Night_solstice
NES Member
Not sure if anyone has run in to this. For the past month or more, I've been hearing almost no traffic on the 2m/440 bands at my home. At first I figured it was just really quiet, and then perhaps my antenna got damaged. The past two Sundays I tried to turn into the net traffic on the WB1GOF repeater out of Westford. I used to listed on Sundays and during any storms to SKYNET on that repeater. But I heard nothing. I went out to my car, and on my HT with the antenna on the car, I could hear them talking clear as day.
I installed EchoNET on my PC so I could listen to the repeater and when I heard traffic, I would turn on the radio to see if I could pickup anything. Now people can hear me fine if I broadcast to the Westford repeater, I just don't hear anything in return. Which is the opposite of what I'm used to (I've experience the "I can hear them, but they can't hear me" issue),
I'm using a Kenwood v71, and I've tried on High and Low (50 and 5w). I've borrowed now two SWR meters, and my setup is registering 1.2, power about 45.
I started thinking possible interference. One weird thing, as the day ends things seem to clear up, stations I was getting massive 'noise' would quiet down.
I'm located in Townsend, and I started keeping a log at night and I am picking up stations
Fitchburg - Tones
Danvers - auto announcement of time
Danvers - Auto Announcement of repeater name
Danvers - Chatter
Nashua - Tone/beeps
Hollis - auto announcement of repeater name
Marlborough - auto announcement (just caught end)
Waltham - talking
Marlboro - talking
Boston - 145.2300 - FAINT talking
Derry - Repeater Name
Every pass will stop on Westford
Belmont - talking
etc
I'm not sure if it's anything, but when it scans past the Westford station, it will always stop. Now I can have my squelch fully open or fully closed and I still hear the 'static' and it won't clear.
Just taking a shot in the dark if someone has run into this before. The next step is my uncle and I are going to put up an antenna he has and test with both his radio and mine and see if the same issue results both during the day and evening, and if needed try some fox hunting to see if we can locate what may be causing the issue if it seems like interference. I'm kind of hoping that despite the SWR reading, its just an issue with the antenna, as it's just maddening as I know I've used that repeater before, and used to pick up a lot of chatter before.
Hope this make sense.
I installed EchoNET on my PC so I could listen to the repeater and when I heard traffic, I would turn on the radio to see if I could pickup anything. Now people can hear me fine if I broadcast to the Westford repeater, I just don't hear anything in return. Which is the opposite of what I'm used to (I've experience the "I can hear them, but they can't hear me" issue),
I'm using a Kenwood v71, and I've tried on High and Low (50 and 5w). I've borrowed now two SWR meters, and my setup is registering 1.2, power about 45.
I started thinking possible interference. One weird thing, as the day ends things seem to clear up, stations I was getting massive 'noise' would quiet down.
I'm located in Townsend, and I started keeping a log at night and I am picking up stations
Fitchburg - Tones
Danvers - auto announcement of time
Danvers - Auto Announcement of repeater name
Danvers - Chatter
Nashua - Tone/beeps
Hollis - auto announcement of repeater name
Marlborough - auto announcement (just caught end)
Waltham - talking
Marlboro - talking
Boston - 145.2300 - FAINT talking
Derry - Repeater Name
Every pass will stop on Westford
Belmont - talking
etc
I'm not sure if it's anything, but when it scans past the Westford station, it will always stop. Now I can have my squelch fully open or fully closed and I still hear the 'static' and it won't clear.
Just taking a shot in the dark if someone has run into this before. The next step is my uncle and I are going to put up an antenna he has and test with both his radio and mine and see if the same issue results both during the day and evening, and if needed try some fox hunting to see if we can locate what may be causing the issue if it seems like interference. I'm kind of hoping that despite the SWR reading, its just an issue with the antenna, as it's just maddening as I know I've used that repeater before, and used to pick up a lot of chatter before.
Hope this make sense.
