Tour 3 – History

The Col­orado Con­nec­tion began when Geor­ge Di­Let­to (KDØRW) in­stal­led the 145.355 MHz re­peat­er in Park­er, Col­orado. In 1987, Geor­ge got togeth­er with Ron Dump (KDØWT), whose 145.445 MHz re­peat­er east of Lead­ville on Mos­quito Pass had co­verage into Park­er. Soon, these two hams li­nked their re­peat­ers togeth­er. This pro­vided the path to link mac­hines on the wes­tern slope with their eas­tern co­usins, giv­ing birth to the Col­orado Con­nec­tion.

Dur­ing the fol­low­ing two years, the 147.285 MHz re­peat­er atop Fremont Peak near Salida and the 146.985 MHz re­peat­er on the Anvil Points west of Rifle were li­nked to the Mos­quito Pass mac­hine. Soon thereaft­er, the 145.400 MHz re­peat­er west of De­nv­er was li­nked to the Park­er site. These five re­peat­ers pro­vided co­verage from Utah to the west, New Mexico to the south, the centr­al Col­orado moun­tains, the De­nv­er metro area, and the eas­tern plains of Col­orado. Sadly, due to frequent lig­ht­ing strikes re­sult­ing in ex­pen­sive re­pairs, we were for­ced to re­move the Rifle re­peat­er around 2009. We were able to in­crease co­verage of the Grand Junc­tion and Glen­wood Spr­ings re­peat­ers to fill in the gap left along I-70 when Rifle was de­comis­sioned.

Ron Dump (KDØWT), after pre­sen­ta­tion of a plaque in his honor, with Paul (WBØQMR), Tony (NAØUS), and Linda (K0LLH), at the 1996 Con­nec­tion pic­nic.

The next year, six re­peat­ers were added. The 146.730 MHz mac­hine near Wal­senburg pro­vided co­verage south to Raton Pass and into sout­heas­tern Col­orado. Greg (NØBDK) sold this re­peat­er to the Pueb­lo club in 1994 and it’s no long­er part of the Con­nec­tion.

Lee (KAØWIN), Mal­lo­ry (NØIKF), and John (KBØEDL) hel­ped add the 146.910 MHz and 449.500 MHz mac­hines pro­vid­ing VHF and UHF co­verage to Col­orado Spr­ings. The Con­nec­tion lost the UHF site after a few months and the al­loca­tion on VHF has chan­ged to the cur­rent one on 145.130 MHz. In the late fall of 1995, this re­peat­er moved to a new loc­a­tion, pro­vid­ing co­verage to much of the area the Wal­senburg site pro­vided in the past.

The gem of the sys­tem is the 145.310 MHz re­peat­er on Mt. Thorodin southwest of Bould­er. At 10,550 feet, co­verage was added to many more areas of the state. Don (KEØIU), Frank (KD7AN), Fred (NØFIA), Chuck (ABØMR), and Greg (NØGVS) all hel­ped Geor­ge Di­Let­to in the ef­fort to get the Thorodin site on­line.

GE Mast­er II re­peat­er at the origin­al 145.310 MHz Mt. Thorodin site.

Frank and a few oth­ers brought a 449.300 MHz UHF re­peat­er into the fold in Cheyen­ne as well. Sadly, this mac­hine only las­ted for sever­al months as a Con­nec­tion link into Wyom­ing. As the Con­nec­tion grew, other re­peat­er groups would join, dropp­ing out at later dates.

For a short time there was even a 224.260 MHz re­peat­er in Grand Junc­tion. The 220 mac­hine li­nked into Rifle, but didn’t re­main part of the Con­nec­tion for long. Again, other groups af­filiated with us, but didn’t re­main full time.

Paul (WBØQMR) hel­ped link the 147.320 MHz re­peat­er near Brec­kenrid­ge add­ing co­verage to much of the centr­al moun­tains. The donated re­peat­er was crys­talled for this un­usu­al frequen­cy so it was used until the al­loca­tion was chan­ged to 146.790 MHz. This site acts as one end of the path over the Con­tinent­al Di­vide, with the 145.310 re­peat­er as the other. Due to noise is­sues, we were for­ced to move the frequen­cy to 147.390 with an 88.5hz tone in 2013.

In 1989, The Col­orado Con­nec­tion Re­peat­ers, Inc. was for­med as a non-profit cor­pora­tion, with Geor­ge, Sheryle, and Rich Musat as the board of di­rec­tors. In 1990, the ARRL re­cog­nized Geor­ge Di­Let­to as the Col­orado Radio Amateur of the year.

Geor­ge Di­Let­to (KDØRW) with his wife Sheryle (NNØA) re­ceiv­ing the Col­orado Amateur of the Year award in 1990.

Fol­low­ing in­stal­la­tion at the Thorodin site, the 145.400 MHz mac­hine was moved to Akron. Next, the Holyoke Amateur Radio Club began an af­filia­tion with the Con­nec­tion as well, li­nk­ing their 146.955 MHz re­peat­er into Akron. The Holyoke group with­drew af­filia­tion with the Con­nec­tion in 1994.

Our site in Kremml­ing was al­located to Bill Shef­field (KQØJ). His 147.075 MHz mac­hine links into Thorodin, giv­ing us co­verage in the north centr­al part of the state. Original­ly, the site used his equip­ment. The Con­nec­tion donated an­oth­er re­peat­er to the site after the origin­al failed. Kremml­ing is still main­tained by Bill and other Con­nec­tion volun­te­ers.

