The Jonaskop site lost Eskom supply during the heavy storms of September last year. It was running 24/7 on battery and the one solar panel installed on site.

David ZS1DDK and myself left earlier today for Jonaskop (145.675) with 2 spare power supplies, some tools, spare fuses, etc. to see if we can find a fault and repair it.  We have expected either the power supply to have packed up or the earth leakage in our cubicle that has tripped.

The road leading to the site is drivable with a bakke or vehicle that is high off the ground up to the Sentech tower.  The portion form the Sentech tower to the concrete strip leading to the Eskom building is still completely washed away. With the Landrover in 4×4 and diff lock on David took the dongas on. It is huge dongas and washed out gravel! We made it and got to the Eskom site. On inspection we found that the Eskom supply has tripped in the main DB board and not in our cubicle. We opened the DB Board and switched the breaker back on.  Everything came to live and reports form ZS1TR was that he immediately noticed an increase in signal strength. (On battery the repeater switches automatically to lower power).

We also checked the SWR on the repeater antenna and at 145.07 it was close to 1.5:1 and even lower as we went a little bit lower, closer to 145.000.  See photo attached.

We locked up and left the site again. I was home at 15h30 and David at about 16h15.