[K3PZN-List] Repeater Antenna & PA on 145.41

[Andy Leeds]

WX3F reported reduced transmit coverage on 145.41 yesterday so this 
evening after work we went up to the site to check things out. As you 
may recall we were operating in split antenna mode using the lower 
antenna for transmit due to a suspected water intrusion issue with the 
upper antenna that caused very bad desense of the repeater receiver. It 
now looks like something has happened to the lower antenna as the SWR is 
around 4:1 (24W out 10W back)... not including the feedline loss. The 
very bad news is that the PA is supposed to be producing 125W not 24W. 
When you put these two things together it looks like we have a PA 
failure possibly induced by the bad SWR. We put the repeater back in 
service full duplex on the top antenna. I fully expect that when we get 
wet weather we will see the desense return but there isn't anything we 
can do about it right now. The PA was pulled from the site and WX3F took 
it for some TLC on the workbench so we will be running with just the 
repeater internal power of 20W for the time being. Once the PA is 
working again we'll need to go back and re-install it, probably at the 
same time changing out the hardline connectors for N connectors so we 
can eliminate some jumpers and adapters.

Yes, I'm looking around at options for an circulator/isolator, we 
probably should have had one all alone....

Andy