Our Repeaters
The Superstition Amateur Radio Club maintains a multi-site system of open repeaters located in the East Mesa Arizona area that provide coverage to the East Valley of the Phoenix Metro area and surrounding communities. All repeaters are coordinated through the Amateur Radio Council of Arizona (ARCA) and operate under the club callsign WB7TJD. All our repeaters are free to use by licensed amateur radio operators. While no club membership is required to access the system, membership is strongly encouraged regardless of your location as dues help fund the rent at the sites themselves, as well as the ongoing maintenance of the repeaters and sites.
Our repeaters are located at two distinct sites in the East Mesa area. The combination of these locations allows the system to provide wide-reaching coverage across the Phoenix metro and beyond. The Usery Pass site is situated in the saddle between Usery Mountain and Usery Mountain South. As a higher-elevation mountain location, it offers advantageous height above the surrounding valley. Approximately four miles south of Usery Pass is the Stone Castle site. Unlike Usery, Stone Castle sits at ground level on the desert floor among the local roads and terrain. However, its position in the shadow of the Usery Mountains enables it to fill in coverage dead zones created by the mountains over parts of East Mesa, Apache Junction, Gold Canyon, and portions of Pinal County.
The Stone Castle location has a long history with the club. After the group received the callsign WB7TJD in 1977 and established its first repeater in Apache Junction, members gathered stones and river rock from the Salt River in 1978 to build the Stone Castle site, and this has been the home for the UHF repeater ever since. Over the years, SuperFest proceeds and other support have funded successive upgrades to the radios, controllers, cavities, and linking infrastructure. In late 2024, the club replaced the aging tower at Stone Castle with a new 48-foot structure and improved antenna system. The upgrade significantly enhanced fill-in coverage—particularly in areas previously shadowed by the Usery site—and improved low-power mobile performance.
C4FM Digital / Yaesu System Fusion Repeater
| Frequency | Offset | Transmit Tone (CTCSS / PL) |
Location | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 448.275 MHz | –5.000 MHz | 100.0 Hz | Usery Pass / Usery Mtn | C4FM Digital Only (Do Not Transmit Analog) |
Our club operates a dedicated Yaesu System Fusion machine on 448.275 MHz at the Usery Pass site. It is a Yaesu DR-2X with an external amplifier and supports C4FM digital mode. The Fusion repeater is active on WIRES-X and the club’s YSF reflector. Like the analog pair, it is open to any licensed amateur. This is a digital-only repeater—please do not transmit to it over RF in analog mode.
Analog Linked Repeaters (FM Only)
| Frequency | Offset | Transmit Tone (CTCSS / PL) |
Location | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 147.120 MHz | +0.600 MHz | 162.2 Hz | Usery Pass / Usery Mtn | Analog FM only |
| 449.600 MHz | –5.000 MHz | 100.0 Hz | Stone Castle / NE Mesa | Analog FM only |
Our analog VHF repeater (147.120) is located at the Usery Pass site, and our analog UHF repeater (449.600) is located at the Stone Castle site. These two Motorola XPR 8300 machines, each equipped with an external amplifier, are linked full-time to provide coverage across Mesa, Gilbert, Queen Creek, Apache Junction, and much of the surrounding East Valley, with extended reach into parts of Chandler, Tempe, Scottsdale, the greater Phoenix area, and beyond. Handheld coverage is generally solid in open locations within about ten miles of either site. Mobile stations with a proper antenna can work the system considerably farther, and base stations with a good antenna system can often access the repeaters from a significant distance. Following the 2024 improvements, stations running only five watts have successfully accessed the analog linked repeaters from as far away as Maricopa and the Sacaton Rest Area.
For operators unable to reach the system via RF, the pair is also connected to the internet through the Usery Pass (VHF) side via EchoLink (WB7TJD-R) and AllStar (node 53656). Because the two frequencies are permanently linked, a conversation started on either frequency is heard on both, and stations joining via EchoLink or AllStar are heard across the entire linked system. Listeners can also follow the Stone Castle side on Broadcastify.