SMLRS (Southwest Missouri Linked Repeater System) is a permanently linked radio  network.  The vital purpose of SMLRS is to enable emergency services to communicate throughout the coverage area.

Up to date information about SMLRS operations, repeater status, and other current events can be found at https://smlrs.info/smlrs-news/.  Check this page before reporting any system operations problems.

SMLRS NEWS!!!!!

July 22nd, 2025: Crane 442.150 back online

The Crane 442.150 repeater equipment has been replaced with a Motorola Quantar repeater.  With the new repeater, we have removed the additional filter can and pre-amp to evaluate the noise floor and operation of the repeater to see if it’s still needed or if we can put it in stock for use at another location.

All repeaters on the SMLRS are now linked back together via the Crane site.

July 19th. 2025: 442.150 Crane repeater temporarily offline

After the trip to Crane today, Kim, KC0GKP, helped me say “out with the old” as we took the old Motorola MSF-5000 out of service and removed it from the shelter. It has yet another issue with the front end receiver board. Besides this problem, which we’ve had twice now, we’ve had other issues with the repeater going off frequency also requiring repairs amongst other problems.

June 30th, 2025: We wanted to pass along a few repeater updates to you on this busy Monday morning!

The Branson 146.655 is now back on SMLRS and can be moved to the backup hub or back to the main hub remotely. Thanks, Clayton, KB0WZI, for your assistance this morning!

The Branson West 6-meter remote receiver is back online. The transmit radio was shut off and the controller in setup mode. We’ll need to watch this and see if it happens again.

We got the 145.270 repeater antenna straightened this morning after winds moved it a couple months ago. The tower crew was supposed to put up a 3rd clamp when they installed the new antenna about 2 years ago, decided not to and to not tighten them well enough to hold the antenna vertical.

We now have 4 clamps on the antenna and all is straight again. (Old clamps have the red arrows, new the yellow ones).

June 4th, 2025: A few updates for everyone regarding the club’s repeaters.

1 – Crane 442.150: We thought we had 2 problems – the antenna jumper at the top of the tank and the receive pickup board in the MSF 5000 – that were causing the poor receive sensitivity. However, we inadvertently found a 3rd problem – a coax jumper between our bandpass filter and the MSF-5000 receiver. It had a bad connection on one end. After cutting it off and replacing it, sensitivity improved from 0.61 uV to 0.15 uV for 12 dB SINAD. We checked the output power and currently Crane has 70w output with just over 3w reflected, or a 1.54 VSWR for reference. Generally repeaters should be less than 1.5 to 1. This is close enough so we’ll continue using it until we can get the jumper replaced. Unfortunately we are not able to get Verizon to send a crew to fix it. After some testing, we have moved ALL SMLRS repeaters back to Crane EXCEPT for Branson and we hope to be able to do that early next week.

2 – Republic 442.425 – Republic: The SCOM 7330 controller is not functional. We believe we took lightening today at the site and it was damaged. For now the 442.425 repeater is on the air but it is not connected to All Star or EchoLink.

3 – Republic 224.280 – Republic: This repeater is off the air and will be until the SCOM 7330 controller can be re-installed. We *may* be able to borrow one from a local club member. If that’s the case, we hope to get it installed this weekend or next week.

What does all this mean for our nets?

Monday Polk County ARC Net – Will operate normally except NO All Star or EchoLink until an SCOM 7330 controller can be re-installed. You may hear two courtesy tones on the 147.060 and 443.675 during the net due to the kick back from the 442.425 repeater.

Thursday Night NARC net: The 53.270, 145.270, 147.015, 442.425 and 927.0125 repeaters will be linked in for the Thursday net. The 224.280 will not be until further notice.

Friday Night Region D ARES Net: ALL normal SMLRS repeaters should be back on the net again except the 442.425 Republic repeater and the 146.655 Branson repeater.

The following repeaters will be linked in: Bendavis 444.775 / Bolivar 147.060 / Bolivar 443.675 / Crane 442.150 / Golden City 146.790 / Golden City 444.750 / Granby 145.390 / Nevada 145.450 / Nixa 145.270 / Springfield 147.015 / Springfield 147.225 / Stockton Lake 444.975 / Rolla 146.820 / Taum Sauk 145.290 / Warsaw 147.075 / Willow Springs 146.985.

