication.

Once again, the hospital is constructing a new radio room, and has offered to us a place to put the repeaters. Unfortunately that location is far too short to be able to use the repeater for many of the important things that it has been used for over the last 15 years including Skywarn, The Riverbank Run and Hoscomm as well as other various events. The repeaters location in proximity to downtown Grand Rapids along with it's excellent HT coverage is what made that repeater so useful for such events. The new location that was offered will not allow the type of coverage that we need to deal with those situations. While we would like to go there temporarily the hospitals offer did not include things like paying for new feedline, and the money to get the repeaters operating there and then pay for it all again when a better location is available is just not in the budget.

Rest assured that we have a backup plan available to get the 442.175 repeater back on the air at another location, but this would still not give us the coverage that we truly need. We are currently seeking other possibilities at this time and will welcome any offers that will allow us to return this repeater to the air and once again provide the services that it has provided for many years.

This month WMPORN gets a mention in Popular Communications Magazine. The article, found on page 20 of the November 2008 issue is about D-STAR and what it is all about.

How did WMPORN make it into Pop-Comm? Well, it all started when Jason Togyer, KB3CNM took notice of our novel ideas to make our booth stand out at the Dayton Hamvention. The approach that we took caught many looks during the event, but one of those lookers was Jason, who had been issued a directive to do a story about D-Star. There were lots of things at Dayton about D-Star, but those were the vendors booths, and we were not selling D-Star, just promoting it in a way that people would stop by our booth to talk to us about it. Jason, was one of those people and when he came up to talk I was at the booth.

Jason asked a few quesitons and then asked if he could contact me later in the summer as he worked on this article. Of course I replied "sure" and we exchanged contact information. Some time later Jason called me on the phone and asked a whole lot more questions and it seems he was armed with alot more knowledge than he was at Dayton. To shortcut to the end and try to keep this piece shorter than Jason's article I will just say "the rest is history" and you can find the first mention of WMPORN in a national magazine (that we know about) in the November 2008 issue of Popular Communications.

With the upgrade of the gateway software to G2 (gateway 2) many things have changed. As always, one must be registered with one of the gateways in order to use the gateway features such as call routing over the internet. Getting yourself registered however has changed drastically. What was a cryptic nightmare for the gateway operators has not become a cryptic nightmare for the users!! Yipee, now it's your problem!! Ok, well that is not quite true, the software is not all that impressive and leaves much to be desired, but it does make life a little easier.

To register for DStar gateway use please first visit the G2 Registration Information webpage and read it completely. Let me say that once more, READ IT completely. If I do not know who you are I will do a callbook lookup to see where you live (your license information is up to date, right?). If you are not in a reasonable coverage area of the repeater you will get an email from me asking some questions. Why? Just because WMPORN is not a paid membership group (though we do accept donations) does not mean that we intend to destroy local clubs by helping people use features of expensive equipment without paying the club dues that pay for that equipment. On the other hand, we want everyone to be able to enjoy amateur radio and will help where we can. And, thanks to G2 the local club can still ban you from using those features through their repeater.

Looking for something that was located on this page? As news becomes old or past tense I frequently move those paragraphs to the BLOG section that can be selected using the green links to the left. The blog contains the latest things removed from this page and are simply pasted at the top of the blog page starting with the second paragraph. Keeping this information around is good for historical purposes as well as allowing people to catch up and maybe even move ahead faster with their DStar project.

We have another DStar repeater in town that was purchased through grant money given to the local emergency services group. The repeater in the downtown Grand Rapids area and is currently UHF only. The repeater is operating on a full coordination on 444.250 + with the callsign KD8HLF

Hats and patches for shirts and jackets are here! While I have not had the time to take pictures of these items a reasonable idea of what they are can be found by using the apparel link to the left. This is not a profit making situation for us, just a way for people to show support. The hats are 5 panel Khaki with the 2008 WMPORN logo embroidered on them. The hats are $16 each. The patches are circular approximately 3 &quote; in diameter indicated as #5 on the apparel page and cost $11.00. These are very well made and will last a very long time. Unfortunately it is too late at this time to get the callsigns placed on the back of the hat without doing another order. We are also looking into some other items using silkscreen methods to offer an alternative.

For callsign and routing information please see the WMPORN routing information page. Please remember to check back here frequently as this routing information will be changing once we install the gateway.

What we need now is some help with funding. Though we were able to obtain the D-Star repeater at a reasonable price, we have also had to purchase D-Star radios to use with the repeater. This has been no cheap adventure for the repeater owners. If you would like to help accelerate this project donations are being accepted. But wait, we really don't want your money. It seems that too often donations are mishandled these days and to avoid such issues we would prefer that donations come in a form the actual needed items. You can look this link to see some of the items that we could use some help purchasing.

Several of the WMPORN people meet every Thursday evening. More information is available here.