Repeater Visit November 26, 2011

The repeater was found to be off the air following a big windstorm the week of Thanksgiving, 2011. It was working on the 22nd or 23rd but no longer working on the 25th. The winds were quite strong earlier in the week so there was a suspicion of wind damage. Some detective work by Tim Crawford determined that it was only the 146.740 output radio that was not transmitting. The input of 146.140 was still receiving as an input on that frequency would bring up the 440 link radio with transmissions relayed on the repeater to the north heard. This was considered good news as it meant that we still had power, so likely the solar panels were intact.

The afternoon of the 26th Greg Filliger, N7RIA, Dale Mosby, K7FW, and Bill Lacy (Dale's brother in law) made a trip up to check out the site. I wish I could report that we fixed something, but whatever had the output transmitter off line was resolved by the time we made it up there. I verified that it was not transmitting on 146.74 the morning of the 26th. The only damage found were some scratches on one of the panels. These were not present on the last vist. The panel seems to be fine depsite the scratches. They are visible and can be felt if you run your hand across the plastic but do not seem deep enough to be of concern.

We did check SWR to antenna and found it was 1:1 (12 watts transmitted, no reflected), batteries were measured at 12.78 volts and battery water level was OK.


The scratches in the pane are seen here:


It was calm and 61 degrees at sea level when we went up. At the 2500 foot level of the
repeater it was cooler and very windy. On the todo list is some rope to allow us to
hold the door open on windy days. Here is Bill holding the door open against the wind:


Logging has been taking place recently on the hills below the repeater site.
Here is some land to the southwest of the repeater site:


Here is a hillside looking a bit more toward the east:


A couple photos of the site:




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