W3KWHSteel City Amateur Radio Club
On the air

Repeaters, EchoLink & APRS

Three open repeaters covering the west side of Pittsburgh and beyond, an EchoLink node, an APRS digipeater and a public SDR receiver. Use them any time.

Repeaters

2 meters · FM

147.030

+600 kHz · PL 123.0
Input 147.630

Kenwood TKR-750 at the clubhouse, 80 W into a Hustler HX6-14448 6 dB vertical on a 53 ft tower. The antenna was replaced in fall 2024 and stands up well to the hilltop wind.

Home of the Steel City Net, Tuesdays at 8 PM.

1.25 meters (220) · FM

224.480

−1.6 MHz · PL 131.8
Input 222.880

BridgeCom BCR repeater, new in 2025. We want to see more activity on this band and are working with North Hills ARC on a 220 link network covering the city. It is linked to the 2 m repeater on net nights, so you can check in on either.

70 centimeters · FM & C4FM

444.450

+5 MHz · PL 103.5
Input 449.450

Yaesu DR-2X System Fusion repeater on the KDKA-FM tower on Mt. Washington, antenna at the 400 ft level, 280 W with a receive preamp. Wide-area coverage over Western PA. Signal reports are always appreciated.

Home of the Keystone Digital Net, Sundays at 8 PM. Node status: w3kwh.net/WiresX.

Using the 70 cm repeater. Analog users: set PL 103.5 on both encode and decode. The repeater transmits the tone, so with decode on you still hear every FM transmission but the digital noise is muted. C4FM users: leave your radio on AUTO so you hear both digital and analog.

All three repeaters are open. Feel free to use them any time.

The 2 meter repeater has been on EchoLink as node 147030 since March 2006. Visitors to Pittsburgh can reach their home or club node through it.

  • To connect to a remote node from your radio, key # followed by the node number on your DTMF pad.
  • To disconnect, key # #.
  • From the EchoLink app, connect to node 147030 to join the Tuesday net from anywhere.

APRS digipeater and I-gate

The club hosts an APRS digipeater and internet gateway, W3KWH-10, on 144.390 MHz. Your position packets are relayed to sites such as aprs.fi and aprsdirect.com so you can track a car, boat or balloon as it crosses the region.

APRS coverage around W3KWH

Online SDR receiver

Listen to the bands from our hilltop in your browser. The club’s OpenWebRX receiver is public: w3kwh.net/openwebrx. Click a signal on the waterfall to tune, pick a mode from the panel, and adjust the passband by dragging its edges.

Screenshot of the W3KWH OpenWebRX receiver

Hams Over IP

Steel City ARC is on the Hams Over IP (HOIP) VoIP network, the successor to Hamshack Hotline. The club runs a conference bridge for members and any licensed ham, and hosts an open SCARC chat session every Tuesday at 7:30 PM, right before the net, in room 10426. It is a free-for-all: club gossip, troubleshooting questions, whatever.

To get on: buy a refurbished Cisco IP phone (members have had luck on eBay and Amazon for $20 to $30), open a ticket at HOIP for an account and a North American extension, wait for the overnight provisioning, and program the phone with the details they email you. Karl WA3VXJ or Christine N3LRG can point you to a phone that works. HOIP resources: homepage, help desk, phone book.