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HISTORY : The history of
the Naturn was in the making
shortly after acquiring my first UHF radio. This was an ex-commercial Kenwood TK-810 .
In the greater Durban area there was only one uhf repeater
with little or no activity on it at the best of times .During my travels
to work every day I would call and call with little response.
Out of this frustration came for what I believe to have
been a good result in the making.
The first uhf repeater found home at the Kloof Microwave
tower where Ch1 exists today .This first stand alone repeater was the
434-650 (-1,6 Mhz ) which served well enough to start off with. This same
machine is now the HUB repeater linking all the local repeaters together
and is housed at the Alverstone HUB site.
Being up for the
challenge we needed to expand the coverage and looked at ways to
implement this .After looking at various methods to link more repeaters
together I decided on what is as we know it today .A simple star network
for UHF linked on UHF.
There are few systems like ours worldwide as the challenges
for isolation is perhaps overstated by many repeater owners.
I have for many years kept all repeaters UHF and only now
we are linking in one VHF repeater since IRLP .
IDEAL : My reasoning
for the Naturn was to promote the use of spectrum in the uhf band as here
in South Africa the band is underutilized .The idea of having many uhf
repeaters would allow more members to carry portables with them
throughout the day be it work or weekend .This has somewhat materialized
.
Most of the members have only VHF equipment so we are hoping to get more activity on
Naturn by the introduction of the VHF repeater.
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