Paul ZS1V went to the Hawequa 145.650 repeater site on Saturday morning 28 January, to diagnose a fault that was causing the link to operate in one direction only.

The effects of the recent fire were evident.  The veld had burned on both sides of the access road and to within 1m of our building that houses the repeater.  Fortunately, both our building, tower and the area in between where the coaxial cables are in the cable tray, were spared.

The destruction was quite wide-spread.  The poles supporting the electrical feed to the site have been burned and will likely need to be replaced.  For now, the power is still on.

Some diagnostics on the link controller were done and some settings adjusted.  The link is functioning correctly again, albeit still with slightly misaligned audio.  This will remain the case until firmware fix is provided by the link controller suppliers, enabling the return to the required configuration.