IARS

The Illawarra Amateur Radio Society operates several repeater sites on the South Coast of New South Wales, in the Illawarra region.Shown below is a listing of these repeaters, as well as the Packet BBS.

10 METRE REPEATER

Unfortunately our 10 Metre repeater has been off the air for a couple of years due to the intolerable amount of pirate activity from Australia’s north on it’s input frequency.

6 METRE REPEATER

The 6 Metre repeater is VK2RMP on 53.650MHz and is located at Maddens Plains, which is halfway between Sydney and Wollongong.

2 METRE REPEATERS

The three 2 Metre repeaters are VK2RMP on 146.850MHz also located at Maddens Plains, VK2RIS on 146.975MHz at Saddleback Mountain, which is near Kiama and Nowra and VK2RBT on 146.675MHz at Mt Boyne, which is halfway between Ulladulla and Batemans Bay.

70 CENTIMETRE REPEATERS

The two 70 Centimetre repeaters are VK2RMP on 438.725MHz, also at Maddens Plains and VK2RUW on 438.225MHz at Knights Hill, which is south of Wollongong and is also the main television and FM radio broadcast site for the south coast.

REPEATER LINKING

The three 2 Metre repeaters are all linked together in a system called “Coastlink”. This system allows continuous mobile coverage along the coast from north of Sydney all the way south to Narooma.

The VK2RBZ UHF repeater at Knights Hill is also linked into the “Eastlink” UHF Repeater system, which currently has repeaters in Wagga Wagga, Canberra, Goulburn and the southern highlands.

Remote control of all of the Club’s six mountain-top sites with their many repeaters, links, and other functions is achieved with the use of DTMF tones.

IRLP NODE ACCESS

Access the IRLP via our Coastlink 2m repeaters. Our node address is 6018.

IRLP node list – Lists the world wide nodes for the IRLP

To access our IRLP system a callsign MUST be announced prior to sending any DTMF tones as it has voice recognition software included.

ECHOLINK NODE ACCESS

We have access to Echolink on the 147.300Mhz VK2RBZ repeater courtesy of Steve VK2BGL located at Kiama. It’s callsign is VK2BGL-R and it’s node number is 325276.

To access a Echolink node just dial in the DTMF code for the node number you are calling. With Echolink it can be a four, five, or six digit number. To disconnect when you have finished just dial the DTMF code 73.

To check the node status dial DTMF code # (hash).

Once disconnected, to reconnect to the last node connected, dial * (star).

Steve VK2BGL can arrange a 2 digit shortcuts to connect to a popular node .You can catch him on 147.300 or the coast link repeater system. Some shortcuts already installed are…

• 00 – VK2BGL-L (Engadine simplex 146.550Mhz)
• 01 – VK2JTP-L (Kuringai simplex 146.425Mhz)
• 02 – VK2YX-R (Lawson repeater 147.05Mhz)
• 03 – GB3IR-R (Richmond NE England)
• 06 – VK4MOD-L (Bundaberg simplex)
• 39 – VK2RNC-R ( Newcastle Mt. Sugarloaf)

Note that some of these repeaters (eg Lawson and Richmond) do not allow multiple connects so it is best to give a DTMF code 73 before attempting to dial these nodes.

If you have Echolink on your computer look for VK2BGL-R and you can connect from your computer and transmit and receive on the VK2RBZ Repeater.

Thanks to Steve VK2BGL for offering this great service.