We are FINALLY getting close to being back to normal. With lightning giving us fits at Crane and Republic and mice at Warsaw, it’s been quite the spring! Thanks for all your patience and support while we get things going again.

May 31st. 2025:

442.425 – Republic 442.425 Repeater Update

Jeff, W0AV, went to the site today to troubleshoot the “double beep” that we were hearing during conversations on the SMLRS. Anytime you hear the dreaded “double beep”, that means the repeater you are on or the hub repeater it connects to has a low output power condition.What Jeff found was the repeater was transmitting 120-Watts (too much power) for about 10-15 seconds and then it cut back to 80-Watts and hold solid. This is the 3rd time we’ve had an issue with this repeater and it’s power setting increasing past where it was set to operate. Jeff also found a Codeplug Eeprom error in the log which lends to a problem with the codeplug eeprom failing. These two problems, along with the fact that the internal controller is not operating correctly when DTMF tones are sent are leading us to believe the controller needs to be replaced. Today, Jeff was able to correct the power output alarm by lowering the power again to 90-Watts so the repeater is safe to use at this point. We’re going to begin looking at a replacement option in the coming weeks to get it back at 100%.

147.075 – Warsaw Repeater back online!

Randy, K0RLV, made it out to Warsaw and was able to bring the Warsaw 147.075 repeater back online with the spare rectifier assembly he had. The repeater is now back online AND on the SMLRS!

442.150 Crane repeater update

Clayton, KB0WZI, did a drone flight of the crane repeater site today with his drone & 4k camera today to see if we could find a problem atop the tank.It looks like we have located a spot in the antenna jumper that has been crushed and we’re going to get a quote to have a climber replace it. We have a spare antenna that we’ll have on site IF it is determined it has an issue as well post lightening strike. For being atop the 180’ water tower since 2011 it is in really good shape physically.

May 29th, 2025:#147.075 Warsaw Repeater Update

We received a report that the Warsaw 147.075+ PL 127.3 Hz repeater on the SMLRS was offline. Randy, K0RLV, made a trip to the site to check it out and found the rectifier system, that charges and maintains the site’s 100aH 48vdc power plant had been damaged by mice. As you can see in the attached pictures, they decided to knaw on the wiring in the system and eventually brought it down.What’s odd is there is no other evidence of mice inside the cabinet, no dead mice located, no mouse urine or stench in the cabinet. Normally we’d expect to see mouse droppings in warm areas, such as on top of our repeater and other power sources but that’s not the case. We are wondering if this damage was prior damage to the install at Warsaw and something finally failed. Randy tried to re-solder the wires that had been chewed off the circuit board but it still would not come to life.We do have a spare rectifier shelf and plan to install it and see if we can bring the repeater back online. Randy put a slow charge on the batteries when he left to help bring them along slowly and see what their health is when he gets back on site with the rectifier.A couple weeks ago a tornado went through the area but it stayed west and north of our tower site. There repeater and link antenna are in tact and straight and no other damage is evident. The outage, at the is point, seems to not be related the storms and it may have been a blessing in disguise that the system was offline during the storms and disconnected from the power grid which we know took several surges along with about a 19 hour power outage.

May 12th. 2025: Good evening everyone, The SMLRS “south” backup hub, the Republic 442.425+ PL 162.2 Hz, is now operational as the primary south hub for the SMLRS until the Crane 442.150 repeater antenna system can be repaired. The only possible issue is that the Warsaw repeater, the 147.075, may be offline. We’ve received a report that it is not on the air but haven’t had time to verify that yet. In other news, we will be re-enabling the Taum Sauk 145.290- PL 100.0 Hz and adding it back to the SMLRS. We received word today that KD0BPF in Belleview has had his radios removed from his room permanently due to our complaint as well as a couple others that the facility has received regarding his on air activities. Regarding Crane, we have the jumper cable and connectors if that assembly needs replaced and we still have the Clever repeater antenna that was removed from service that is only 2 years old and in like-new condition. Therefore, we are looking simply at the cost for a tower crew to climb and replace the antenna. We will be pursuing a quote for that work and determine when we can pay for it to be done.

