Effective Tuesday, November 18th 2014, the Norwalk 440 repeater will be converted to a new digital mode called “DMR”. Digital Mobile Radio, which is based on international standards, allows repeaters to carry multiple “talk groups” and be linked regionally, nationally, and of course worldwide.
For this experiment (which is what ham radio is all about!), the analog repeater you are familiar with at 448.075 will be digital for a test period of several months. If you have programmed your radios to scan this frequency, it will stop and just hear digital white noise.
The normal New Canaan 440 repeater will be back to analog on Wednesday, and we are actively looking at moving echolink/irlp over to that machine as it will not be available on Norwalk during the digital test.
Thank you for your patience during this test of an exciting new mode of operation!
If you would like more information about DMR, please reach out to W1FSM, WB2JVB, N1LLL or N1PLH.
This link has good information on DMR: http://www.dmr-marc.net/
Here are some other FAQs about DMR: http://www.k1tmm.info/dmr-faq#faqnoanchor
Several GNARC members have bought a ConnectSystems CS700 radio to experiment with DMR. It costs about $180. Look for the “CS700” at the web site below:
http://www.connectsystems.com/
