During the 2014 year, Rocky Mountain Ham Radio personnel have spent significant amounts of time building and extending microwave radios to various locations along the front range to extend the reach of it’s radio systems. Our goal was to create a cooperative microwave network to carry IP traffic to repeater site locations while remaining technology agnostic. “We’re really creating a highway to carry all sorts of radio traffic,” said Doug Sharp, K2AD, Chief Technology Officer of Rocky Mountain Ham Radio.
Currently we have 18 hops of microwave installed into the system, adding more as time an weather allows. Plans are in the works for at least 6 more hops of radio and a few more MotoTRBO repeaters to extend the Colorado network.
While we would love to continue building these systems, maintenance of these systems are extremely time consuming. Distance from end to end on the microwave system is about 5 hours. We need to have partners to assist us in extending the reach of the network. Jeff Carrier, K0JSC signed on to do the Pueblo County/Fremont County extension and bring us closer to our goal of interconnecting with Rocky Mountain Ham Radio, New Mexico’s network currently under construction.
We have partnered with K0JSC for Pueblo/Fremont, N5UBJ, Bill VanHuss for Durango/LaPlata, W0FT/HEAHR for Ft Morgan. This can’t be done without help and support from all of these people and we welcome inquiries for network extension assistance!