Grande Ronde Radio Amateur Association Club Repeater
Repeater Hardware | Yaesu DR-2X System Fusion 2 |
---|---|
Frequency | 146.980mhz -offset |
Full Tone Encode/Decode* | 100hz |
Wattage | 25 watts, (10 and 50 watts optional) |
Emissions | FM, C4FM Digital** |
Internet Extension | Wires X Node #30274 Wires X Room #40274 |
Power | Commercial AC, Permanent Generator |
*- 100hz Tone Encode is required to open the repeater. While Full Tone Encode/Decode is not required on your end, it is highly recommended if you plan on running only FM or don’t have your radio in Yaesu’s Automatic Mode Select (AMS). C4FM does not use squelch tones, using full tone E/D, your radio will ignore the C4FM digital transmissions. If you don’t, you will hear the C4FM data noise on your receiver and it can be very annoying.
** C4FM is the digital mode that Yaesu has selected for their radios. Although Yaesu is the only big three to use this mode, it is not truly proprietary. Some Ham Radio Hotspots like OpenSPOT support C4FM. There are two voice modes, Voice Wide (VW) and Digital Narrow (DN). DN supports transmission of your voice, but also call sign and location data in the transmission. VW only supports voice and call sign. W7GRA support both modes via AMS. There is a third option, Data. If you have the right equipment, you can send pictures over the air.
The inside of the new W7GRA Yaesu DR-2X repeater. N7NSL and KI7FXJ took the cover off to install the Voice and LAN Card options.
W7GRA RF Receive Probability Model

Radio propagation estimate was done by using the Radio Mobile Software. Radio Mobile was developed by VE2DBE. The data that was used to generate this picture is may not be 100% accurate and some of it was a guess. But this should give you a ruff estimate of this repeaters coverage. Remember this map only shows signal quality of how you would receive signals from W7GRA. Your signal quality into the repeater maybe different depending on your antenna and power output of your radio.
Wires X
The Wires in Wires X stands for Wide-coverage Internet Repeater Enhancement System. This is Yaesu’s version of ham radio over internet technology. Its similar to Echolink, D-Star, DMR, or AllStar. For the most part any 2 meter repeater system is dependent on the range of the repeater. With Wires X, you can tell the repeater to log into another Wires X repeater anywhere in the world and start a QSO through that repeater.
Our repeater, W7GRA, has full access to Wires X, but we do limit it to C4FM digital mode only. So you can log into a repeater like WF7S (Spout Springs) or someplace in Japan if you want. There are thousands of repeater nodes out there for you to explore.
A really good site for the beginner Wires X operator is HamOperator.com and make sure you look at their Wires X Bible. Its a great resource on all things Wires X.
And don’t forget to look at Yaesu’s Wires X site as well.
W7GRA Repeater History
Under Construction! More to come as I learn about this repeater’s history -ki7fxj
Upgraded to Yaesu Repeater DR-1X
Added Wires X- May 2017
Firmware upgrade for Wires-X
Upgraded to Yaesu DR-2X in October 2017 by Ted Ivester N7NSL, Jason Fouts W7JSN, Tyson Brooks KI7FXJ