Repeater History

 

        Back in the early 70's, Larry Roberge, WB4NTM purchased the 146.64 repeater from Scott Baxter, N4SB which was located at WSMV TV. From there it moved to the Channel 2 tower in Brentwood. Then 146.64 was moved to Madison and 146.67 was born on Wessex towers in West Nashville. At that time, before cell phones, the repeaters offered a low or no cost alternative to the expensive IMTS mobile telephones. There were only a couple of autopatch repeaters and they were requiring dues and making up all  sorts of weird rules that you had to follow or the repeaters would be turned off on you. Larry came to me in 1982 and talked about wanting to put on the best repeater in Nashville. He asked my opinion about the best repeater, the best controller, the best antenna, etc., etc. and he didn't care how much money it cost. He said he wanted to put on a system that would be open to everyone without dues and the only rule would be "that there are no rules". With that attitude, a partnership was formed. I put together and programmed, in my opinion the best repeater in the area. Of course, since then many other good repeaters have been put into service. When ACC, the controller manufacturer came out with a digital voice recorder, Larry called me and asked if we needed one. My response was, "but it cost $2500". His response was, "If you think we can use it, I'll order it tomorrow". What could I say. Larry had the most popular repeater and the most advanced repeater in the area for several years. Then, he changed his mind about the open repeater policy and about the "no rules" policy. He asked me to implement individual user codes to lock out certain people from using the repeater. I set it up, but I didn't agree with it and several other things at the time and I just backed off for a couple of years. A friend told me that Larry was living in an assisted living home. I found out that it wasn't just me that had problems with the change in personality, but also his family. The problem, according to the doctors, was that Larry was having small strokes in his brain and was irrational. I stepped in to resume taking care of the repeater. Not much had been changed since my original work on the system. Thanks to the help of Don Hunt, K4DLH, we have restored the repeater back to one of top performing repeaters in Nashville, and we're able to operate it as an open repeater.

 

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