Maintenance day for our repeater (antenna's)

[PA5COR]

http://www.muntronde.nl/rzghvn/in.htm
Go to nieuws
Translation ( short version)
30-9-2009

The anntennna team did the yealy maintenance on the repeater antenna, (Diamond x7000N) and a no name 6 foot 23 cm antenna.
Polishing, waxing and checking swr 2/70/23 replacing the weatherproofing tape, etc.
On the picture you see me, PA5COR, foreground, , PA4DEN middlee, and PD0DPS last.
At 170 feet above ground.

I mix the wax myself, it holds for over a year.
We can measure a change after the cleaning, little bit lower swr, and a small change in resonance.
The accumulated dirt, soot, and whatever muck clearly has a detuning effect on the tribander antenna.

Inside is our setup for the 3 repeaters, 2/70/23, the beacons 2/70/23, the GPS setup for tiiming the 2 other slave repeaters and diversity reception.
I also build the subtone pcb's
Click the piccies on the site for more


30-09
Woensdagmorgen werd door het antenne-team het jaarlijkse onderhoud aan de repeater-antenne verricht. Poetsen en meten om meer demping te vergeten. We probeerden opnieuw onder de 0,1 dB atmosfeer demping te komen. Hier zijn PA4DEN, PD0DPS en PA5COR bezig de repeater-antenne van vuil en stof te ontdoen. Uiteindelijk werd te straler glad gemaakt met nieuwe geheime vloeistof met vuilafstotende beschermende werking. Na vele metingen bleek zowel de SWR als de demping te zijn afgenomen. Ook het 70cm baken PI7HVN is weer aangeschakeld.

[HUGH]

That's a much easier location than clinging like a spider to a 100ft mast on top of a bleak hill in a stiff breeze and hoping your fingers don't freeze up!

[PA5COR]

Indeed it is.
These high rise buildings are used by telecom and several other organisations.
So we were happy to be able for a small price to put up our stuff there.

We live in a flat country here, so the range of the repeater with the antenna so low is 50 miles radius easy.
Using diversity reception with 2 other reception points in different cities gives us a perfect reception and good working of the repeater.
The heart of the repeaters are 30 year old storno repeaters, just the front ends have been modified.
Control hardware homemade as is the software.

Another pet project for us.
;)

[KU0DM]

That's a much easier location than clinging like a spider to a 100ft mast on top of a bleak hill in a stiff breeze and hoping your fingers don't freeze up!

That's what makes it fun!!
;)

[PA5COR]

Brrrr
Not when you are 57, and like comfort :D ( like me)

Enough cold to bear with the Jota/Joti to come.
80 Meter full size loop to make, FD-4 at 70 feet above ground to string up, preparaations for it, all day out in the field the 14th to put the stuff up, including the 2/70 antenna's.
O well, the kids love it ;)

[N2NH]

Great pics Cor. Nice view. Looks a bit chilly though.

Your terrain is much like Florida's. You can get the repeaters in Tampa, Cocoa Beach and Daytona Beach from Orlando.
:agree:

[KG4CGC]

The view is nice and on a clear day, they say you can see parts of Europe.

[PA5COR]

The view is nice and on a clear day, they say you can see parts of Europe.
If you look from your window, you can see Cuba? :snicker:

Highest "hill" is a molehill, or some sand dunes 100 feet high in our province, left overs from the last ice age.

For the rest as flat as what.

20 degrees Celsius that day, but windy, certainly at that high, bit drizzly weather.

Interesting detail, in 2004 a lighting bolt destroyed the police and Red Cross transmitters, antenna's coax cables, PSU's telephone lines, and electric grid from the 15th floor down to in the street.
With our deep cycle battery fed back up psu we only had to reset our micro processor which was scared to bits, and needed a reset.

You should have seen the faces of the police and red cross technicians and policemen when one of us came whistling up there, pushed a switch and could go home again.....repeaters and beacons working fine. :snicker:

Take care,

Cor

[HUGH]

Here's a maintenance day for GB3PW, the Mid-wales repeater. The weather was pretty good.

http://static.zooomr.com/images/8735159_61317bff40_m.jpg

[PA5COR]

Nice tower, i think we have a bit less work on the flat doing maintenance and antenna work.

http://www.ukrepeater.net/repeaters/gb3pw.htm didn't find the hight of the tower there? or did i miss it...

;)

[KG4CGC]

The view is nice and on a clear day, they say you can see parts of Europe.
If you look from your window, you can see Cuba? :snicker:


Take care,

Cor
I'm not close enough to Cuba but from Mt. Mitchell, the tallest peak east of the Mississippi River you can "see" 5 states, some say 7.

Here is a snap I took from just above an extruded rock formation called Chimney Rock. It doesn't really resemble a chimney from the ground but they certainly couldn't name it ****s Rock. Elevation were I was standing was about 6000 feet.

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c79/bebop5/ChimneyRockStitchresize.jpg

[PA5COR]

Nice picture...
I only see that on holliday in France/Germany ....

;)

[HUGH]

I'm afraid the Powys repeater site is a mere pimple, about 1400ft/430m ASL, and the mast, which I understand to have been truncated, about 120ft/37m. It's had stainless steel guys and lower fittings and is shared with one or two commercial concerns, notably water.

[PA5COR]

^thanks for the info ;)

Our flat is just 8 meters ASL, from there the antenna base is 54 meters above the ground level.
But the surrounding area is flat like a pancake :D