Standard offsets

All PPFMA repeaters use standard frequency offsets for the transmitter, relative to the receiver frequency. These are:

• -600 kHz for 2m repeaters with transmitter outputs below 147 MHz,
• +600 kHz for 2m repeaters with transmitter outputs above 147 MHz,
• -5 MHz for UHF repeaters with transmitter outputs above 445 MHz,
• -12 MHz for 1.2 GHz repeaters with transmitter outputs above 1.282 GHz.

CTCSS Tones (Continuous Tone-Coded Squelch System)

CTCSS is a standard radio squelch technique that uses a subaudible tone on the transmitted signal to control the opening & closing of the receiver squelch. A repeater that doesn't use CTCSS will relay all received signals. A repeater using CTCSS will relay only those signals which have the subaudible tone present.

All repeaters REQUIRE CTCSS AT ALL TIMES. That means you must enable the 100Hz (or 123Hz) CTCSS tone on your transmitter, otherwise the repeater will not relay your signal.

*CTCSS is synonymous with PL (Private Line), which is a Motorola copyrighted term for CTCSS.

All of the PPFMA voice repeaters send out a 100Hz CTCSS tone on their outputs. If you have CTCSS squelch available on your transceiver, you may want to enable this feature. This will cause your receiver to remain quiet until it hears the repeater output with the 100 Hz subaudible tone. With your receive CTCSS enabled, your receiver will ignore noise bursts and intermod products that are often heard in modern transceivers. If you don't have this capability; don't worry ... it's not required to listen to the repeaters.

Autopatches

General Comments

The 146.97 MHz repeater is a wide area coverage machine. Due to its wide area of coverage, this repeater is used for several regularly scheduled nets and is normally active during most ARES, RACES and Skywarn emergencies.

Both 146.97 and 448.45 can be accessed from the Wyoming border on the north, within 50 miles of Kansas on east and Raton Pass, NM on the south.

Annunciations

From time to time, you'll hear various voice or CW announcements on the repeaters. These announcements are there to give you information about the current status of the repeater. Below are some of the announcements and what they mean.