Hanskop Maintenance 2021-07-17

Jan ZS1Z and Paul ZS1V departed for Hanskop on the morning of Saturday 17 July to diagnose and hopefully attend to some issues that had been plaguing the Hanskop repeater system recently.

The track to the Hanskop site has been steadily deteriorating over the last few years and the recent Cape winter storms only exacerbated the issue.

ZS1Z navigating the track

The repeater system was checked thoroughly. The antennas, feedlines and lightning protection units were all found to be good. The repeaters themselves were also found to be operating correctly. The linking controller was then re-initialised and the firmware reloaded before the configuration was reapplied.

Spurious activations of the repeaters on PTT release were noticed. This appears to be coming from somewhere along the chain towards the B2B side of the network and will be further investigated from CPUT.

View of False Bay, including Steenbras Dam & Gordons Bay

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.

Hanskop maintenance 20190707

Problem: About 2 months after the big rebuild in September 2018, the UHF repeater was starting to drop out after a few seconds of transmission.

This lead to a long fault finding process with help from the high site managers’ personnel to save on trips to site, on a very bad road.

After 4 months of problem finding, it was concluded that was not the repeater and not the antenna, but most probably the duplexer.

The WCRWG do not have a spare 1.6MHz split UHF duplexer. One was constructed out of spare notch cans. This happened over a process of 2 months, to make up a custom duplexer coax harness and trying to get the pass-through SWR as low as possible. With everything ready, it took some planning to get the vehicle, weather and correct people aligned to go do the swop out repair on site.

It started at around 06:30 today. Packed the repeater, swop-out duplexer and all required tools. Next was the pickup of keys.

Vehicle packed and ready, All in good spirit after the coffee ZS1V provided

The team (Sybrand ZS1SJ, Paul ZS1V and Jan ZS1VDV) got together at around 08:00 to repack all equipment into the 4×4 to go up.

Hanskop in the clouds

Around 08:15 the trip up started. Sybrand got a few chances to use the 4×4 capabilities of his vehicle.

On site the repeater was reinstalled. Next the debugging of the high SWR around the duplexer was completed. SWR straight on antenna 1.2. SWR through duplexer to antenna 1.8. SWR through duplexer to dummyload 1.0. It was concluded that the current duplexer on site was also not the problem. With a bit of head scratching a short patch lead was added to the antenna feedline. That took the SWR through the duplexer down from 1.8 to 1.3.

The last part was to correct the power sensing of the controller. Suddenly the UHF repeater started to restart on transmission. With some debugging it was found that the 10 A PSU used on the UHF repeater was suspect. This PSU was removed and the UHF repeater moved over to the main 30 A. The total current draw is just below 20A on full transmit. The calibration of the power sensing was updated and the voice responses also updated.

DTMF:

  • 8323 – Controller Voltage (This is the main power supply when on mains, and battery when on backup power)
  • 8324 – Main PSU voltage
  • 8325 – Battery voltage
Team photo in the clouds with tower in the back

Everything was packed up and returned home. Home around 13:00 and unpacked by 13:30.

Hanskop rebuild 2018-09-09

On the morning of Sunday 9 September, a team consisting of Jan ZS1VDV, Mike ZS1TAF, Rassie ZS1YT, Paul ZS1V, Ohan ZS1SCI and JP ZS1JPM headed to Hanskop to perform a major site re-installation.

Approximately two years ago, the tower at Hanskop blew over in a storm and all the antennas of the tennants on the site have been temporarily mounted on the building ever since.  The new tower and cable trays have been recently installed and once the owner of the site had moved his own equipment on to the new tower, we were invited to install next.

The journey to Hanskop has become quite challenging.  The usual access route has been all but washed away, necessitating navigation along some even more minor tracks.  Even those are flood damaged and deeply rutted, some with pools of water 30 to 40cm deep and 50 or 60m long.   The weather on the morning was cold – around 4C – but Hanskop was uncharacteristically wind still and so all team members jumped into action after arrival on site at around 9am.

While one group removed the temporary antenna pole from the side of the building and removed the antennas from it, another re-organised all the equipment in the rack, moving the equipment up to make space for the new battery backup system at the bottom of the rack.

