"Is it true that unused two meter repeater pairs are essentially nonexistent along the Wasatch Front/Northern Utah?"

The short answer is yes.  It should be remembered that the coordination of repeaters is a complicated task and expecting a simple answer that adequately answers the question is unrealistic as we shall see!

Purpose of this page:

The frequency coordinator is often asked by an amateur for a 2 meter repeater pair for use along the Wasatch Front, only to be told that none are available.  Understandably, this has led to some disappointment, confusion, and (in some cases) resentment.  To some, it may even appear that the frequencies are simply being hoarded by certain groups or individuals.  While this latter point is debatable - depending upon your point of view - there are some factors that one should be aware of before holding too tightly to such beliefs.

First of all, effectively coordinating repeaters is not trivial.  A few of the factors that need to be considered are:

• Does the use of a particular frequency in a geographical area pose the potential for excessive overlap with another repeater?  Because it is the overlap of coverage areas that poses potential problems, identifying problems before they occurs requires fairly detailed knowledge of existing repeaters and their coverage areas.
• If there is some overlap, do all parties involved agree how the appropriate steps will be taken to mitigate potential interference issues?  For example, adding subaudible tone can allow some potential overlap problems to be reduced, but doing so requires a well-informed consensus of those that operate (and use) all potentially affected repeaters.  Similar considerations need to be taken into account when directional antennas are implemented.
• Is this new repeater to be a "wide area" or "low level" repeater?  A "wide area" repeater is one that is placed at a location with the intent of covering as much geographical area as possible while a "low level" repeater is one that has, as its intended coverage area, only a single valley or city.  It should to without saying that frequency re-use among "low level" repeaters can occur with higher density than with "wide area" repeaters, as the former have less coverage.  (A "medium coverage" repeater is one that is on a high ridge [as opposed to a mountaintop or a valley location] that provides good coverage of several valleys - but not necessarily the entire Wasatch Front.)
• Is the new repeater going to offer something that cannot not be done on an existing repeater?  There are many repeaters that are on the air that are underutilized and/or poorly maintained.  It is strongly encouraged that a group that wishes to use a repeater approach the group (or individual) that operates/owns the repeater and offer to help.
• What sort of service is the new repeater to offer that is not already provided?  It can be argued that, with the scarcity of repeater pairs along the Wasatch Front, if and when one becomes available, it should be made available to the group or individual that will make the most of it.  For example, more consideration is likely to be given to a group that proposes to put up an open repeater that, say, has linking to a previously unconnected portion of the state than to an individual who proposes to put up a close repeater at his/her house with a closed autopatch.  Is this fair?  If you ask a large group of people, they will most likely think that it is!

How are existing pairs being used?

For 2 meters, the public databases (refer to the online repeater list as well as the Utah Bandplan page) online shows everything that is being used in the 2 meter repeater subbands.  This is not necessarily true of, say, the listings for 222 MHz and 440 MHz bands because links (of which there are none on 2 meters in this area) as well as primary control and auxiliary operations are not listed.

Needless to say, a simple listing of repeaters does not tell the entire story.  For example, it may not be clear that a pair is "unused" because of a repeater in another state or because it is off the air until a mountaintop site may be accessed.  Overlap potential is also not obvious in a simple listing.

To help answer some of these questions, what follows is a list showing all 54 2 meter repeater pair, and how it is being used along the Wasatch Front, plus 5 pairs originally designated for packet repeater use (see below.) This list does not provide extensive details of repeaters in adjacent states or areas outside the Wasatch Front that can affect coordination decisions in Utah.

2 meter channel spacing in Utah

In the late 1970's and early 1980's during the nationwide discussions on channel spacing, both 15 and 20 kHz were considered for use in Utah.  As part of the analysis, actual usage patterns and repeater densities (with relation to population) were considered and it was observed that with most of Utah's population being concentrated along the Wasatch Front, the adoption of a 15 kHz channel spacing just didn't make sense!

The reason for this is that with 15 kHz channel spacing, you do have a degree of interference between adjacent channel pairs so it is necessary to space two repeaters on adjacent frequencies some distance apart - but this just wouldn't work in a state such as Utah where most of the repeaters were within 100 miles or so of each other!  With 20 kHz, adjacent-channel interference on FM is simply not an issue so it was determined that with the wider spacing one could put more repeaters on the air in Utah than what would be possible with 15 kHz.

