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.

Hanskop emergency visit 20200601

On Monday 1 June 2020, Jan ZS1VDV and Paul ZS1V visited the Hanskop 145.600 site to assess the damage to the equipment after a burglary that occurred over the weekend prior.
The perpetrators ripped out and made off with the battery charger, multiplug and 220V power lead. Temporary repairs were made and plans put in place to return and complete the restoration.

Bottelary repairs 20200530

On Saturday 30 May, John ZS1EQ, Paul ZS1V and Jan ZS1VDV visited the Bottelaryberg highsite that hosts the 145.575 DSTAR and 438.300 multimode digital repeaters. While both repeaters were operating correctly, the internet link to the site had been down for several months, limitting the utility of these repeaters.

The internet link was re-established and a general health check of the site was performed. The gateway unit for the VHF DSTAR repeater was found to be faulty and removed from the site. As a consequence the UHF multimode repeater is now fully functional, but the DSTAR repeater is not linked to the internet.

A battery switch over and low voltage cutout unit on the backup batteries was installed.

Jonaskop maintenance 20200509

On Saturday 9 May, Jan ZS1VDV and Ralf ZS1RK visitted the Jonaskop 145.675 repeater site. High wind conditions prevented close up inspection of the antenna connections on the tower, but the SWR of all the antennas were checked and found to be good.

The VHF repeater squelch was adjusted. The audio levels were re-aligned and one coax connector was seated correctly.