Noumea 2metre FM repeater FK8ZHA 146.800 MHz off air

when I visited Noumea at end of December 2019, I took 2m/70cm handheld with me to work the local FK8's but found 146.800 repeater not responding, had it monitoring all day but nothing. Checked the other frequencies, I heard the FK1ZBR 439.950 digital node being used.
Anyway, the 146.800 repeater may have been damaged along with the FK8SIX 6metre beacon last year.   Looks like FK5ZBY operating a Echolink node on 145.300 MHz

But I did find there are stations active based on the APRS.fi map.
APRS near Noumea

Modifications for the TYT TH-9800 FM quad-bander mobile transceiver

These TH-9800  quad band FM transceivers  (a clone of the Yaesu FT-8900 transceiver) have an issue of blowing the transmit driver FET.  I have documented a modification to fix this, as it would be a considerable amount of work to replace the drive FET, or even the PA FET for that matter. Easier to do the mod and run at less output power, better than having a dead tx PA. It basically adding a 8v (7808) regulator into the supply circuit for the Driver FET,  which is fed hot from the 13.8v DC input.

http://www.qsl.net/vk2kfj/th9800.html

Motorola GM-339 and Tait 8110

Just some ex-commercial radios  we playing with for 2m and 70cm

Motorola GM-339 UHF mobiles, and Tait 8110 VHF mobiles.  Excellent radios.

DMR radio

I been doing some more playing with DMR using my TYT MD-380  UHF handheld. Since I first started playing with this, there is now a second network operating locally,

http://dmr-marc.net/   the original DMR network here in VK

and the other network

https://brandmeister.network/ or referred to as DMR-BM,

which is very interesting  as it comprises of homebrew repeater equipment, such as the MMDVM repeater which is based on Arduino a kit and interface board, which does more than simply DMR, they also doing C4FM   and planning on P25 support.  Also DV4mini doing Dstar, C4FM and DMR

http://ve1cra.net/main/dmr.html

http://mmdvm.blogspot.com.au/

http://ve1cra.net/main/dstar.html


Just in the Sydney basin, we now  have VK2RCG  439.500  (Sydney city),  VK2RWW 438.100 Dural, VK2RLE 438.425 Heathcote, VK2RHP 439.750 (Horsley Park),  VK2RAG Central Coast and one planned up Newcastle.
And of course the DMR repeaters in pretty much all states now, including Canberra VK1RBM.
What this means is since they share Talk Groups, you can be travelling around Sydney and switch  repeaters and maintain the same  Talk Group QSO. You don't have to chat via a public Talk Group, you can setup a private QSO with another person.

In summary,  a whole different concept compared to the old fashioned FM analogue repeater, it takes a bit of thinking to get used to the idea, but once you understand the concepts, then you soon realise the benefits of it. As it grows, you will see  a lot of multi-mode digital repeaters and gateways appearing.