With the advent of digital voice modes such as D-Star, the Utah VHF Society did extensive testing and determined that one could "safely" space adjacent D-Star channels 12.5 kHz apart with the minimum spacing between a D-Star and conventional "wide" FM channel (+/-5 kHz deviation) being 15 kHz.  With this in mind, several digital audio channels were allocated at the very bottom end of the repeater subband with 12.5 kHz channel spacing utilizing frequencies that had originally been coordinated for possible 1200 baud packet repeater used.

What is the "Wasatch Front?"

It should be pointed out that the definition of "Wasatch Front" is somewhat elastic - it means different things to different people at different times.

In this document it refers to the area encompassed by Great Salt Lake Valley (e.g. Salt Lake, Davis, Weber, and Box Elder counties) from just north of the Idaho border and down south, encompassing all of Utah Valley.  It also is understood to include the Cache, Heber, Park City, Tooele, Cedar and Morgan County valleys.

For more information on usage of UHF frequencies, see the 70cm pair utilization web page.

Note:  In the Utah area, a negative (- 600 KHz) offset is used for frequencies 147.000 MHz and below, while a positive (+ 600 KHz) offset is used for frequencies above 147.000 MHz.

An up-to-date repeater list may be found online here.

Output Frequency	Comments	Primary coverage are of existing repeater(s) (Does not include significant overlap in secondary coverage areas.
145.1250 @	D-Star Repeater pair, currently used on Farnsworth Peak as a wide-area coverage repeater, 12.5 kHz channel	Salt Lake, Tooele, Utah, Davis, Weber and Box Elder counties.
145.1375 @	D-Star repeater pair, 12.5 kHz channel
145.1500 @	D-Star repeater pair, 12.5 kHz channel
145.1625 @	D-Star repeater pair, 12.5 kHz channel
145.1750 @	D-Star repeater pair, 12.5 kHz channel
145.1875 @	D-Star repeater pair, 12.5 kHz channel  Not available for use on the Wasatch Front owing to proximity of the 145.190 repeater.
145.190 @	Voice repeater on the Oquirrhs range.  Its use of this frequency preceded that of digital voice communications systems.	Salt Lake,Utah, Davis, Weber and Box Elder counties.
145.210 *	A number of low-level repeaters operate on this frequency along the Wasatch Front.	Morgan, Salt Lake City
145.230 *	A low-level repeater near Provo operates on this frequency.	Utah County
145.250 *	This frequency has a number of "low level" repeaters.  It usability is limited by egress of signals from Cable TV channel 19.	Utah County, Ogden, Provo canyon (near Sundance resort.)
145.270 #	A wide-area repeater, operated by UVHFS, covering the Wasatch Front "High Valley" areas (e.g. Park City, Heber, etc.) exists on Scott's Hill.  This repeater is also part of the Intermountain Intertie.  Another wide-area repeater is to be installed atop Levan Peak and this will provide coverage of central Utah and the southern portion of the Wasatch Front.  Yet another wide-area "Intertie-Affiliated" repeater exists atop Mt. Harrison in Southern Idaho.	Wasatch Front - High Valleys, Central Utah and southern Utah Valley, Southern Idaho and extreme Northern Utah.
145.290 *	"Medium-coverage" area repeaters near Manti and Brigham City operate on this frequency.	Brigham City, Manti (Sanpete County)
145.310 #	A wide-area repeater on Ford Ridge (central Utah) operates on this frequency.  This repeater has very significant overlap along the southern portion of the Wasatch Front.  A medium-coverager repeater also exists on Red Spur that provides Cache-Valley coverage.	Price, Cache Valley
145.330 *	A wide-area repeater operates on this frequency from Medicine Butte (near Evanston, Wyoming.)  A low-level repeater operates from the BYU campus in Provo.	Utah County
145.350 *	A medium-coverage repeater, slated to be installed near Parley's Summit, is being tested in Bountiful.  Another repeater (to be installed near Dugway) is also being tested.	Summit County
145.370	A wide-area repeater near Payson (on Tower Mountain) operates on this frequency.  This repeater has significant coverage along the southern/central portion of the Wasatch Front.	Utah County, Spanish Fork Canyon
