Filling the void

When the Bournemouth repeater GB3SC closed down the 2m band turned into something of a local backwater. Jon G7ICH, myself and others used to hold court every morning on our daily commute via SC. To say we missed it would be an understatement, but life moves on and we let it go, because people changed jobs and their priorities change; the stuff of life!

However, with the coming of the digital revolution including Fusion and DMR, it was considered that a local DMR repeater might be a nice thing to have, particularly when connected to Brand Meister. I found a site on a high point overlooking the Poole conurbation which proved to be a good spot for our 70cm box GB7DR. The repeater deck was provided by my very generous employer and fellow ham Nick Foot G4WHO (now silent key) and the infrastructure was paid for by the Poole Amateur Radio Society. The site is provided free by Alfatronix Ltd (https://www.alfatronix.com) who keep the repeater fed and watered with a smattering of internet access. Now the bugs in the intranet firewall at the site have been sorted by Jon, the repeater gives trouble free access to DMR system - give it a go.

Analogue

I'm a self-confessed analogue amateur/engineer, and I've never liked the speech quality provided by the DMR system, plus being digital you can never have a marginal contact, when the signal gets too weak it just stops trying!
Jon, myself and several other local amateurs thought we should plough on and aim to get an analogue repeater to replace GB3SC. After asking around we managed to snag a free 2m deck in the shape of a Philips/Simoco PF10. This was kindly donated by Andrew Barret G8DOR, (past) ETCC Member for the South West. We then became doubly blessed by a chance meetings with an ex-radio amateur, turned PMR engineer Gary J. Simpson (www.commsouthern.co.uk) and ex-Southern Gas communication engineer, Mark G4SDR.

Suitable Site 

At this point we decided to look for a suitable site - having lived in the Poole/Parkstone area all my life I know the topography quite well, and the location of most of the PMR repeater sites since becoming a radio amateur in the 1980s. Several locations were selected and letters were written to site owners, only one came back as a maybe and that was from a social club in Upper Parkstone - just spitting distance from a PMR site that was about to be decommissioned. We had a couple of meetings and the senior trusty of the site, a once enthusiastic SWL, found us some attic space and a outside wall to mount the antenna, roof space proved to be warm and dry and had easy access to authorised personnel.

Lock Down

The repeater ran for nearly a year, but due to lock-down rules our friendly social club didn't ride out the economic tsunami caused by the virus. So we had to remove the repeater and start again at a new site. We got permission from Nick Foot my managing director, just weeks before his demise, to set the repeater up on a old PMR mast placed on his industrial unit by a previous tenant. The repeater was given space on a storage platform in the unit and given an AC supply and access to WIFI. The site was not as well served by the local topography, but it proved adequate after the application of an low noise receive preamplifier, which then made it accessible to most mobile stations in and around the Bournemouth and Poole area. Thanks go to Alan G7NYI for providing a brand new antenna, as the previous item had proved unreliable, and to Carlo G7IRU our group antenna rigger for fettling the feeder and mast instillation.

Something Borrowed.....

Since the first instillation of the repeater, we had been given two scrap Simoco TF2000 decks by Gary Simpson, both needed repair but after some TLC from me and help from the guys at the Simoco UK service depot both were made operational. We had by the second instillation acquired support and equipment from: - Les, G0FAJ, for the antenna and bandpass filter, Paul Marsh M0EYT, Jules Smith G0NZO and Kevin Nice G7TZC for the Heliax feeder and filter cavities. As the four cavities didn't offer the required isolation needed for the industrial location, John Fell G0API provided a circulator from the original GB3SC repeater and a low-noise pre-amp. In addition we had some financial support from the membership of the Poole Amateur Radio Society G4PRS, and a good deal of technical expertise was also provided by M0EYT, G0NZO and G0API.

A Repeater Is Borne 

We were asked by the Poole Amateur Radio Society G4PRS, if we could christen the repeater with letters to denote it was the Poole repeater, the closest we could get was GB3PB - Poole Bay. So the GB3PB repeater is borne a second time, rising from the ashes of its previous existence, providing an analogue gateway linked via Allstar to the internet. However, due to security issues it was not possible to access the repeater directly from the internet, so using RF activations and the DTMF protocol described on QRZ.com entry for GB3PB, the Allstar system can be activated. In order to offer this facility, Jon G7ICH (who is now recognised as the IT expert in the group) used a PC based application to control the repeater and a Raspberry PIE to interface with the Allstar system.

Repeater Community 

Unfortunately, COVID saw the demise of my friend and long term employer Nick Foot G4WHO. Nick was a leading light in the development of amateur repeaters locally (GB3SC & GB3SZ both silent key) but his legacy lives' on in GB7DR which he purchased, and the siting of GB3PB at his old company near Wimborne. In fact without the support of all the above persons and many I have not named, GB3PB and GB7DR would not exist. The hardware of both systems is owned by the amateurs that provided it and is a testament to the term community repeater. The best complement you could pay to the memory of Nick and co, is to use our repeater and enjoy the hobby of amateur radio and mobile operating.

Repeater Details

GB7DR occupies Channel DVU34, RX-439.425MHz, TX-430.425MHz, Colour Code 5, Slot 1 - Talk Group 9 (Local QSO), Slot 2 - Talk Group 950 (Brand Meister). Located Canford Heath, Poole. Keeper is Jon G7ICH. For complete operating details see the repeater entry on the QRZ.com web pages.


GB3PB is a 2m analogue Allstar enabled repeater serving the Poole Bay conurbation and outlying areas, AllStar node 510620. Channel RV50, TX-145.625MHz, RX-145.025MHz RX, CTCSS 71.9Hz. Located in Ferndown. Keeper Jon G7ICH. For complete operating details see the repeater entry on the QRZ.com web pages.

Last go round

The repeater GB3PB gives good coverage over the Poole and Bournemouth basin with outstanding coverage to the north of Poole, despite for the height of the antenna. It does however, have a few holes in its coverage due to the nature of the local terrain. If we could get the antenna another 5 to 10m higher, then most of the issue would disappear, but the antenna is as high as our very generous landlord would permit. :)