PNWDigital is a very large open repeater network (currently more than 95 repeaters) and is completely free to use by all of the hams in our region. A few members support the network and most of the PNWDigital repeaters. We wish to more actively campaign for donations to better share the costs that our services provide all users.
Our organization supports EmComm, SAR, public service and other community benefit needs wherever and whenever possible. We do not charge fees or club dues nor is there any requirement that anyone contribute to our organization. But what we do provide to our ham community in this region does cost a few of us more than $1,500 a month (in 2025) just for the operation and support of 19 repeaters owned by PNWDigital. Our network services are provided at no cost to all our other repeater owners, groups and clubs that use our services. We have created this page to enable those who wish to support PNWDigital to easily contribute funds to PNWDigital or other repeater owners on the PNWDigital network as well as to acknowledge our sponsors and major ham supporters.
DTLT come in many forms; Dollars are convenient, Talent is quite handy, Labor is helpful and Time is precious. If you choose to donate funds, please include your call sign so we know who you are and provide attribution on our donors page.
Ways to donate:
Paypal – Paypal@PNWDigital.Net
Freefunder – PNWDigital Organization
Zelle – Donation-Zelle@PNWDigital.net
We update our donation list with every donation made. We also try to acknowledge every donation via Email and provide the password to the donation list. The password will be provided to members who have donated or on request of donors via an Email sent to donations@pnwdigital.net
- Donations missing callsign, etc, please contact: donations@pnwdigital.net:
- 12-15-23 – $500 – possibly known but still not resolved
- 3-9-25 – $10, donation made at Mic n Key
- 3-9-25 – $30, donation made at Mic n Key
If you have questions about donations, please send an Email to: donations@pnwdigital.net
We appreciate the support of our dollar donors over the years. If you wish your donation to go to a specific repeater owner, task or project, please provide that information in the comments or memo line and we will try to comply. Or Email your earmark, comments or questions if you wish. If you prefer to send a bill pay or paper check, please Email for additional details.
Donation details for donors is password protected: <Detailed Donations> (PW changed 1-1-26)
PNWDigital.net is a regional association of individuals who collectively, provide the repeaters, networking and ongoing operational, maintenance and subscription costs to keep our DMR network in service. PNWDigital has a small core group of repeater owners to pay for the 19 repeater that PNWDigital owns as well as the networking costs. Other individual hams, groups or clubs support their own repeaters independently but are part of our larger network.
We hope that the information below will demonstrate that our costs are real, significant and only a few support the organizaion. We wish to to publicly acknowledge those individuals who have supported PNWDigital.Net’s network growth and maintenance over the years. Our repeater owners are the moving force behind our regional growth and honestly, they go beyond that by donating here as well. Individual support efforts by our users is welcome and will be memorialized also. Our commercial sponsors
Typically only 5% of a club’s members voluntarily support a club’s efforts when there is no dues structure in place (PNW is at ~6.5% for 1 time donations of more than $5.00 as of 2023), so those who do so voluntarily go above and beyond and are listed below (and on the private donor page) because they merit acknowledgment. If you feel inclined to actively support PNWDigital.net, we suggest a nominal $25 annual donation, about the cost of 1 Starbuck’s drip coffee once a month. If every member were to donate, we could fully cover our ongoing monthly costs as well as fund 1-3 new repeaters each year or better afford the best and most expensive mountaintop sites.
As of November 2023, our monthly ongoing costs are about $1,400 a month for the WA7DMR repeaters and networking only. The average donation is about 27 cents per member per month for about $550 per month, so monthly costs alone run about 3 times the amount of our current donation level. This does not take into account the costs by individual repeater owners who shoulder their deployment costs independently. A typical repeater deployment at a commercial site costs $4,500 to $5,500 in hardware and installation costs. The site rent and Internet is another $700-$1,250 at the typical annual rate. There are countless hours for planning, trips, paid tower crews as well as maintenance and upgrades after the initial installations. Some installations have 5 hour one-way drives. Some repeater owners never use their own repeaters as they are located too far away from their home areas. All of this is a significant investment by a very few dedicated hams who shoulder most of the costs for our community repeater growth and network expansion. This is not sustainable in the years ahead but we have no plans currently to change our no cost membership model to more than simply accepting your kind donations.
For those who do not actively support PNWDigital.net, please make an effort to seek out your repeater owners (click on the color code on the repeaters page) and others listed below and extend to them your appreciation for their support and dedication to help to maintain and expand DMR coverage in our region.
The following members have made significant contributions to PNWDigital.net
- Rob AF7PR; Many repeaters in Washington, HamWAN expansion!!!
- Loren KB7APU; OR-SAR Affiliate; many repeaters (Oregon & Washington)
- Andy KK7TR, Cougar repeater return (2nd edition), tower climber, tech assist
- Jim N7MAQ; Repeaters (Oregon and Washington)
- Mike N07RF; c-Bridge, Networking, Repeaters (North Central Washington)
- Rod KC7AAD; Repeater & repeater sites (Spokane), Spokane CoLo hosting and HamWAN
- Earl N3EG; Repeaters (Longview Washington and Rainier Oregon with local Day Wireless support)
- Lenny N7MOT, SLR-5700 repeater and repeater installation at the Blossom Hill ID site, donated to PNW in 2019
- Dylan KI7SBI, Colo hosting, Polly/MMDVM server implementation/support and HamWAN
- Steve N9VW, network mapping for users support, database implementation
- Michael KG7HQ, Website creation and transition from the old website to the new website
- Steve N9WV, Database creation for major backend support (TG Picker, Matrices and more)
- Dave W7NCX, our long time lead man and NCS for the PNW weekly Gathering, servers, hardware, programming
- I-84 Group for their work to open up Oregon DMR along the I-84 transportation corridor
- Joel N7LF, Jim KA7AGH and Paul K7PN
- Brad N7ER, repeaters and site, installation trips
- Jason KC7HFM, provider of Internet services for the Saint Maries and Lewiston ID repeaters
- Frank, NO7UP for for Internet at Jump Off Joe and VPS hosting of the PNW-D c-Bridge
- Hilltop acquisitions, Installs, Networking, Labor, Testing, Maintenance & other support:
- Mike N7NFY, repeater sites (Gold, Rattlesnake)
- Jerry Noe at Wiztronics; repeater sites & Internet connections
- Brian K5IN, repeater site (Capital Peak)
- BC-TRBO, Geoff VE7KA, affiliate c-Bridge
- Terence KE7SFF, affiliate repeater (Haystack) & HKS c-Bridge
- Randy K7RHT, Ellensburg site
- Ron KG7LAA and Carl KG7JMI, Ellensburg site support and Internet
- Joey K6BFD, supplied and installed Heliax and Telewave antenna for Moses Lake Site
- Steve N7LNX, important site acquisition on behalf of PNW Digital
- Gary, KJ7LED for hosting a repeater and his very generous donations
- Many more individual repeater owners who have installed 1 or more repeaters and network with PNWDigital
Special Mention: Greg, NF6C who put up the first 2 western Washington repeaters (MTR-3000’s) on Cougar and Baldi in 2013 and got the DMR ball rolling in Western Washington. The repeaters came down when Greg moved to California in 2014 but were replaced within the year with the help of Andy KK7TR (Cougar Mtn) and Rob AF7PR (Baldi Mtn). This was the genesis of PNW Digital truly having lift off in Washington state.
NOTE: Our commercial supports are now listed on our Supporters page
First Published: September 5, 2021 Last Updated: 6 days ago ago by Mike – NO7RF
Views: 2296