145.390 #	A wide-area repeater near Vernon operates on this frequency.  This repeater has very significant overlap along the southern/central portion of the Wasatch Front.	Southern Tooele County
145.410 *	This is a shared, non-protected repeater pair.  Repeaters with overlapping coverage may be coordinated on this frequency on a shared basis.  The use of subaudible tones is required.	Various
145.430 #	A wide-area repeater covering the northern portion of the Wasatch Front operates from Thiokol.	Price, Box Elder County
145.450 #	A wide-area repeater covering the Wasatch Front operates from the Oquirrh mountains.	Salt Lake, Tooele, Utah, Davis, Weber and Box Elder Counties
145.470 #	A wide-area repeater (on Powder Mountain) and a low-level repeater in Utah County operate on this frequency.	Morgan County
145.490 #	A wide-area repeater exists at Promontory point.	Box Elder, Weber and Davis Counties
146.600	This pair is not useable for FM repeater operation owing to the input frequency (146.000) being precisely on the FCC-defined repeater subband boundary.	None
146.620 #	A wide-area repeater, operated by UARC, covering the Wasatch Front exists on Farnsworth Peak.	Salt Lake, Tooele, Utah, Davis, Weber and Box Elder counties.  Limited coverage into Cache and Wasatch counties, as well as into southern Idaho and Eastern Nevada.
146.640 *	A medium-coverage repeater operates from the USU Campus and a wide-area repeater operates from Monroe Peak on this frequency, effectively covering the Wasatch Front.	Logan, Sanpete county
146.660 #	A wide-area repeater near Skyline Drive (close to Ephriam) operates on this frequency.  This repeater has very significant overlap along the southern portion of the Wasatch Front.	Sanpete and other Central Utah counties.
146.680 #	A wide-area repeater operates on this frequency from Powder Mountain (near Huntsville.)  This repeater has significant overlap over much of the Wasatch Front.	Morgan County
146.700	A medium-coverage repeater, operated by Salt Lake County ARES, operates on this frequency from Ensign Peak.	Salt Lake and Davis counties
146.720 #	A wide-area repeater, operated by BARC, exists on Mt. Logan covering much of the Wasatch Front.	Cache County
146.740 *	A medium-level repeater operates from the University of Utah campus.	Salt Lake County
146.760 #	A wide-area repeater, operated by UARC, covering the Wasatch Front exists on Lake Mountain.	Primary coverage in Utah, Tooele and Salt Lake counties and limited coverage in Juab, Davis, Weber, and Box Elder counties.
146.780	A wide-area repeater operates on this frequency from Lake Mountain	Utah and Salt Lake counties
146.800 #	A wide-area repeater in Southern Idaho covering much of the northern Wasatch Front operates on this frequency.  Re-use may be possible by a low-level repeater in Utah county.	Southern Idaho, Cache County
146.820 #	A wide-area repeater, operated by OARC, covering the Wasatch Front, exists on Mt. Ogden.	Box Elder, Davis, and Weber counties and, to some extent, Salt Lake, Tooele and Utah counties
146.840 *	A low-level repeater exists on this frequency in Salt Lake county.	Salt Lake County
146.860 *	Wide-area repeaters operate from Medicine Butte (near Evanston, WY) and near Salina (central Utah) on this frequency, covering significant portions of the Wasatch Front.	Southwestern Wyoming, Central Utah
146.880 *	A repeater, operated by Salt Lake County ARES operates on this frequency from the benches of the Oquirrh mountains.	Salt Lake and Davis counties
146.900 #	A medium-wide area repeater, operated by OARC, covering the Wasatch Front, operates from Little Mountain, west(ish) of Ogden.	Box Elder, Weber, Davis, and Tooele counties and portions of Salt Lake county.
146.920 *	A medium-coverage (covering most of the Wasatch Front) repeater (near Tremonton) has been known to operate on this frequency in the past.  Current status is unknown.	Box Elder and Weber counties
146.940 #	A wide-area repeater, operated by UVHFS, covering the Wasatch Front exists on Farnsworth Peak.	Salt Lake, Tooele, Utah and Davis counties
146.960 #	A wide-area repeater covering the Wasatch Front exists on Francis Peak	Salt Lake, Davis, Morgan and Weber counties
