Repeater settings on my Space-U

Having spent too many hours trying to understand the Space-U user manual to programme for repeaters I gave up and got the cable and CRT software!

Could anyone aim me in the correct direction for the settings please, see attached for what I have set so far. My nearest 70cm repeater is GB3BR and when trying to access I get 9 flashes on the RX indicator but no audible tones. (Nothing from the other two, maybe too far away).

Hi Tony,

After having a quick look at your attached image with the settings it looks like you've got the repeater settings right as far as the frequencies and CTCSS tone. I'm not sure about the other settings never having owned that particular radio. (My Leixen VV-898 was a PITA so had to resort to software myself!)

I think on mine there was an offset as well as frequency to set and they both had to be correct. Can't rightly remember because I have three different radios all programmed in three different ways!

Are you sure that you're trying to fire into the nearest repeater?
Only because I remember someone who had mistaken their Maidenhead locator square so was trying to fire up a repeater miles away from them.

If you need to check your exact locator square then the following link is useful :-

https://www.whatsmylocator.co.uk/


You can then pop that into the ukrepeaters.net site and then after clicking on the 'km' section see the repeaters nearest to you. Link below :-

https://ukrepeaters.net/repeaterlist.html?filter=70CM


I know that some repeaters are set so that they don't fire up if there is no voice or DTMF tone, (stops all the 'kerchunking'.....smart idea. ), so always worth making your call sign announcement which you're supposed to do anyway.


Your antenna as well as location is going to make a vast difference too.

I could barely make it into the closest 70cm repeater but could open the next due to line of sight. It wasn't until I put a better antenna higher up that I could open many more repeaters but still had a 2m problem. (Had to chat to a friend by firing across three counties to the Tring repeater to get him at home circumnavigating the dirty big hill between us!)

Worth taking a look at the repeaters website as they have a predicted coverage map on there :-

GB3BR 70cm Repeater


If you thought the Foundation could've been a challenge you ain't seen nothing yet until you get your head around repeater programming made more difficult by the non-standardised programming methods!

(I like my old Yaesu FT290r, repeater shift knob and one fixed CTCSS for my repeaters. )


Anyway, I hope that may be of some help but sure that someone else with first hand experience of that radio would be able to help. (Alan, where are you mate?)


Best of luck and always have fun. (Even if at first frustrating.)

All the best,
Victor

Not sure at all but i had a CTR dual bander before i got my licence and programmed it.
Not sure if i used chirp software or cte but what i think i remember was an option in the software to get what i wanted from repeterbook and send the info to the radio.
Never did get my head round programming it but did somehow and i think that was how i did it.

Ah, I had thought you had a CRT Space as well Alan mate.


Tony,
I've had a dig about the old internet as much as I could and it's all about as clear as mud, (Chinglish manuals!) By all accounts it seems that you should be operational so can only garner that maybe you aren't making it into the repeater. (?)

It's a shame that such affordable far east manufactured radios are such a pain to program and I remember the headaches with my various units at first. I'm sure that might be what puts so many people off with their first experiences of Amateur Radio.

Stick with it and let us all know how you get on. It sounds like you may well become the 'resident expert' after your efforts, but if you're anything like me you'll soon forget what you did once successfully programmed!


I wish you the best and if anyone else has some helpful input for Tony then chime in as it may all help.

All the best,
Victor

Victor
The one that Tony has is the one i had here.
It belonged to a m8 of mine and he asked me to buy it and i said no but would try and sell it for him.
The gut is an mw3 but can't even fit a pl-259 or change a fuse lol and that is the truth.
He got his license just before the guy at that club got booted something about cash and i will say no more.
Anyway only had a quick play and a qso on 70cm on it and boxed it up and Tony got it.

Victor thank you again for another interesting reply, how the heck do you find time for real radio stuff, with your very comprehensive (long) posts?

Victor wrote:

Are you sure that you're trying to fire into the nearest repeater?

Well done, I thought It was as it's location is stated as Hove which as you will know is part of our city. I had seen that on the repeater list some weeks back but ignored what it stated was the distance from my locator i.e. 69km. I had noticed that it's locator only had the first 4 digits so I wrongly assumed that the software had come up with a random figure, what I didn't realise until your post was the very large area that those four digits cover so that 'Hove' repeater could be 150+km away or more from me.  

Quote :

If you thought the Foundation could've been a challenge you ain't seen nothing yet until you get your head around repeater
programming made more difficult by the non-standardised programming methods!

Although I just got through it was nowhere near as challenging as this minefield, why did I want to access repeaters before even trying simplex I don't know.

Following your input I re-visited the repeater list and sorted by distance, GB3HY (Haywards Heath) was top of the list and voila it opened for me.  
I hope this may help others in the future, the CRT software is easy to use but don't take repeater locations literally when looking for the closest.

Many thanks again Victor I can now move on to the next puzzle after the 8pm net on 11M that is.

73
Tony

Alan Pilot wrote:

Not sure at all but i had a CTR dual bander before i got my licence and programmed it.
Not sure if i used chirp software or cte but what i think i remember was an option in the software to get what i wanted from repeterbook and send the info to the radio.
Never did get my head round programming it but did somehow and i think that was how i did it.

Cheers Alan, I had downloaded Chirp last week to have a look at it as I watched a Youtube video where the guy had used it. That would have been my next move if Victor hadn't sorted me out.

73
Tony
ps. I love this mini radio.

Congrats and well done Tony!

Really glad that you got sorted and successfully opened a repeater near you.

As for having time for all this stuff.....I type fast, I can't recall what I had for dinner yesterday but component numbers, (usually ones that went obsolete in the 1980's!), specs and internet addresses pop right out of the old noggin. Especially as I myself went through the anguish of repeaters back when I first started.

Plus, I love nothing more than popping on Charlie Tango whenever I'm able and see if I can maybe welcome someone, read a posting, shoot the breeze or help out where possible. My reward is simply seeing someone progress along with their radio interest.


Certainly worth every minute I spend here.

I can get HY from here but not BR.
BR is over the hills to the south east.