SENM Ham Community Gets Another First

The Roswell area will soon have a new repeater on 146.640 MHz. The N5MMI, operated by Dan Musgrave, WD8RMG, will continue to serve the Roswell area from atop Lea Hall located on the New Mexico Military Institute. The aging system will be replaced by a new Yaesu dual mode 50 watt repeater capable of analog and Yaesu's Fusion digital format. Hams accustomed to using the N5MMI with their current analog radios will be able to continue using the system, as will Fusion users. The 100.0 Hz CTCSS tone requirement for analog will remain the same.

Initial plans were to have the new Fusion system operational today, but upon analyzing the antenna and coax, it was discovered that a large section of cable, subject to the elements, was severely deteriorated causing an extremely high SWR. With forecasted highs in the triple digits, it was decided to leave the repeater down until Thursday when Dan and Jim Tucker, KB0QNW, would return to the site and repair the damaged coax.

Initially, the '6-4' will continue to be a stand alone repeater, but Dan does have plans to eventually make it an Echolink node.