May 2nd, 2025: 442.150 – Crane Repeater back online!

As luck would have it, history has a way of repeating itself and the problem with poor receive at Crane has been dealt with before at other sites using the Motorola MSF-5000Randy, K0RLV, and I managed to make it to Crane with hopes of taking care of the problem. I took with me the MSF-5000 formerly at Republic as the 442.425 repeater which had a blown up IPA (amongst other things). However, the receiver parts were all good – and that’s what we needed! On these units, there is a UHF front end receiver board that mounts to the front end filter and takes that signal and amplifies it and then sends it to the pre-filter and image rejection filter – all 3 filters connect to this board. In the past, lightening strikes have damaged the transistor amplifiers on this board thus making the repeater “deaf”. Thus far I’ve not been able to find a replacement transistor for these as they were Motorola proprietary and no longer available (NLA). This is a problem you run into as a ham operator running commercial repeaters that have long outlived the big M’s designed useful life 😂Alas, we had the Republic unit we could cannibalize to bring Crane back to life without costing the club any money!The 147.015, 147.225 and 145.390 repeaters have all been moved back to Crane. Branson is not cooperating so I guess a run to that site is imminent, which is OK as we have other items we can address while on site.Thanks for your patience as we worked to find time to get down there and troubleshoot and repair the repeater. On the picture of the card below, the loop sticks down into the front end filter and acts as a “pickup” for the received signal after it has made its way through the front end filter.

April 28th, 2025: Branson – 146.655 & GMRS 462.575 repeater updates

Today we were able to make a couple of improvements and corrections to the install at Branson, first, we noticed after the Crane repeater failed that we could not make Branson move to the backup Republic hub repeater even through the controller was announcing it was doing so. We found a simple wiring mistake on the install that caused it not to work and corrected that and with the help of Jim, NY0J, he entered the code and moved it to Republic so that it’s connected back to the link system again.As for the GMRS repeater, we installed a full size duplexer. This increased our notch / reject on transmit and receive from ~ 70 dB to ~ 95 dB. With only 0.53 dB loss, we still have 31.70 Watts out of the duplexer. We have plans to increase power output to the maximum of 50-W at the antenna and installed a power supply in the rack in anticipation of getting the amplifier installed soon. We also installed a receive pre-amp on this repeater. The pre-amp increase the squelch open point form 0.35 uV (-116.2 dBm) to 0.11 uV (-126.0 dBm) – improving the received signals about 10 dB! We expect the repeater will hear much better now for portables in and around the Branson area.Clayton, KB0WZI, was also on site and took some video of the equipment and we talked about the project and what the equipment does on site in hopes of promoting the repeaters on site. We also discussed some options for adding a meshtastic node to the site – stay tuned!

April 19th, 2025: Currently the Crane repeater 442.150 + is on the air but not functioning properly. For the time being we’ve moved as many repeaters to Republic (442.425) as we can – 147.015, 147.225 and 145.390 (Granby)We ran into an issue with Branson as it didn’t work when we issued the command. Probably an oversight from the recent move.Stockton Lake would not change to Republic, but it previously has worked so we think we might be dealing with some lightening damage to the controller.Until we can repair or replace Crane, Republic will be acting as the south hub for the SMLRS.

