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A Short History of the Southeastern Wisconsin FM Amateur Repeater Society, Inc. Revised July 2010
2-Meter FM Voice Repeater The SEWFARS 2-Meter
FM voice repeater has been in operation in some form since 1963, making it
one of the oldest continuous operating systems in the SEWFARS was founded
in 1970 and frequencies on the 2-Meter repeater were again changed to 146.07
MHz input and 146.82 MHz output.
Another revision was made in 1970 to make the frequencies 146.22 MHz
input and 146.82 MHz output. To reduce adjacent
location interference, CTCSS (also known as “PL”) was added to the 2-Meter
repeater receiver in 1992 (the repeater always transmitted a 70-cm FM Voice Repeater A 70-cm UHF FM
voice repeater was put on line in 1987 on 449.125 MHz input/ 444.125 MHz
output with a transmit/receive PL of 114.8 Hz. In 2003 the PL frequency was changed from
114.8 Hz to 127.3 Hz to comply with standards set by the Wisconsin
Association of Repeaters (WAR.) Digipeaters – Packet Radio and APRS SEWFARS’ entry into
the digital world was the ownership and maintenance of the “WIDEL” packet
node on 145.07 MHz from 1991 to 1995.
With the rise in Automated Position Reporting System (APRS) activity,
WIDEL was reconfigured to run as an APRS digipeater
in 1995 on 144.39 Mhz with the callsign
K9ABC-10. In September 2007
the K9ABC-10 primary and backup hardware was reassigned K9ABC-1 to agree with
current APRS equipment type contentions.
K9ABC-1 is a widely used APRS digipeater in Serving Local Communities with Reliability and Coverage The systems owned
and operated by SEWFARS are considered to be among the best in reliability and
coverage, and exist for all types of appropriate/proper use by appropriately
licensed Amateur Radio Operators. This
is possible with all systems being at a location highly suitable for wide
range communications, sound engineering practice and prevention – based
management of all owned resources. SEWFARS systems are
used for a number of civic events, among them being the MC200 Relay (formerly
the Great Midwest Relay; a foot race between Madison, Wisconsin and Chicago,
Illinois,) the MS150 BDBT bike tour and until 2009 the Trek 100 bike tour. SEWFARS systems are
used as contingent resources for a number of public service organizations and
the agencies they support. In May 2007
SEWFARS entered into a support agreement with the Southeast District of Wisconsin
ARES/RACES. Under that agreement, the
SEWFARS VHF repeater was used for resource coordination in support of the
flooding response in Racine and Kenosha Counties in August 2007 and again for
resource coordination for flooding response in June 2008 for Jefferson
County. Use of the SEWFARS VHF
repeater is also written into the communications plan for the Sullivan
Committee’s SulCom Backbone, a communications
system used for, among other things, conveying ground truth weather spotter
reports to the NOAA’s National Weather Service Office in Sullivan WI during
the severe weather season. In July 2009
SEWFARS entered into a support agreement with Waukesha County ARES/RACES for
use of the UHF system. Waukesha County
ARES/RACES currently uses the UHF system for their semi-weekly nets and has
used the UHF system for support of both the Wisconsin Chapter of the American
Red Cross and Waukesha County Emergency Management in response to the Eagle,
WI tornado of 21 June 2010. Historically, the
SEWFARS systems are not heavily used for day-to-day activities, but the
SEWFARS systems have demonstrated a reputation for being there when
needed. Feel free to use any of our
resources, but we ask that all users be considerate of others, and use the
resources wisely. Additional user
guidance is available on our Code of Conduct document, or contact us with any other questions. |
©2005, 2010 SEWFARS, Inc. – All Rights
Reserved