GB3TD is my 'local' 70cm band analogue FM voice repeater. With the 23 year 'sabbatical' I had away from the hobby, I found that even repeater operations had changed somewhat over the period.
In the late 1980s and early to mid 1990s, stations on the 2m analogue FM repeaters were usually 'wall to wall' and the etiquette was to call "break please" in order to either enter the fray or call a station with whom you had perhaps arranged a 'sked'.
If I were to have jumped straight from 1990 to 2022; depending on the time I made the 'leap', I might quickly have made the obvious assumption that FM repeaters were no longer in use!
Some days, whilst out walking for several hours, I can access a mixture of 2m and 70cm repeaters - including GB3TD - and raise ... no-one.
GB3TD was recently switched to channel UR63, with an input frequency of 430.7875 MHz and an output of 438.3875 MHz. It has a CTCSS access tone of 118.8 Hz. This channel is shared with only 1 other repeater in the UK - in Wolverhampton - so GB3TD benefits from having no issues with potential signal overlap.
This is the "HeyWhatsThat" visual panorama for the repeater. I've made a guess at the antenna height above ground and used 20 metres.
I have worked into GB3TD from over 85 miles distant - on Exmoor - using 5W and a handheld HB9CV antenna and, quite recently, heard a station putting in a good signal from Southampton.
The repeater sensitivity appears to have improved further with the frequency change so it is hoped that even more 'DX' will be heard and for those - like me - who like to walk extensively, it 'holds' my 1 Watt signal nearly 100% of the time on walks of several miles and at distances around 17 miles!
Click on the image to see it full size! 😉
An additional, and often well used, feature of the repeater is Echolink; enabling stations not within RF reach of the site to be able to access GB3TD via the mobile 'phone network and Internet or directly via the Internet.