[SMCARA] [Fwd: Repeater]

[petebutt at comfac.com]

Forwarding stuck message... PDB


---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Repeater
From:    "Clarke, Tom   AIR4.0P NATOPS" <frederic.clarke at navy.mil>
Date:    Thu, March 8, 2012 1:59 pm
To:      smcara at mailman.qth.net
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A quick note on the repeater status.

Last Friday, your repeater tech committee- Dwayne, Pete and Tom, went to
the site for a "annual checkup" and a look into reports of reduced
coverage (i.e., harder to get into from Northern Neck and fringes).

Dwayne's "magic box", a.k.a. comm analyzer, revealed that the receiver
local oscillator injection was low and the overall sensitivity was down
a bit.  A realignment of the LO chain did not improve things, so it is
suspected that the receiver LO crystal has gone low on activity and
hence low output.  A new one is on order.

The antenna and hardline were given an "EKG" and it showed solid, from
bottom to top with no anomalies.  We were concerned that with the recent
tower work done (adding new antennas for Navy projects) might have
caused some physical damage.  Luckily, that was not the case. I put my
HT on the antenna and was able to bring up the Annapolis repeater, so it
is probably OK.

After we receive the crystal and Dwayne gets a chance to "burn it in"
and compensate it, we will plug it in to see if that fixes the problem.
If not, replacing the receiver deck with a spare is the next step.

73 Tom/W4OKW