WA1KFX - Newfane, Vermont :

This site is located in the southeast corner of Vermont about 21 miles north of Brattleboro, in the town of Newfane. Elevation at this privately-owned site is about 1,600 feet, which provides pretty good coverage of the lower Connecticut River Valley and westward out to the Green Mountain range. Originally this station was located at the summit of Mt. Snow in the town of Dover. In 1978 it was moved to this site from Mt.Snow when the building where the equipment had been located was to be torn down and replaced. At the time there was no other place for the equipment to be relocated. It has remained at this site ever since.

Equipment used at this station is a Motorola Micor repeater which operates on 449.700 / 444 700 at a power level of about fifty watts into a Phelps Dodge band pass band reject duplexer. The transmission line is half-inch heliax which feeds a Phelps Dodge Station Master antenna. The CTCSS tone used here is 110.9 cps. This station is linked into the Mt. Killington system. Linking equipment is a RCA TAC-300 mobil unit, which operates into a directional Yagi type antenna. The main repeater, linking transmitter and receiver interfacing, as well as various control functions are accomplished by means of a Link-Comm RLC-1 repeater controller.

(Updated 11/05) Little has been done to this station since its original installation. Plans are to replace the existing UHF repeater antenna and up date the link equipment in the future. A significant update was made his summer when a Motorola MSR 2000 VHF repeater was installed. The repeater operates on same frequency pair, 147.09 /147.69, as the NFMRA repeater that was on Mt. Snow many years ago. A CTCSS tone of 110.9 hertz is required for access. Additional information on the VHF system will be added in the future as system upgrades come into place.

This picture shows the site as it is seen looking toward the north. This wood frame building was built by the State of Vermont in the early 1970's and contained equipment used as part of a statewide communications system. Soon after the building was constructed the porcupines discovered the tasty plywood siding and it became necessary to add a strip of sheet metal around the bottom of he building to keep them from destroying it. The tower seen to the left of the building a 100-foot Rohn 45G. The repeater and link antennas are at about the 50-foot level.

In this picture can be seen the equipment as it is located in it's cabinet. The duplexer is located at the very top of the cabinet. Directly below the duplexer is the Micor 80-watt PA assembly. Next is the Micor unified chassis which houses the transmitter exciter, multiplier, PA control boards and receiver. Next can be seen the repeater controller enclosure containing the RLC-1 and next in line is the repeater power supply. Below the power supply is the link transmitter/receiver RCA mobil unit. An independent 12-volt power supply for the link is located with the Mobil on the same rack panel.