April 9th, 2025: We are happy to announce the work was completed at the Shepherd of the Hills Inspiration Tower yesterday and the 146.655 repeater is online and linked to the SMLRS and the 444.450 DMR repeater is online and connected to Brandmeister. The 462.575+ PL 162.2 Hz GMRS repeater is also online for those GMRS users in the group.Obviously a big thanks to the owner of Shepherd of the Hills and his team. They bent over backwards helping us any way they could and for allowing this project to happen.Also want to thank our club members who took vacation / PTO from work the last few weeks and spent a combined nearly 80 hours on site moving equipment from one location to another, re-racking, wiring up, grounding and testing the site equipment, and preparing the antennas and mounts to so we could minimize the Cranes on site time and thus save the club money. Thanks to Jeff, W0AV, Shawn, KE0JGI, Kent, N0IRM, and James, KB0NHX for your time and efforts!We also want to shout out and give a huge thanks to Garrett, KC0NRQ, and Vanderlink, our Internet provider, who was on site Tuesday to install a new radio, provision it and get it up and working with our same IP address as before to ensure a seamless network transition in this project. Thanks Garrett for your trips to the site Tuesday and last week!R&D Crane Service did a fantastic job, and we want to shout you to the crane operator, Chris, KE0QVK, for his excellent work getting the crane to the setup spot (it was a tight fit!), and getting our tower crew up and down so they could complete the install. He landed them right where they needed to be and helped them get the job done safely and quickly.Lastly, a big shout to Craig and Josh of DIY Broadband. Neither are amateurs, but Craig was the original owner of Total Highspeed and was helpful for many years providing us internet at our sites at no charge – it’s great we can return the favor and give him some business in his “post WISP” career of tower climbing, which he seems to enjoy.Lastly, we also want to shout out to all the club members that have given of their own funds to help make this possible. We had several large contributions, including one club member and his wife giving $1000 to get us over the hump at the very end so we knew we’d have enough to do this project without a doubt. Your contributions were crucial and though all wish to remain anonymous please realize this wouldn’t have been done without your generosity and willingness to give to the project. The whole amateur community benefits from the work done yesterday!We welcome any signal reports, use #146655 in the subject line of your email to nixahams@groups.io to let us know where you are, how you are hearing and getting into the repeater, and some basics about your station – power, antenna height, etc.

December 12th, 2024: The Branson 146.655 repeater is back in service and linked to the SMLRS.  Thanks to Jeff, W0AV, we were able to obtain a new site controller board (the suspected low audio problem source) and install it on site.  The repeater did go through a quick re-alignment for frequency error, power output, and audio and all is back where it should be.  We look forward to some check-ins on the Thursday or Friday night net this week at 7:30 each evening.

October 29th, 2024: The Branson 146.655 repeater is back online and on the SMLRS. The Station Control Module in the Motorola Quantar was the culprit. We had (1) spare control module in club inventory and were able to use it to bring the repeater back online. The main “module” on the board was extremely hot ot the touch after being inserted in the repeater for just 30 seconds so something must be shorted in the module, drawing some serious current and making heat!

October 24th, 2024: The Branson 146.655 repeater is offline due to some type of hardware issue.  We are working to get some spare parts for testing and will advise when it’s back online. Thanks for letting us know it was not working properly!

September 12th, 2024: The new Motorola SLR-5700 repeater we purchased this spring to replace the crystal based Daniel’s MT-2 repeater is now in place and operational! With the change, we are now back up to full power, with 153-Watts out of the duplexer! This site, and the Bolivar 147.060, are our two high-power VHF repeaters on the SMLRS which transmit twice the amount of power as the rest of our repeaters. We had low output because our drive power from the Daniel’s was down 20% from the original install in 2012. We also improved receive sensitivity from 0.26 uV to open squelch down to 0.14 uV (In dBm that’s an improvement from -118.7 dBm to -124.1 dBm) for a 12 dB SINAD signal. We took this opportunity to also clean up and remove wiring and equipment we no longer needed and replaced the Motorola CM200 mobile link radio that links the repeater to the SMLRS with an actual continuous duty Kenwood TKR-850 repeater converted to base station use and designed for 100% duty cycle. The new link can be remotely controlled so that we can move the repeater to the backup hub repeater in Republic, the 442.425, for bike rides and other events or during maintenance / failure of the Crane 442.150. The goal is to replace our 20+ year old link radios with these Kenwood repeaters in time to make the link system even more robust. It does seem our biggest failure items have been link radios in the past and will probably continue to be the case. Nevertheless they remain extremely reliable and we do have spares available for quick, easy replacement. Lastly, Jeff, W0AV, set up and helped install the Texar Audio Prism, about a $15k audio processor back in the day, and the associated Henry Engineering Matchbox that converts our unbalanced audio from the controller to a balanced audio to the audio processor and then converts balanced audio from the processor to unbalanced audio to feed the Motorola repeater. The Audio Prism adds gain and compression to repeater users – you can literally scream into the mic and it will pad your audio so it still sounds normal out of the repeater transmitter! We also added some low end and mid range to the repeater audio and reduced some of the highway end tinny audio for a nice full sound. Between myself, Jeff, W0AV, and Dave, KE6GAE, we have spent 18 man hours on site the last 3 days getting all the work completed. I want to thank them for taking time to help get this project completed! Special thanks to Jeff, W0AV, for donating the Texar Audio Prism and loaning us his matchbox when we found ours was bad (hope to get it repaired soon) and to Jon, KB0YDU, for donating the Kenwood TKR-850 to the project.

