This request was turned down causing the group to endevour to put their own repeater on the air.

Early in 1977 the new repeater came on the air from the residence of Dave McCarter VE3GSO in Oakridge Acres using two antennaes. The frequency was 147.000 Mhz with a positive offset (in those days you never spoke of a +/- offset, as there were no synthesized radios ... only crystal controlled rigs and that meant sending away for crystals every time you added another channel). It was an old Motorola tube strip with a Rogers-Majestic receiver and homebrew control circuitry .... but it worked!

In December of that year, Jim 'Diz' DeZorzi VE3ZK located a Sinclair 4 cavity duplexer and after a rebuilding job in Toronto he donated it to SORT. It was around this time that the repeater was moved to its present location on top of The Northern Life Tower (now Canada Trust) at City Centre in downtown London. Except for the Police Department, we had the only other radio equipment on the site.

SORT then applied for and received a Wintario grant to completely rebuild the repeater, add a microprocessor, and add 70 centimetres as well. So plans began to be formed to establish a link from London to Toronto's VE3ULR system. Remember though at this time Personal Computers weren't available yet and most of the microprocessor equipment was merely fancy adding machines that could do other stuff if you custom built specialized interfaces to make it happen. (There were no ACC 850 repeater controllers with digital voice recorders.) So eventually with several amateurs working on the programming, custom link board building and acquisition of parts and equipment we actually got something on the air and working.

But not all was well in radio land! An intermodulation problem on one of the London Police Department's main repeater channels appeared which required us to change frequencies to 147.180 Mhz. But what about that duplexer that we just had rebuilt? Luck had it that Diz VE3ZK had availabilty to an additional one. Another tune up and we were back on the air on the new frequency. Diz took the old one and VE3MCR the Lucan repeater on 147.000 was born shortly after.

Now that we've got the stuff working in London, how the heck do we get our signal to Toronto? Well the secret was back to back transceivers at the Baden CKCO TV site. But there was no one in the Kitchener/Waterloo area to help, after all, VE3ULR was within range for them. So, London, if you want it, you do it, and we did!!

Three hundred feet of hardline and a corner reflector pointed to London and we had communications back to home. One hundred and seventy-five feet of hardline and a yagi pointed at Aurora and we had a good path to VE3ULR. VOILA!!! It worked. At least most of the time. I can remember 'Doctor Dave' VE3GYQ leaving at 11:30 at night, after working all day and then working all evening in the Emergency Department, driving to Baden to fix a problem with the transceivers (VE3SRT).

Doesn't it always happen! We were just getting comfortable at City Centre and guess what? We've got to move. Big brother 'Motorola' is coming to town and guess which room they want to stay in ... ours. So, another work party is organized and we pack up all our equipment and move down the hall. Oh well we're used to it ... have you every noticed that wherever an amateur radio repeater is located, it won't be long before a commercial repeater site will come in shortly afterwards. I believe they use us to provide a coverage area plan for them, after all, you listen to our conversations and most of the time it's - how's my signal - you're full quieting here - you've got a little white noise - etc. etc. If a commercial outfit is going to spend big money to install a repeater system they want make sure its got good coverage and we're just the ones to prove it for them.

More history to come ... but I can't type up 21 year's worth in one evening ... keep checking back for an update ... ve3cts!