New backup batteries

Rassie ZS1YT constructed a shelf to go over the batteries, allowing the duplexer and bandpass filter for the 2m repeater to stand above them.

Duplexer and battery charger on shelf

Equipment reinstalled

New cable gland plates have been installed in the building. New RG214 patch leads for inside the building were made up and attached to lightning protection devices.

Feedline connection points for the 70cm repeater, 2m repeater and 70cm link to Jonaskop

Outside Mike ZS1TAF was left to solo all the tower work after Paul ZS1V was unable to climb due to illness.

Mike attaching the feedline to the link antenna

Mike attaching the UHF repeater feedline to the antenna

Mike installed the three antennas, attached their feedlines and secured all the cables to the mast.  On the ground, Jan ZS1VDV and the rest of the team prepared the feedlines, installing the connectors and routing them in the cable trays to the exterior of the gland plate.

Feedlines being secured

Feedline wrangling

Final measurements showed the antennas reacting well.

Antennas installed

The team packed up and left site just after 3pm.

Maintenance Hanskop 20180707

Jan (ZS1VDV) and Rassie (ZS1YT) went to Hanskop reconfigured the repeater controller and did all measurements for the big site power upgrade and antenna migration.

Most site visits starts the evening before the time with a 1 hour planning and packing session.

Tools and Spares for trip

Wake up 06:30, pack vehicle.

Leave for Strand 07:30 from Stellenbosch.

Pickup key 07:45.

Drive to site, which was very long and challenging drive. Had to “find” a way to the top.

“Finding” the road

MMMM, where to now?

Some holes with bakkie for size reference

08:45 arrive on site.

With all the power interruptions and no backup power, the site controller’s EPROM got corrupted. Reprogrammed the controller. Changed default for links to VHF and East. (please see updates DTMF updates on Hanskop)

Did some detail measurement for coax and battery placements.

10:00 left site.

11:45 Home in Stellenbosch

12:00 Finished unpacking.

Maintenance Hanskop 20170722

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.

Maintenance Hanskop 20161030

David (ZS1DDK), Andre (ZS1AN) and Jan (ZS1VDV) did maintenance on Hanskop.

Summary:
Removed UPS, replaced with battery and charger
Changed UHF repeater frequency (434.650 output/ 433.050 input)

Log:

Left Bellville 06:45.
Packed all equipment in Stellenbosch (07:45) (4 ammo crates, 2 x 15L storage boxes, 1 tool box(very heavy), Pelican case, comms test set, table and chair). (Takes about 1.5 hour to prep all equipment).
Collected battery and low drop out switch in Somerset West from ZS1V (08:00).
Collected key from ZS1YT (08:15).
Arrived on site at around 09:05. (15 degrees Celsius)

Unpacking

Unpacking

Removed faulty UPS (Battery banks is dead).
Installed new Victron Energy Charger.
Collect more equipment at N2 (Thank you Melissa (ZS1MEL) for driving from Stellenbosch).
Installed battery (donated by ZS1V).

Backup Battery

Backup Battery

Changed power wiring for new configuration.
Retuned UHF duplexer for new frequencies (434.650 output / 433.050 input).

Retuning Duplexer

Retuning Duplexer

Duplexer

Duplexer Results

Made changes to repeater configs.
Tested UHF repeater (1.5 SWR and 0.56uV sql)
Made changes to link controller.
Left site 14:23. (4 degrees Celsius)
Drop key at ZS1YT 15:15.
Unpack equipment in Stellenbosch 15:50.
Home in Bellville 16:30.

Maintenance Hanskop 20160918

AGENDA:

Reinstall 434.600 Repeater and Duplexer
Research interference from 145.600 Repeater on commercial repeater
Research interference on 433.000
Research 145.600 dropout on input from Jonaskop.

Jan(ZS1VDV) left Stellenbosch 07:30.

Reinstalled 434.600 Repeater and Duplexer. Checked SWR (1.1).
Interference on 433 was determined to not be within the hut.

The interference from 145.600 and the commercial repeater was determined to be proximity. Moving antennas will be investigated. (Before tower fall it was 11m vertical, now only 1m vertical and 3m horizontal)

Could not replicate the dropout. Problem will continue.

Back in Stellenbosch 12:40