For our January meeting program, we demonstrated Yaesu System Fusion and talked about the various radios and equipment used within the Brainerd Area Amateur Radio Club.

Mitch ADØHJ started the evening with an overview of the Yaseu System Fusion DR-1X and DR-2X repeaters, the FTM-400DR and FTM-100DR mobile radios, and FT-70DR handheld radio.  Also shown was the custom Rackmount PC built by Nick WØNY for our repeater sites along with the neatly integrated Yaesu HRI-200 WIRES-X Interface.

A virtual connection was made with our 444.925+ repeater to show the WIRES-X software that controls the DR-1X repeater and allows connection to other Nodes and Rooms on the WIRES-X network.  Mitch explained how to connect the repeater to a different rooms through both the WIRES-X software and through the radio interface itself.

We connected to THE-DARC-ROOM which is linked to about a dozen other repeaters located across outstate Minnesota in communities such as Alexandria, Becker, Fargo, Le Sueur, Little Falls, Minneapolis, Paynesville, Rochester, Stewartville, St. Cloud, and St. Peter.  After connecting to this Room, he called out for anyone on that repeater to please respond. A call came back from Mike WQØA located in Saint Peter and Mitch proceeded to have Mike explain the equipment being used by the Saint Peter Amateur Radio Club (SPARC) and talk about how many amateurs in his community have switched to Yaesu Fusion Digital.

After a live demonstration of the digital system, Mitch showed club members more details and answered questions.