The Phil-Mont Mobile Radio Club (PMRC), on the air as W3QV, has been a fixture of Philadelphia-area amateur radio since 1949 — founded in Glenside by five operators with a shared interest in mobile operation, and an ARRL Special Service Club with well over 200 members today.
The repeater system
The club’s primary repeater, the Jim Spencer Memorial Repeater System, runs on 147.030 MHz (+ offset, PL 91.5 Hz), with a Yaesu Fusion digital repeater on 444.80 MHz (+ offset, PL 186.2 Hz) alongside it. The system has grown additional RF inputs recently — a Delaware County input (PL 100.0) and a new Lawrenceville, NJ input (PL 88.5) feeding a high-elevation antenna — meaningfully extending coverage beyond what the original Roxborough site alone could reach. There’s also a club simplex frequency, 147.510 MHz with PL 91.5, and remote access via Allstar (node 47970) and EchoLink (W3QV-R) for anyone outside RF range.
DENn — the Digital Education Net
The one that’s most relevant to this blog: Phil-Mont runs a weekly DENn (Digital Education Net) on the VHF repeater, aimed specifically at newer digital-mode operators, with a Zoom video backchannel running alongside the on-air portion so people can actually see what’s being demonstrated. It’s a genuinely useful standing resource if you’re trying to get FT8, JS8Call, or Winlink working and want real-time help instead of troubleshooting alone from a manual.
The club also runs a weekday Drive-Time net from 5:00–6:00 PM Eastern, in addition to HF nets and the Sunday morning 2m/70cm and 10m nets. Current net schedule and meeting details are kept up to date at phil-mont.org.