[FADCA] TLH VHF Site

[Doug Ferrell]

At 02:59 PM 4/15/02 -0400, you wrote:

>TIME OUT!
>Is that VHF HIGH band or LOW band... I.e. is it 29-50Mhz or it
>is 150-172Mhz?

	Sorry I guess I expect folks to read between the lines or be inside my
head. I'm talking about VHF high-band, the lower split probably 150-162.
I'll find out more when I can locate my Motorola key and open the pack and
look at the crystal elements.

>Ugly but can be done. What is the problem with the computer
>limitation? A old laptop would probably fill the bill just
>fine, you could use the laptop with one serial port and
>several TNC's running BPQKISS (addressed KISS) and deal with
>only one serial port. right now sounds like you are only
>going to need two ports, the network port and the user port.
>The other option is to set up a PC with sound cards vs TNC's
>and now you just have one box plugging into radios.

  	As I told Bud/Russ (might have been direct email and not on the list) I
got this site rolling on a temp basis. Russ needed something to be able to
digi out of the EOC to the hotel room for demo (I guess). There is a
possibility that I might be able to keep something up long term but that is
not definite just yet. This equipment is located in an old traffic control
box (like you see on the side of the road), not very weather proof, not bug
proof, very hot inside, and the stability of the power to the box is in
question. We have thus far not been able to determine if it's on UPS or
not. Can't get the Sprint/Alltel folks to let us know (i don't think they
know). We are going to put a regular computer UPS in there in the meantime.

	At this point, we are going to put a band-pass cavity in there to be able
to use one feed line for two rigs. There is a VHF receiver and a UHF
transmitter (UHF on a separate antenna)  on the site now as well as a
business band repeater (151.985 I think) and a cell-array about 1/3 the way
up. The antenna that will feed the rig is a diamond dual band (yucky) @ 395
feet. We are going to replace the diamond with a Decibel VHF antenna (DB308
- 8 bay) as soon as i can climb the tower (hopefully before May 4th). Just
had bad luck with those diamonds and water! From the top of this tower you
can SEE the EOC.

	If anyone knows of good documentation (URL perhaps) that I can read up on
FPAC (been to F6FBB site already) let me know. I like to digest all the
info when I dive into something new.