146.980 #	A wide-area repeater in the Utah desert (near Delle) operates on this frequency.  This repeater has very significant overlap along the Wasatch Front.	Tooele County
147.000 #	This pair is used on Mt. Harrison (southern Idaho) with a negative split.  It covers much of the Wasatch Front.	Southern Idaho, into Box Elder and portions of Weber and Davis counties.
147.020 *	A wide-area repeater near Bear Lake and a low-level repeater near Payson operate on this frequency.	Rich County, Utah County
147.040 #	A wide-area repeater, operated by DCARC, covering the Wasatch Front exists on Antelope Island.	Salt Lake, Tooele, Davis, Weber, and Box Elder counties
147.060 *	A number of low-level repeaters operate on this frequency along the Wasatch Front.	Salt Lake county, Morgan county
147.080 #	SDARC operates several repeaters on this frequency in East-Central and Southeastern Utah.  They also have a repeater linked into the system at the Point of the Mountain north of Lehi that can reach into parts of Davis, Weber, and Box Elder counties.	Carbon, Grand, Garfield, San Juan, Salt Lake and Utah Counties.
147.100 *	A wide-area repeater operates from the Salina area and, by special arrangement, a low-level repeater in the Ogden area shares this frequency.	Central Utah, Ogden area
147.120 #	A wide-area repeater covering the Wasatch Front exists on Farnsworth Peak.  This repeater is also part of the Intermountain Intertie.	Salt Lake, Tooele, Davis, Weber, Utah, and Box Elder counties
147.140	A wide-area repeater, covering the Wasatch front, operates on this frequency from Butterfield Peak in the Oquirrh range.	Salt Lake, Tooele, Davis, Weber and Utah counties
147.160	A medium-coverage repeater operates on this frequency from Ensign Peak.	Salt Lake and Davis counties
147.180 #	A wide-area repeater, operated by UVHFS, covering the Wasatch Front exists on Hidden Peak.  This repeater is also part of the Intermountain Intertie.	Summit and Salt Lake counties
147.200 *	A number of low-level repeaters operate on this frequency along the Wasatch Front.  A wide area coverage repeater is slated to be installed atop Sedgwick Peak (in Idaho) to provide coverage of Cache Valley.	Heber valley, Tooele County, Cache Valley
147.220 *	A number of low-level repeaters operate on this frequency along the Wasatch Front.	Utah County, Mantua area
147.240 *	A wide-area repeater operates from Tabby Mountain on this pair and by special arrangement, a low-level repeater also operates from the Logan area.	Duchesne county, Logan
147.260 *	A wide-area repeater exists at Promontory point.  A number of low-level repeaters also share this frequency along the Wasatch Front.	Box Elder, Weber and Davis counties
147.280 #	A wide-area repeater, operated by Utah County ARES, covering the Wasatch Front exists on Lake Mountain.	Utah and Salt Lake counties
147.300 *	Low level repeaters in Tooele and Bountiful share this frequency.  (Special arrangement allows limited re-use of this frequency with minimal geographical spacing.)	Tooele County, Davis County
147.320 *	A low-level repeater operates on this frequency in Logan.  This frequency may be available for re-use, provided that protection is afforded to the SDARC Bruin Peak repeater.	Logan, Price areas
147.340 #	A wide-area repeater, operated by Utah County ARES, covering the Wasatch Front exists on Lake Mountain.	Utah and Salt Lake counties
147.360 #	A wide-area repeater covering much of the Wasatch Front exists on Lewis Peak.	Summit County
147.380 #*	This frequency is shared by a wide-area repeater atop Lewis Peak, a low-level repeater near Ogden, and another repeater near Delta.  (Note that the Lewis Peak and Ogden repeaters are linked together and carry the same audio, allowing "short space" re-use.  The Delta repeater operates independently.)  Another repeater, linked to the Lewis Peak 147.38, is planned for the Mirror Lake area in the Uintahs.	Summit County, Ogden area.  Delta area.
147.400	This pair is not legally useable for FM repeaters owing to the input frequency (148.00) being precisely on an FCC-defined amateur band boundary.	None

