Maintenance Piketberg, Hawequa and Bottelary 20180113

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Jan (ZS1VDV) and John (ZS1EQ) did a round trip to service 3 sites.

Started to load the bakkie 07:00.

Left Stellenbosch around 08:00 and reached Piketberg by 09:45

At the end of 2017, the Piketberg VHF repeater was removed.  The repeater was serviced by Verstay.  The final transistor was replaced.  A replacement duplexer was prepared during the week. The duplexer was swapped out and VHF repeater reinstalled.  SWR between duplexer and VHF radio was 1.2 and between the duplexer and antenna 1.3.

Left Piketberg 11:15 and was on Hawequa at 12:45.

The 10 amp battery charger was swapped out for a 7 amp battery charger.  The 10 amp is designated to go to Hanskop.

Left Hawequa 13:45 and reached Bottelary at 14:45.

Removed the UHF DMR repeater for service.

Back in Stellenbosch and unpacked by 16:15.

Maintenance Back2Back 20171209

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The UHF back2back link was moved from the QTH of ZS1DDK to Libertas on 4 November by ZS1DDK and ZS1TAF.

More maintenance was done today by ZS1VDV and ZS1TAF.

Today the equipment was moved on to racks in the cabinet and a link controller was installed.  A powerpole distribution block was added and all power connections migrated to powerpoles.

Rack with radios and controller

This controller can now be used to link or unlink the back2back via DTMF codes.

8500 = Link

8504 = Unlink