Jan ZS1VDV and JP ZS1JPM, serviced Hawequa charger circuit.
Left Stellenbosch 17:15
On Site 18:15
Found a fuse holder failure.
Removed failed fuse
Replaced wire between fuse box and charger
Left site 19:30
Home 20:30
Maintenance Hawequa 20200903
Author Archives: ZS1Z
Maintenance Jonaskop 20200719
Matt ZS1MTF, JP ZS1JPM and Jan ZS1VDV investigated the power outage at Jonaskop. The sun was out, some wind was blowing and some left over snow was visible.
An upstream Eskom breaker was reset.
With the storms, the hut took a bit of a beating. The one air vent cover needed to be replaced and the outside temperature sensor wire repaired.
The backup battery distribution was upgrade and fuses installed. The site is now ready to take an easy install of 2 more batteries.
Maintenance Hanskop 20200717
Matt ZS1MTF and Jan ZS1VDV investigated the UHF repeater on Hanskop.
It was found to be in working order. The SQL level of the UHF repeater was measured at 0.43uV.
Maintenance Piketberg 20200627
Michael ZS1TAF did a quick on site diagnosis on 26 June 2020 and found that the controller needed reconfiguration.
Paul ZS1V and Jan ZS1VDV went to Piketberg on 27 June 2020.
The controller was reinitialized, firmware reloaded and reconfigured. (Last done 3 November 2018)
The VHF antenna system was found to have a 2+ SWR, and needs servicing.
Hawequa Maintenance 20200613
Jan, ZS1VDV and JP, ZS1JPM investigate why the main Eskom power feed was down. This was after snowfall stopped a visit on 11 June 2020.
A breaker was reset after the storm and power was reinstated.
Hanskop Maintenance 20200613
Jan, ZS1VDV and Sybrand, ZS1SJ did some maintenance on the backup power.
The link controller was reprogrammed and the UHF link repeater SQL was closed a bit.
Bottelary Maintenance 20200606
Jan, ZS1VDV reinstalled the ZU9DBI VHF DSTAR repeaters internet gateway.
Updates was made to the internet link configuration
Hawequa Maintenance 20200531
An investigation was done to get more information for the pause in voice feedback on the UHF link repeater.
Reference voltage was re calibrated for more accurate temperature and battery sensors.
Jonaskop Maintenance 20200524
Jan, ZS1VDV znd Ralf, ZS1RK visited Jonaskop toe investigate why the link controller was down.
It was found that a power plug was intermittent and repaired.
The reference voltage for the temperature and battery sensors was re calibrated.
Kanonkop maintenance 20191026
Meetup at gate (at tar road) +_ 09:00.
Drove up.
VHF Repeater
Connected a test repeater direct to duplexer (By passed all filters and pre amp except duplexer). Repeater was set at 0.22uV to open.
Received ZS1GVW with lots of rain on signal (ZS1GVW running 20w)
Received ZS1GVW clear (ZS1GVW running 60w)
Did receive some interference on RX.
Tested if CTCSS was a good enough filter (Confirmed).
Local RF noise suspected to be around 0.3uV
Removed 1 can from Celwave cavity set and retuned for 145.750 (-0.58dB insertion loss)
Replaced VHF Engineering Bandpass filter with Celwave cavity (Insertion loss moved from -2.7dB to -.58 dB)
Bypassed one of the two cavity bandpass filters in RX side (left -0.97dB)
Reconnected the installed PYE repeater.
Power after duplexer up by 60% +_ 15W output now.
UHF repeater:
Checked all cables.
Fixed N-male connector on RG214 between duplexer and repeater in RX path)
Retuned duplexer (434.625 -0.79 dB / 433.025 -1.38 dB / 102 dB isolation)
Placed duplexer back.
Measured power and SWR:
Repeater output 30W SWR 1
After circulator 27W SWR 1
After duplexer 22W SWR 1 (With dummy load)
After duplexer 22W SWR 1.4 (With antenna)
Tested sensitivity direct on repeater (3.5uV)
Investigated repeater. In process of investigation sensitivity went down to 0.55uV, but lots of rain) Could not measure 12db sinad, but suspect it to be around 5uV (the by ear test).
Sensitivity was at 0.55uV at end.
Finshed around 14:30 and drove down.
Summary
More thinking will need to be done about Heliax state.
VHF Repeater
TX side: improved output by swapping out band pass filters (2.1 dB improvement, output now 15W)
RX side: removed 2 cavity bandpass filters (improved RX by 3.63 dB)
UHF Repeater
TX side: improved by 0.83 dB
RX side: improved by 4.7 dB
UHF repeater is not healthy.
TODO:
Investigate Antenna options VHF
Investigate why 1.4 SWR on UHF
Decide on Feeder
Think about linking
Service UHF Repeater