• An asterisk (*) indicates that this frequency is currently being re-used in several locations along the Wasatch Front.
• A pound sign (#) indicates that this frequency, as currently (or proposed) used, is not a good candidate for re-use anywhere along the Wasatch Front except as noted.
• An "At" sign (@) indicates that this frequency range (145.110-145.190) was originally intended for use as a packet repeater channel in the designated area.  See below for a brief discussion of the past and current uses of these frequencies.

The following are general parameters concerning frequency re-use.  Because each situation is different, these do not apply in every specific case.

• A frequency used by a wide-area repeater located on the Wasatch Front cannot be re-used anywhere along the Wasatch Front.  Because the coverage of such a repeater is so extensive, it is unlikely that effective re-use could work without severe problems.
• Adjacent areas cannot re-use frequencies.  A frequency used in the Salt Lake Valley cannot be re-used in Utah Valley or in Davis/Weber counties.  Owing to propagation, it is also unlikely that a frequency used in Utah County could be re-used in Davis county due to the propensity for strong reflections off the Oquirrh and Wasatch ranges.  A possible exception to this may be if both systems are always linked together (carrying the same audio content) and the operators are willing to take appropriate steps to mitigate and accept the possibility of interference.
• If you wish to put a low-level repeater on the air in the "fringes" of the Wasatch Front, is is more likely that a frequency may be found.  If you want to put up a low-level repeater in, say, Logan or Heber, it is likely that a suitable frequency may be found.  A "Wide Area" repeater is more problematic, as can be seen from the above chart.
• When frequency re-use is considered, the parties involved must agree, in writing, before anything new goes on the air.  The operator/trustee of the pre-existing repeater (whether it is a wide-area or another low-level repeater) will be consulted, and advised of the interference potentials.  Before the new system goes on the air (and preferably before any equipment is acquired) it must be decided which steps will be taken to prevent interference problems (such as selection and use of subaudible tone frequencies, directional antennas, etc.) and precisely who will be responsible for resolving future (possibly unforeseen) problems that can arise - even to the point of taking the newer repeater out of service until the problem is resolved!  Remember - it is the "new guy" that is responsible for taking care of problems that arise due to re-use.
• Things do not always work out as predicted.  Before frequency use (or re-use) is seriously considered, several steps are followed:
• The experience of coordinator (and others) will be brought to bear to determine if such a plan is feasible.
• Next, computer-aided propagation analysis will be performed to evaluate the plan and its workability.
• Finally, on-site testing is encouraged - with advice from the Frequency Coordinator so that special attention may be paid to areas of possible concern - to determine if there are problems that did not show up, or to determine work-arounds to problems that may be uncovered.
• Even after all of this has been done it may later be determined that frequency re-use just is not going to work out after all, requiring some re-engineering of the system or even discontinuance of operation.
• Again, how these matters are resolved will be spelled out in writing - and agreed to by the involved parties - before anything is put on the air.  If, for some reason they are not, FCC rules (i.e. Section §97.201c) will be applied as appropriate.

In the mid-late 1980's, 5 repeater pair frequencies (145.110, 145.130, 145.150, 145.170, and 145.190) were set aside for future use by packet repeaters for various areas along the Wasatch Front.  At the time it was envisioned that a comprehensive area-wide packet network would develop and that strategically-placed packet repeaters (operating at 1200 and/or 9600 baud) would be an integral part of this network.

Nearly 20 years after packet first appeared in Utah there has never been a packet-only repeater put on the air on 2 meters along the Wasatch Front.  With the advent of high-speed internet and relatively inexpensive wireless networking, the probability of multiple 1200 baud (or even 9600 baud) repeaters on 2 meters would appear to be very unlikely.

In the peak of packet activity along the Wasatch front (the late 1980's to the mid 1990's) some of these repeater output frequencies were used for simplex operation.  The intended use of the 2 meter simplex frequencies, as is currently known (including simplex frequencies) is as follows:

Simplex frequencies used for packet operation:

• 144.910 : General, non-metro area use.  This would include Heber, Park City, etc.
• 144.930 : Utah Valley simplex.  In the past this included a fair amount of TCP/IP and BBS usage.
• 144.950 : Salt Lake Valley simplex
• 144.970 : Davis/Weber/Box Elder simplex
• 144.990 : General, non-metro area use, as in the case of 144.910.  Primarily TCP/IP.
• 145.010 : Long-distance linking frequency, to be avoided by individual users along the Wasatch Front.
• 145.030 : Utah Valley simplex
• 145.050 : Salt Lake Valley simplex, BBS frequency
• 145.070 : Davis County simplex
• 145.090 : Weber/Box Elder county simplex - possibly used in the Logan/Cache valley area.

Questions, updates, or comments pertaining to this web page may be directed to the frequency coordinator.
Return to the  Utah VHF Society home page.

Updated 20121220