A couple user notes for consideration:

Identify yourself!

It’s a good idea to include your name in the call sign field when setting up your System Fusion rig. In many cases it may be necessary to abbreviate your name, eg. KC0KW-JERY is Jerry. You can get creative with your 10-character limit, and you’ll help other operators remember you!

Don’t Press the ‘Dx’ Button!

The Kansas City Wide group of repeaters are interconnected with Wires-X. The connections are permanent and cannot be changed. Attempting to change a Kansas City Wide repeater to a different room (like AmericaLink or TexasNexus) WILL NOT WORK. Unfortunately, due to a bug in Yaesu’s software, a change attempt WILL disrupt connections to other nodes for a short period of time.

Clip of Yaesu FTM-300 transceiver

We ask that you NOT press and hold the ‘Dx’ button on your Yaesu radio when using the Kansas City Wide room. It is not necessary. You need only set the frequency to the nearest repeater, select DN mode, and talk.

Make yourself heard! 

All voices are not created equal, so all Yaesu System Fusion rigs have provision to adjust your mic gain. You will find that other operators are usually happy to give you feedback on your transmit audio, and will help you get it adjusted for your voice and microphone habits

Special considerations for operating over System Fusion networks

Repeaters networked through System Fusion will exhibit some delay associated with internet lag times. To ensure your transmissions are fully heard, it is good practice to wait a “beat” to talk after pushing your PTT button. Likewise, keep your PTT button engaged briefly after you finish speaking so your last syllables are not “cut off”. 

It is also important to wait a “beat” when replying to another station, to allow for all the nodes to “catch up”. System Fusion will pass only one signal to the linked repeaters, so you will not hear “doubling”. You will only hear the station or node that made it through.

It requires a good, clean signal for System Fusion to pass your signal on to all the repeaters. With a marginal signal, you may be able to bring up a local repeater, but the signal won’t be passed on through the network. We hope you’ve gained some knowledge and confidence for using System Fusion, and the Kansas City Wide linked repeaters. We look forward to hearing you in Kansas City Wide soon!