[Waverley ARS] Repeater News

[Brad Crowe]

Thanks Raffy for the comprehensive report...I have reset my 
transceiver's memory accordingly...and thank you Laurie for your 
continued support in maintaining and upgrading the repeaters. de Brad VK2CEC.


At 10:04 PM 1/08/2007, Raffy wrote:
>Dear Members,
>
>I am pleased to report that last Tuesday (31st July 07) Laurie 
>VK2GPL and myself (attending) put the 70cm repeater back into 
>service, which also means the IRLP is back up and running.
>
>Laurie spent a lot of time in maintenance and alignment, installing 
>the CTCSS and making sure the tone did not over deviate to interfere 
>with IRLP.
>
>He disassembled the three cavity filters, touched up the soldering 
>where necessary, re-assembled and calibrated them.
>
>The end result is that the repeater is working better than before.
>
>Prior to the current maintenance, the 70cm repeater was outputting 
>2.6 watts at the feed line feed point (just past the cavity 
>filters). The measurement now is 6.8 watts at the same point.
>
>Another positive factor is the fact that the feed line is now very 
>low loss heliax (a couple of very high quality cable runs abandoned 
>by a now defunct sea phone service).
>
>WHAT YOU SHOULD DO:
>
>Now that the 70cm repeater has CTCSS of 123 Hz on both input & 
>output, it would be beneficial for members to change the settings of 
>their memorised channel for this repeater from "Tone" to "Tone Squelch".
>On Yaesu Radios it is usually indicated either by  "TSQL" or Tone 
>SQL". This is the same setting as for the 2 metre repeater.
>This will greatly assist in rejecting random interference on the 
>output of the 70cm when no QSO is taking place.
>
>
>Regarding the 2 metre antenna:-
>
>The original reason for doing work at the repeater site was that a 
>commercial service is now renting the site (for a reputed six figure 
>annual fee) and certain Occupational Health & Safety requirements 
>dictated that our antennas had to be moved. Upon inspection, the 2 
>metre antenna was found to have a strange "kink" in it. Having been 
>up for many years, Laurie felt that it was time to replace it. Only 
>a properly qualified and insured rigger was to be allowed to do so.
>
>That work is now complete, and both antennas now share the same pole 
>and high quality Heliax feed lines.
>You can see our antennas from the side street (near the Hardware 
>shop). They are near the edge of the roof at the same level on a "T" mast.
>
>The total cost was $913, which was less than the estimated maximum of $1200.
>
>Even after spending a lot of time for us physically working on the 
>resolution of the problems, Laurie very generously donated $100 of 
>the total bill, leaving $813 as the final cost.
>
>We should be deeply grateful to Laurie's great stewardship and hard work.
>
>We also met the man in charge of the building, and he appeared quite 
>satisfied with the level of compliance to his requirements.
>
>73
>Raffy VK2RF
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