W9ATG Traditional Cache
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Welcome to the W9ATG 2 Meter Repeater.
See that big tower just to the east of the cache location? That is owned by Central Indiana Communications, Inc. It's just a few inches short of 500 feet over ground level. CIC has been kind enough to loan a bit of it's tower to local amateur radio operators. If you look closely, at about 350 feet up above ground level, you'll see a couple of antennas sticking out from the tower. One of those antennas is the W9ATG repeater. At this point I should point out that a lot of geocachers happen to be amateur radio operators, yours truly included. If you are not an amateur radio operator, you might be asking 'What the heck is a repeater'?
Okay, basically, this is a 2 meter repeater. 2 meter is 'Line Of Site Communication'. It's not like what you might have heard about ham radio with communications all around the world. That is HF, high frequency. HF bands do allow radio communications all around the world, with the right equipment. HF transmissions bounce off the atmosphere to allow communications to stations thousands of miles away. VHF does not bounce off the atmosphere, so it's limited. VHF will allow a ham operator to make contacts up to around 20 or so miles away. I live in Greenfield, so if want to make a VHF contact to somebody on the east side of Indy, no problem. But what if I want to make a contact to say, somebody in Anderson? I'd be out of luck. Enter the repeater. Repeaters receive transmissions on one frequency, and retransmits said transmission on another frequency. When I monitor this repeater, my radio is set at 145.330 MHZs. That's the frequency that the repeater transmits at. If I want to transmit through this repeater, I key the mic, and my radio automatically transmits at 144.730 MHZs. The repeater receives my transmission, and simultaneously transmits my transmission on 145.330, at a fairly high power, sending my transmission for many miles around. I've talked to people as far away from Greenfield as New Whiteland, Connersville and Richmond through this repeater. So that's basically what a repeater does. It receives a transmission on one frequency and retransmits it on another frequency, making it possible to make contacts far outside the line of sight from my home location. It's not difficult to get started with ham radio. arrl.org is good place to start. And learning Morse Code is no longer a requirement!
73 de KC9WFN! And no, that is not a clue. 73 is ham jargon for 'best regards' and KC9WFN is my call sign.
Please note that there is no reason to pass through the gate.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Cbfg
Treasures
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