Summ­er of 1994 saw the move of the Di­Let­to fami­ly to Hous­ton, Texas. With their move the 145.355 MHz re­peat­er was re­moved from Park­er and Chuck Van­cil (ABØMR) be­came trus­tee for the Con­nec­tion. Chuck ser­ved in that capac­ity until De­cemb­er of 1994. Robert Warr­en be­came trus­tee in De­cemb­er of 1994 and ser­ved in that capac­ity until De­cemb­er of 1995. Tony Fer­ris (NAØUS) ser­ved as re­peat­er trus­tee from 1995 through 1999. Cur­rent­ly, the Con­nec­tion has it’s own callsign – KBØVJJ. Per­haps one day the Con­nec­tion will get our own van­ity call with a sim­ple to re­memb­er ac­ronym.

1994 also saw a new ad­di­tion to the Con­nec­tion. The 147.285 MHz re­peat­er in Grand Junc­tion be­came part of the Con­nec­tion in July. Al­though the re­peat­er doesn’t have as wide area co­verage as some of its co­usins, it does pro­vide ex­cel­lent co­verage for our Grand Junc­tion area users and the val­ley south towards Delta and Montrose. Thanks to Larry Ball (WØIOL) and Ted Wet­zel (KEØTY) for their hard work in gett­ing this site op­eration­al. Since that time, the re­peat­er was re­located to on top of the Grand Mesa and now uses a frequen­cy of 145.355 MHz with a 123hz tone. The co­verage has great­ly im­proved since this move, al­low­ing it to reach as far west as Green River, Utah at times!

An­ten­na work on the tower at the old 145.355 MHz re­peat­er site in Park­er.

1995 saw sever­al cor­porate chan­ges. The Board of Di­rec­tors was chan­ged to in­clude Geor­ge Di­Let­to (KDØRW), Paul Shac­kelford (WBØQMR), Tony Fer­ris (NAØUS), and Harv Sims (WB6YXD). In 1996, Linda Hill (K0LLH) was added to the board. In 1997 Harv re­sig­ned and Bill Jacob­son (KBØNWM) took his place. In Janua­ry, 1998, Dave Blaylock (NØPEO) joined the board. In April of 1998, the Board of Di­rec­tors re­luc­tant­ly ac­cepted the re­sig­na­tion of the found­er, Geor­ge Di­Let­to. Tony Fer­ris re­sig­ned in August, 1999.

We added our first of what we hope are many dup­lex links in the sys­tem in 1995. The Mt. Thorodin site (145.310 MHz) moved into a new build­ing. With this move, a UHF li­nk­ing re­peat­er was added at that site. East and west slope users are now li­nked via UHF bet­ween Mt. Thorodin and the Mt. Baldy (147.390 MHz) site. New li­nk­ing met­hods im­proved audio qual­ity to the best we’ve ever seen. Of note, if you hear a fast ‘K’ pro­ceed sign­al, you’ll know sign­al was generated by di­rect VHF input to the 145.310 MHz re­peat­er or a re­peat­er that links to the 310 via VHF. If you hear a slow ‘K’ pro­ceed sign­al, it was generated be­cause the user was li­nk­ing to the Mt. Thorodin site via a UHF link.

Sub­audib­le tone was also added in 1995. This fea­ture was added to re­duce in­ter­fer­ence and in no way sig­nif­ies a closed sys­tem. 1996 saw the ad­di­tion of a voice con­troll­er to the 145.310 re­peat­er. This con­troll­er an­noun­ces the tone ac­cess re­quire­ment to users. Pro­gram your trans­ceiv­ers with a tone of 123.0 Hz for all Con­nec­tion re­peat­ers and you’ll never notice the dif­fer­ence when tone is en­ab­led.

The Steam­boat Spr­ings club, through Dan (NØPRG), added a link in the northwest cor­n­er of the state. Craig hosts a re­peat­er on 147.270 MHz which links to a 147.165 MHz re­peat­er in Steam­boat Spr­ings and on to Mt. Baldy. Both these re­peat­ers link full-time to the Con­nec­tion, but be­long to the Steam­boat group.

In the spr­ing of 1996, we in­stal­led an­oth­er 147.285 MHz re­peat­er 12 miles east of Limon at the Bi­ghorn Amateur Radio Museum in Genoa. Un­for­tunate­ly, the Bi­ghorn Amateur Radio Club voted to dis­con­tinue host­ing a Con­nec­tion re­peat­er at their site in April of 1997. If you know of a site we could oc­cupy giv­ing us co­verage of the eas­tern I70 cor­ridor send an E-Mail to W0IG.

July of 1996 saw the ad­di­tion of the 147.345 MHz re­peat­er near Vail. This long sought ad­di­tion fills in the hole our co­verage had from Vail Pass to Glen­wood Canyon. Now it’s rea­l­ly pos­sible to com­municate vir­tual­ly all the way ac­ross Col­orado on In­terstate 70! In 1998 the 146.850 MHz re­peat­er on Sun­light Peak near Glen­wood Spr­ings was added. This re­peat­er pro­vides co­verage throug­hout the Roar­ing Fork Val­ley and other areas around Glen­wood Spr­ings.