Monthly Archives: Jul 2017

Maintenance Constantiaberg 2017-07-25

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On Tuesday 25 July, Sean ZS1BSD and Paul ZS1V headed to Constantiaberg to attend to the 145.700 repeater which was transmitting, but not modulating.   The weather was only a few degrees above freezing and it was raining with only 10m visibility at times.  The lower part of the road was muddy an churned up by the heavy logging equipment in use in the area that is still clearing up the remains of the fire that devastated the area about 18 months prior.

Although the Motorola appeared to be working after a reset, it was removed for further testing and diagnosis and the PRF1050 backup repeater was installed in its stead.  The PRF1050 has been fitted with a new CTCSS decoder, courtesy of Sean ZS1BSD.  The required CTCSS deviation level is now more in line with typical commercial repeaters and not the very high levels required by the previous CTCSS decoder on the PRF1050.

Access to the site remains challenging.  Specific access arrangements had to be made with the nature conservation officials with the help of Sentech.

ZS1BSD appreciating the fine conditions

 

Maintenance Hanskop 20170722

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Jan (ZS1VDV) and Rassie (ZS1YT) went to Hanskop to investigate the controller not responding to DTMF.

Started packing vehicle 06:30, left Stellenbosch 07:00.

Had to drive very slowly up as the road is in very bad condition and had the sun just over the horizon.

On site by 08:15. The temperature outside was 1.2 degrees, the wind was cutting through everything.

The problem with the controller was found to be interference on the 145.600 Repeater.  The interference is not from our equipment but most likely from WISP equipment.
The 145.600 repeater’s SQL was closed to 1.1uV (about 4 times more that what it should be).  This only helps about 80% of the time. The interference will need more work/investigation.

All SWR was checked. VHF repeater (1.1), UHF repeater (1.1), Jonaskop link (1.6).

CTCSS was added to the 434.650 repeater.

Home at Stellenbosch by 12:45.