6metre repeater status in and around Sydney and NSW , as of 29th August, 2025

 6metre repeater status in and around Sydney and NSW that I know of, as of 29th August, 2025,

53.625 VK2RSN, Mt.Sugarloaf, Newcastle, back on air July 2025, requires 91.5Hz tone

53.650  VK2RMP, Maddens Plain, Illawarra,  operational, requires 123Hz

53.675  VK2RMB, Terrey Hills, off-air

53.700  VK2RGN, Goulburn, off-air

53.725  VK2RAG, Somersby, Central Coast, operational, requires 91.5Hz tone, linked to 23cm rptr

53.800  VK2RCN, Port Macquarie operational

53.825  VK2RBE, Bethungra operational

53.850  VK2RWI, Dural, operational

53.875  VK2RBM, Blue Mtns, operational, requires 91.5Hz tone

52.525 FM Simplex - still plenty activity, particularly Sunday morning after ARNSW broadcast

Wagga Amateur Radio Club (WARC) - new 6metre Repeater on-air VK2RBE

 Wagga Amateur Radio Club (WARC) - new 6metre Repeater on-air VK2RBE  

Just learnt that a new repeater has been commissioned at Mt.Bethungra, near Bethungra, north of Junee,

operating on 53.825  with -1MHz input, no ctcss tone required and it standalone, as of June 2024.

Follow details on the WARC website Repeaters - Wagga Amateur Radio Club

Just thinking about it, I havent done any trips to Young/Cootamundra/Junee/Wagga/Tumut since 2023, hence not tried out this repeater mobile yet.

Since this new 6metre repeater is co-sited with the VK2RBE 2metre repeater on 146.675MHz,  then it is possible it will be accessible from the Hume Highway in the Jugiong-Coolac region for those traversing the Hume Highway with 6metre FM in the mobile, otherwise should be good coverage on the Olympic Highway in Junee-Bethungra-Cootamundra section.

XLX Reflectors for VK & ZL as of 23rd August, 2025

 XLX Reflectors for VK & ZL as of 23rd August, 2025

here are some of the XLX Reflectors, looking at them, they are now all XLX, replacing the older XRF,DCS reflectors. Note- some are purely DStar, some are multi-protocol

XLX014 AU multi-protocol
XLX087 AU VK3AGK Ballarat  DStar
XLX129 NZ Hamilton 
XLX299 NZ BM530 and multi-protocol
XLX432 AU  VK3JED   Multi-protocol
XLX500 AU BM DMR & multi protocol
XLX530 NZ Taupo ARC
XLX750 NZ DVNZ multi-protocol
XLX751 AU multi-protocol

XLX820 AU VK4 DStar
XLX824 AU VK4 DStar
XLX903 AU VK2YI  Dstar
XLX940 AU VK2YM  DStar
XLXVMM NZ  DStar
VK4TUX  gone

23 on 23 Activity for 23rd August, 2025

Here in Sydney tonight, VK2HC,VK2ZIP,VK2ZIW,VK2BPG,VK2KQ,VK2TDN 

Brandmeister Network Activity Viewer - hose.brandmeister.network

 This is a reminder of a Brandmeister tool website to give you a  live snapshot of current/recent activity on the Brandmeister DMR Network. You can you use the dropdown icon on right hand side to allow you to choose the view based on a region or country. In my example I am looking at EU and AU regions, you can select one region or multiple. If you click on the desired talkgroup you can monitor it, which is good tool to test if you transmitting or not. Choose a region and you can select & deselect it.  This website has been updated compared to how it originally looked.  Now it sticking purely to the required data and less graphics, to get more on your screen.

https://hose.brandmeister.network

Brandmeister talkgroup 530 ZL National Call

On Brandmeister DMR, one of the talkgroups I monitor is TG530, I keep hearing this strange white hash sound and bits and pieces of conversations and its randomly occurs,  including some drunken americans talking jibberish, I just never bothered to stop and try to figure what it was, I usually turn down the volume until it goes away again. 

This time I stopped to pay more attention, took note of the ID  and realised it was only one ID involved 530047, looked it up on the Brandmeister website, it comes up as ZL2AWW, showing two hotspots, then I  monitored the Heard list, its all sorts weird things going on, as if it tied to a gateway and a cluster in USA, strange behaviour for a ZL Call channel.

Its odd, with squeals and artifacts of digital transmissions and bits of one sided QSO's, sometimes maybe hear both sides and one american I recognise on several occassions comes up with some slurred words, god knows what he saying, I guessed he is pissed. Then I  realised it was coming from WW TG91

The two hotspots have different SSID's, and showing different frequencies, so I dont think the hotspots are relaying to each other, but at 600kHz away, and if operated in close proximity to each other they may interfere with each other. So it looks to be bleedthrough from one hotpot 53004721 txing locally, being received by the second hotspot 53004701 and it is broadcasting to TG530

QTech 2025 Conference - Brisbane VHF Group - 1st-2nd November, 2025

 

qtech – Nov 1/2, 2025

VK2RSN 6metre Repeater - Mt Sugarloaf, Newcastle back on air

 VK2RSN 6metre Repeater - Mt Sugarloaf, Newcastle back on air after a rebuild.

53.625 MHz Output,  52,625 MHz Input, with 91.5Hz CTCSS tone required by the receiver.

I heard the ident here in Sydney, during some morning propagation