How to Find Repeater Info

There are a lot of sources for finding the key info about the repeaters close to where you live--or where you're traveling. In the pre-Internet days, the ARRL Repeater Directory was a golden resource--a little pocket-size book with the vast majority of the repeaters in the US (and a lot of overseas ones too) at your fingertips. They still produce it, on paper and electronically, but there are a lot of other resources, as well. Here are some suggestions:

• Your favorite search engine: this is a pretty straightforward way to do it. Most areas have some kind of resource--often a local ham club's page--with repeater information on it.
• There's An App For That: there are several apps for iOS and Android that give the local repeater info based on your current location.
  • The Repeater Book site maintains an app for many devices.
• There's A Rig For That: some radios are GPS-equipped and can auto-program local repeaters. (As of this writing, Icom produces at least one mobile and one HT with this capability)
• There's A Club For That: with or without your search engine, if you know of a local club's URL, there's a good chance they have a page, or a link to someone else's page, with repeater info.
• There's A Ham For That: you can bootstrap your way into repeater knowledge by starting with one, talking to hams there about what other repeaters are around, and so forth.

Finding out about local repeaters won't be a difficult part of your ham journey, so get your list, program your radio, and get on the air!

Next steps

Once you find a source for repeaters, you will want to program them into your radios. See the How To program my radio article for more information.