Hi, peeps!
My inbox was pretty bare this past week, excluding the usual spam, notes from the bank telling me to stop spending money, notes from the bank also wanting to lend me money, notes from the bank saying that staff has gone on leave, notes from the bank telling me how much money I’ve spent… and notes from the Vet and the Doc telling me I owe them money!
I wonder if I can interest them in a report instead? You lot get it for free, of course…enjoy! 🙂
Hi!
Got your updated repeater status report right here, for your reading pleasure. As indicated, there will soon be a section for listing regular repeater use, such as club and SARL bulletins, and also for detailing scheduled events such as sports or exercises. Clubs, please send your bulletin plans so that they can be included in the section.
Also, please don’t forget to send your beacon reception reports 🙂
Enjoy! 🙂
Hi folks!
Please accept my apologies for the lack of a report last week. I had laptop troubles and wasn’t able to get them sorted out properly in time for one to be meaningful.
Thankfully, those issues are (hopefully) over and I can present this week’s report to you, all nice and shiny and fresh 🙂
Jan (ZS1VDV) and a friend departed to Hawequa around 09:00
Arrived on site 09:45, little to no wind and about 5 degrees.
View towards Worcester from Hawequa
Started to try reproduce the current interference problem. Could only get it to happen when our repeater started to transmit first and the the commercial repeater in our hut second.
Next step was to measure our duplexer and bandpass filter (RX) and second harmonic filter after the circulator. I did not check SWR, because this was checked on the previous visit. Nothing could be found wrong with our filters and duplexers. (The bandpass filter on RX does add about 2dB insertion loss on 145.050 Mhz and will need to be replaced as this sets our total insertion loss for the duplexer and bandpass filter to about 4 dB).
145.650 Duplexer (Sinclair Q202)
Bandpass filter in RX path
Then scanned with a SDR spectrum analyzer. Found that the commercial repeaters RX and TX frequencies was labelled wrongly. Could not find any strange signals. About -85 dB filter on the TX frequency of the commercial repeater in the input path.
SDR Spectrum Analyzer
So the only conclusion was that the interference is a mix of our output signal, but mixed with the commercial repeaters signal. The second harmonic filter was replaced by a bandpass filter to make sure that our transmission path is clean.
New bandpass filter installed
This did not solve the problem.
For now removed the CTCSS on TX path. Will check in with commercial repeater owner to add a circulator to their repeater.
Resolved the battery voltage that was reading wrong. The sense wire got damaged and was replaced.
Left for home around 13:50, about 9 degrees.
Arrived home around 14:30
Jan ZS1VDV, Dirk ZS1VDB and Paul ZS1V departed Stellenbosch for the Hawequa 145.650 site at about 9.30am on Sunday 3 July. Â It was sunny but cold, with a light dusting of snow on some of the nearby peaks. Â 
Jan applied a filter to the cooling fans and a modification to the 2m repeater linking cable.  The latter being necessary as part of a correction to the incorrect emphasis on audio from the links to the 2m repeater.  The change necessitated a complete re-alignment of the audio through the link controller.
The SWR on the 2m antenna system was tested and found to be satisfactory.  An inspection of the antennas and the coaxial feeds also found everything in good order.
A source of interference on the 2m repeater was also identified and this will be taken up with the operator of the equipment in question.
The team returned to Stellenbosch at about 2.30pm in dire need of hot coffee.
Paul
ZS1V