KERN System

Welcome to the KERN System

We are a group of repeater owners who are very fortunate to have the sites we are in. Thanks to all the site providers for the privilege of being able to have a repeater there.

Meet our group:

Lee Bouchard KI6HHU / Jon Wilhelm WA6KLB / Ron Thome K6RET / Steven Hess K6KGE / Shane Skadden KE6JZ / Skip Clark WB6TXX / Jerry Garis KK6AC. We are a group of repeater owners who have tied our repeaters together to form a network configurable in the event of a disaster. These repeaters are provided for your enjoyment. There are no club dues or obligations, so please feel free to use them.

This system currently consists of 17 repeaters, 14 of which are tied into Frazier (some are linkable upon command) via a 420 MHz linked system. Coverage of the linked part of this system goes from E of Barstow to Ventura, the Southern and central part of the San Juaquin Valley up to about Tracy. Three of the repeaters are at 8000' or over.

We now have All Star, Our Node # is: 570150

Our Echolink Node # has changed. It now is: 887598 (K6RET-R)

KERN Emergency Radio Network is also "Bridged" to DMR Talk Group "310675" Talk Group "310675" is labeled as: Kern System DMR, NOT to be confused with Kern DMR. Use Time Slot 1 on Shirley Pk (443.000 + offset, Color Code = 1) & Tehachapi (442.675 + offset, Colr Code = 1) DMR Repeaters.

AllStar / Echolink nodes & DMR Bridge are funtional from 5:30am to 9:00pm PST

This is due to the need to conserve batterry power on several of our solar sites.

On a personal note from me KK6AC:

I built my first repeater (Shirley Peak 443.000 MHZ) and had it on the air over 25 years ago. Since then, that one repeater grew into the system it is today, the KERN System. This system covers a chunk of California. That being said, there is a potential for many users. The system has indeed grown as far as users. We as a core group want that and want everyone to enjoy the system. Since there are many users now, consideration has to be given to the length of our QSOs to allow others to enjoy it as well. If we can keep our QSOs to 20 minutes maximum, this will facilitate that. Also being a linked system with a number of repeaters, consideration needs to be given when we first key up to talk. Because of the key up delays of all the repeaters, we need to wait a second or so before we speak  (after keying up) so that the first word is not cut off by repeaters still coming up. Also we need to wait a second or so after the person talking unkeys before we key up. This will allow someone to break in for emergency traffic, or to make a call, or join in on the conversation. Please note that this is being said for everyone, including me. I love to talk and am guilty of all these things, even timing out the repeater because I am so long winded. To aid in this particular aspect, the time out timers on the repeaters have been shortened..

Enough said, please enjoy the system as that is the intent of our group.

73s,

Jerry KK6AC

Here is the current list of our repeaters:

KI6HHU

   446.320 - PL 151.4 Double Mt. (Tehachapi) 8000' X/L

   445.760 - PL 141.3 Channel Islands Harbor (Ventura)  L

   442.925  + PL 141.3 Cummings Mt (Serves S San Joaquin Valley) 7800'  E/X/L

   927.075 - PL 203.5 Cummings Mt. 7800' E/L (Linkable to system upon command)