[RVRC] W2QW is back on the net.

[Bryan D. Boyle]

A big shout out to Bruce KC2YSF, and, of course Eric NW2P, for their
assistance today in getting the W2QW 440 machine (and by extension, for
the net, the 2 meter 146.625 box) back on the public Internet and
relinked back into both the Allstar, APRS, and Echolink systems.  As of
now, the QW empire is linked with N2ZAV and WB0YLE on 220, the KB2EAR
machines, and, as needed, the K2ETS machine for both the Sunday and
Wednesday nets.

New outdoor-rated (but not UV...this is NOT the permanent solution,
gentlemen and ladies...we're working on a permanent fix...) Cat5,
donated by Bruce, was strung between the garage and Eric's house, new,
fresh, gold-plated RJ45s were installed to terminate the run, the garage
hub relocated and mounted securely (rather than hanging by its cables),
and the in-rack wiring was cleaned up and tied off properly.

The rack *almost* looks good enough from the back to take a photo of the
installation (did I say 'almost'???).

To make it easier to maintain, I did install one of the big CRT monitors
and a keyboard on the control computer which is placed on top of the
spare rack.  When I get a chance, I'll donate an LCD monitor to replace
it, but, for now, it's a lot easier debugging a machine when you have a
hard console that you can get to rather than trying to come in via the
network (especially when the network connectivity is acting funky...).

If you're wondering about the status of the network, and have access to
a computer and browser, you can see the status of the Allstar network
we're copnnected to by going to

http://stats.allstarlink.org/getstatus.cgi?27089

(27089 is the W2QW node number...).  Nodes are listed in the ovals along
with the registered frequencies...the interconnecting lines are where
it's connected to, and the presence of arrowheads on the lines indicate
that an active connection exists, and is passing traffic between the 2
end points.

Enjoy the restored operation, and, again, thanks to the gentlemen
mentioned for their assistance and pitching in to support the machine.

Some of the upcoming tasks that need to be scheduled include proper span
mounting of the cables that are running from the garage to the house,
repairing and reinstalling the Gap Challenger HF antenna, and continuing
clean-up and documentation of the connections as well as general
assistance with some other tasks at the site I'm aware of.  I'm taking
names if anyone is interested...;)


73
Bryan WB0YLE