[CTSARA] Sterling Farms Repeater Upgrades/Fixes!!!

[Jon Perelstein]

Curt Seaton, Ernest, and I went up to Sterling Farms and made some major
upgrades to the repeater there.  With any luck, we have finally fixed one
major problem and identified the cause of the other problem.

2 meter Repeater
-------------------------

The 2 meter repeater at SF has suffered repeated power drops and surges.
 The problem was traced to the power amp and it was replaced by a GNARC
loaner back in November.  The cause of the problem in our PA has driven some
of us just a bit batty and kudos to Jon Solomon who noticed a pattern to the
problem that led us to what we think is the answer -- some bad
potentiometers in the power control circuitry.  We replaced the pots with a
fixed resistor and have been testing the amp for more than a month.  It has
been rock solid and today we put it back in the repeater.  As of 11:56pm
tonight, it's still rock solid.

We've fixed the power amp at 75 watts, which is well below the top rated
power of the amp, but plenty of power for the terrain here in Stamford.
 Since we're well below top rated power, it means that we will not be
driving the amp very hard, and thus can expect years of good service from it
even with high duty cycle use (such as the Sunday night net).

Thanks are also due to John Sabini, who helped us test the repeater after we
swapped out the power amp.

Since I happened to be up in Fairfield tonight, I tested it along the
Merritt and along I-95.  I had full quieting up to about exit 41 on the
Merritt and an easy to understand signal up through exit 44.  Similarly, I
had full quieting all way into Fairfield on I-95 and locally within
Fairfield.

Assuming that nothing changes in the next few days, this means that IT IS NO
LONGER NECESSARY TO SWITCH TO THE HOSPITAL REPEATER FOR THE SUNDAY NIGHT
NET!!!!


440 Repeater
--------------------

Like the 2 meter repeater, the 440 was regularly failing for no apparent
reason.  We noticed that it was failing on the same pattern as the 2 meter
and checked the power control circuitry in the 440's power amp.  Sure
enough, one of the pots seems bad.  We've temporarily bypassed that pot and
fixed the power on the amp at 75 watts.  Again, as of 11:56pm tonight, it's
been rock solid.  As with the 2 meter, that's well below the top rated
power, but plenty of power for the local terrain.  Again, by easing off on
the amp, we can expect years of good service even with high duty cycles.

Again, thanks to John Sabini for his help in testing.

I tested along the Merritt and had full quieting up past exit 38, with an
easy to understand signal up past exit 41.  Similarly, I had an easy to
understand signal well past exit 19 and full quieting out past exit 16.

If the 440 stays constant, we'll go back in a month or two and make our fix
permanent.


Controller Update
-------------------------

We've updated the controller firmware to the latest version of the firmware
(5.284), which should fix various issues with the controller.

Note that we have copied all the specialized macros, scheduler setpoint,
etc. from the Hospital 2 meter to the SF 2 meter.  Thus, for example, it now
has the net on and net off macros for the Sunday night net.


Strange Courtesy Tones
-----------------------------------

Any of you listening to repeater today may have heard a four segment
courtesy tone (sort of boop beep boop beep).   There is a very special
purpose to that tone -- It's the courtesy tone that will play after a
repeater reset so that we know a reset has occurred and thus know that we
have to go in and set the time and date, as well as check a few settings.
 If you hear the four segment courtesy tone, please contact either Ernest,
me, or Jon Solomon so we can set date/time and do whatever else is
necessary.  When we do that, we'll also change the courtesy tone back to the
normal two segment tone.


How Do I Know Which Repeater I'm On
---------------------------------------------------------

The courtesy tones for the SF repeaters are all two segment (e.g., beep
boop).  The courtesy tones for the Hospital repeaters are all one segment
(e.g., beep).  In addition, if you send the DTMF codes A111, the repeater
will tell you which one it is -- Sterling Farms (repeater SF) or Hospital
(repeater H).

The courtesy tones at the hospital are all one segment, as opposed to the
two segments for SF.


73s
Jon
WB2RYV