An excellent linked repeater network in CA.

[asteffes]

For all the CA hams out there, check out the C.A.R.L.A. link repeater network. It covers from Shasta/Tahoe down the Salinas/Monterey, and east out to Interstate 5. I've come to love this network, as I feel I always have coverage and communication up and down much of the state.

The one caviat that might affect you is that the network is all on 70cm/440MHz. You'll need a dual-bander or a cheap dedicated 440 HT to use it.

Check http://www.qsl.net/carla for more info, coverage maps, etc.

[UncleChris]

Hey Adam,

I have plugged the Salinas and the SJ Carla repeaters into my mobile, but there never seems to be any activity on them.

When in the Silicon Valley(I work in Milpitas) I usually hang out on Charlie(wa6tem).

[asteffes]

Hey Adam,

I have plugged the Salinas and the SJ Carla repeaters into my mobile, but there never seems to be any activity on them.

When in the Silicon Valley(I work in Milpitas) I usually hang out on Charlie(wa6tem).

Try the CARLA 5 system if you're in the east bay area a lot. It's usually linked into CARLA 2 (in SF) and one of the machines near Tahoe (6, I believe.) It's not a very chatty network but I have found several people just listening, waiting for a call. Are you using the linked PLs instead of the local PLs? Doing so will ensure you're heard on the linked systems.

You might want to program in the Palo Alto Amateur Radio Association's repeater, N6NFI (www.paara.org) as it's quite active (9am net every weekday) and has pretty wide coverage.

[Borrego60]

Might even look into the winsystem, www.winsystem.org/m. 75 repeaters linked through out the world and awsome coverage in Ca.

[rambrush]

The one I have used and it works good is the I-15 intertie. Runs all the way up through Idaho.

[h2005]

The Intertie in Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana.

http://utahvhfs.org/snowlink.html

[esh]

The Cactus Intertie is pretty neat. Even connects up to Portland, Montana and Washington DC. Members only though. http://www.cactus-intertie.org/

Poking around the interwebs, there is a lot of information yet it takes some time to sift. It is so many sites are outdated (one list updated 2003- http://www.seits.org/repeater/othrsite.htm) with bad links. Usually Google searches can find the current site listed with bad URLs. The other thing is many of the site have nearly unreadable HTML layouts, not because they are HTML but because they have bad layouts. :D Guess it is the nature of the beast.

I have listened to one that connects Idaho through Oregon to NorCal, but can't find it.

My goto for single repeater data is http://k5ehx.net/repeaters/qrepeater.php, but it doesn't have info on interconnected repeater systems.

[ScoutII]

That because of the Air Force.

That huge radar system hates 440 hams. I don't use 440 in the open valley as they can see a milli watt of transmission. There are places in the mountains that are shadowed from their system and I do uses those repeaters.

http://www.eastbaysectionarrl.org/2010/03/03/beale-air-force-radar-and-the-amateur-70-cm-band-mdarc-meeting-march-19