[NCARC] New WIDE Digi-peter at Horsetooth site, 145.115 maintenance update

[Steve Henry]

Hi fellow NCARC members-

Here's an update on the repeater happenings over the last few days:

W0UPS-5, a new wide digi, is now installed and running at the Horsetooth
site!  Bill Beech, K0UT, has generously made this equipment available to
NCARC.  He has some interesting coverage maps that show an improvement in
APRS coverage with the addition of this equipment.  Check this out at
144.390 MHz.

We had quite an experience installing the 2M antenna for this digi in the
high winds at the site on Thursday afternoon.  At one point when Bill and I
were fastening the antenna to the support pipe, Bill's hard-hat blew off of
his head and flew off the building and onto the rocks near the antenna
tower.  I'd estimate the wind velocity during gusts to be in excess of 50
MPH.  We were safe, but our fingers got quite cold!

We took the 145.115 repeater off of the air on Thursday afternoon for some
adjustments to the duplexers and isolators.  We also discovered we had
forgot to hook up a couple of the cables after making the adjustments!   I
think the numbing cold in the wind probably affected more than our fingers!.
This oversight was easily corrected with a second visit up to the site on
Friday morning - a nice calm day I might add.

As a result of these changes, we are expecting about a 3-4 db increase in
reception capability.  This may not be a noticeable difference, however.
The main purpose of making these adjustments was to rule out the duplexer
and isolator tuning as contributing to our inter-mod / self-triggering
problems.  It appears these components are not a factor.  Many thanks to Bob
Scheib, WA0EYJ ,  for his expertise at using a network analyzer and to
George Salzmann, AB0SF for his guidance during this process.

We're still fighting an inter-mod / self-triggering problem on the input as
well as some sort of input crackle noise under either windy conditions or
under rapid temperature change conditions.  George, AB0SF, has been hard at
work diagnosing the potential problems.  He has some recent network
reflection data from the antenna and feed-line and is continuing to do
further research.

As many of us know, we've had this crackling problem for a number of years
during windy conditions-and the only piece of common equipment over the last
few years is our 2M antenna.   If this ends up being the culprit we may need
to make a new antenna purchase including allocating some funds for
installing it up on the tower.   We will do this on a calm day I might add!
However, we aren't ready yet to make this conclusion until some additional
diagnostic work has been completed.

Stay tuned for more information, and have a Happy New Year!

'73


-Steve Henry
N7GN
NCARC President