September 9th, 2024: This week we plan to install the new Motorola SLR-5700 repeater for the 147.015 repeater we raised funds for in late 2023 – early 2024. The repeater will likely be offline Monday and Tuesday while work is completed.

This is going to be a mostly complete site rebuild which will include replacing the Motorola CM200 mobile radio being used as a link to Crane with a Kenwood TKR-850 100% duty cycle repeater set for base station use. In addition, Jeff, W0AV, will be giving me a lesson in audio processing as we plan to install the Audio Prism on the transmitter.

You can expect the repeater to “sound” different, and hopefully you’ll like it better. Secondly, the receive should have a noticable improvement over the existing repeater.

Lastly, the link to Crane “may” have different audio than the mobile radio, which is ok, but we will set it so that the deviation in the same as before to maintain system audio settings. The link should be more reliable given its intended for 100% transmit duty cycle and we will retain our ability to move the repeater to the backup hub repeater, the 442.425 in Republic, for bike rides and other events. It will get its first test NEXT weekend with Greene County ARES’s communications event for a bike ride.

If you have questions or need to notify someone about repeater operation problems not addressed on the news page, email swmlrs@gmail.com.

In an emergency, normal local and wireless communications can be lost or saturated so that important messages cannot be sent or received.  SMLRS provides a broad area of coverage, with backup power supplies and links that can be used by trained amateur radio operators to provide needed communications.

Outside emergencies, the system is available to support wide-area communication needs, such as bicycle rides, running events and weekly nets.  Nets are vital to the SMLRS system because it helps us identify any system problems that may need to be monitored or addressed on a weekly basis. YOUR participation in these nets is CRITICAL in helping us maintain the SMLRS system. It is also available for all radio amateurs to use in normal VHF communication activities, including QSO’s.

The system has 14 radio repeaters:

• a repeater centered near Granby (just Southeast of Joplin)
• a repeater centered near Nevada
• two repeaters centered in Springfield
  • the 147.015 in Northeast Springfield
  • the 147.225 in Southwest Springfield
• a repeater at Crane linking the Joplin and Springfield repeaters.
• a repeater near Stockton Lake linking Nevada to the system & acting as a redundant hub repeater for the system
• a repeater centered in Branson
• a repeater centered in Warsaw
• a repeater centered in Bendavis, West / Southwest of Houston, MO
• a repeater centered in Rolla
• a repeater centered near Arcadia atop Taum Sauk Mountain
• a repeater centered in Willow Springs
• two repeaters centered in Bolivar

Together, these repeaters cover the Region D ARES service area in Southwest Missouri as well as most of the Region G and Region I ARES service area and the Springfield National Weather Service severe weather coverage area

Because the repeaters are permanently linked, a transmission on any of the eleven repeaters is re-broadcast on all eleven repeaters.

In practical terms, transmissions within the network area will be heard from Coffeyville, KS to Van Buren, MO, and from Clinton, MO to Harrison, AR.

This website has two major divisions:

• If you want information for Amateur Radio Operators, place your mouse on that menu choice above and click on one of the pages shown
• If  you want information for Service Agencies, place your mouse on that menu choice above and click on one of the pages shown
  

 This is a computer modeled map of the linked repeater coverage for the Western half of the linked repeater system: