Australia's First Repeater

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The following is from Tim Mills, VK2ZTM..... It started life about 1966/67 on an elevated platform [between two poles for the local electricity provider] on Mt. Canobolas with a ch A / B split [146 kHz] but an intermode caused them to change B to C1 [146.100]. This 146.100 was what set the original plan in motion at the Wodonga meeting in Sept 1968 - the first planning conference.  This meeting planned a 500 kHz split so Orange had a output then on 145.600. When it became -most legal- the receiver was at the south end of the mountain with the [I think] electricity transmisssion authority and the transmitter in thw commercial TV station with an elevated antenna on the tower. The interconnect was a 2 pair over the 400 metres of rocky mountain top, part buried which the rabbits liked to chew on. Following the second planning meeting in Albury in July 1972 when the plan changed to the present 600 offset it ran well for many years and could be worked for several hundred Kms. They then had to take the antenna off the tower - claimed ice loading -which reduced the range. The receive then came to live with the transmitter and increasing RF on the mountain, extra TV channels and FM servives and resulting intermods caused them recently to change frequency to above 147. The original 146./146.7  is intended to be a low powered in town service no longer on the mountain.

Australia's first repeater site Mt.Canobolas.