UHF · 3900 W ALAMEDA AVE · DM04
The Tower — BARC’s planned UHF repeater.
Our primary repeater will live on the roof of the Tower building in the Burbank media district — a ~32-story high-rise with an unobstructed view of the San Fernando Valley, the LA basin, and everything in between.
BARC primary repeater
W6DJB has recently come across a dusty retired repeater cabinet at the former site of the NBC Studios Lot. Currently tuned for abandoned commercial frequencies that once supported studio operations, the intent is to clean and refurbish the equipment, re-tune it to a coordinated amateur frequency, and locate it on the roof of the tallest building in Burbank.
The Tower’s height — well above the hills that divide the basin from the valley — should give excellent line of sight and clean handheld-radio coverage for all of Burbank.
Final parameters will be published here and in the first newsletter once the equipment is refurbished, coordination is issued and the antenna is on the roof. In the meantime if you have knowledge, tools, or experience to share please join up and get in touch! I'm doing this from scratch and am sure to run into road blocks along the way.
How to use the repeater
If you’re new to repeaters
- Program your radio with the output frequency, offset, and access tone.
- Listen for at least a minute to make sure the channel isn’t in use.
- Key up briefly, wait for the courtesy tone, then give your call sign.
- Want to chat? Just say your call and “monitoring” or “listening.”
If you’re unlicensed, please listen but don’t transmit.
On-air etiquette
- ID with your call sign at least every ten minutes and at the end of a QSO.
- Leave a gap between transmissions so emergency traffic can break in.
- No commercial, political, or unkind content, please.
- During a net, check in when the Net Control asks for your suffix.
Other repeaters worth programming
The Burbank area sits at the crossroads of several excellent repeater systems run by neighboring clubs. These are good places to hang out until BARC is on the air, and they’re worth having in memory any time you’re in town. Always verify current parameters on RepeaterBook before you key up.
Technical notes
For the radio-curious, here’s what we’re planning to install once coordination is finalized:
- A commercial-grade MTR2000 UHF repeater at or around 25 W output, rack-mounted indoors.
- A duplexer tuned to our pair, with a bandpass/band-reject configuration to coexist with nearby broadcast and land-mobile transmitters.
- A single vertical antenna on a non-penetrating roof mount at roughly 160 m above ground level.
- Controller with voice ID, courtesy tone, and a link-ready interface so we can experiment with IRLP/AllStar in the future.
- 28V battery backup system for EmComm redundancy.
Members with professional RF and repeater experience who’d like to help with the build, tuning, or channel coordination, please reach out.