Maintenance report
Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 9:40 am
Trip report for Mt. Royal Maintenance Trip, 5 Sept 2009
Participants: Tim KD7JZ, George VE6HTO, and Patrick Hodges.
Please look at the pictures I took on Flickr.com. They will explain some of what I saw. The pictures are at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24372007@N ... 340962246/
You can probably just go to flickr.com and search for "Mt Royal Repeater" also.
The trip started when we got to the Thompson ranch, the jumping off point from the road. Doug Demerest, whose land we cross with a paid easement, met us to inspect our vehicle and give us instructions regarding gates, etc.
Doug would not allow us to take my Toyota 4Runner as we had planned, due to the fact that it has a catalytic converter and, in his opinion, not enough ground clearence. This creates a fire hazard. Fortunately, George had brought his Dodge Ram diesel 4WD pickup. So, we transferred all the gear, and took off up the hill.
THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT POINT: Doug Demerest takes access across his property very seriously. Anyone considering a trip to Mt. Royal on behalf of the Association MUST coordinate with George VE6HTO or Don Herman from Havre. George has a very good working relationship with Doug and knows how to 'grease the skids'. Likewise, Don has experience with Demerest from working with Bresnan.
We had originally planned to drive most of the way to the top, stopping before the last worst piece. It turned out we couldn't get past the 2nd to last switchback. So, we packed it all in, about 40 pounds of radios, tools, etc.
We got to the site, and here is how things went:
- The antenna is in good shape, with a totally flat SWR.
- We couldn't identify any noisy parts of antenna or feedline.
- I tightened up the squelch (hopefully not too much).
- I was unable to make the serial control port talk on the controller. I have seen this condition before, and to correct it would have meant resetting the controller to factory default and reprogramming. I didn't feel like taking a chance on taking the system off the air and not getting it back on.
- Because I couldn't manage the controller, I did not add the PL decoder.
- The biggest issue we have is that Bresnan's new dishes block the bottom half of our 2M antenna from the southwest through southeast. I recommend a new 6db vertical at the top of the mast.
- APRS. We put up a new antenna on our building for the APRS station. We had a complete new station (digi and radio) that we hoped to put on-line, but found that it had zero power output. We brought it back for diagnosis.
That was a full day.
73 Tim KD7JZ
Participants: Tim KD7JZ, George VE6HTO, and Patrick Hodges.
Please look at the pictures I took on Flickr.com. They will explain some of what I saw. The pictures are at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24372007@N ... 340962246/
You can probably just go to flickr.com and search for "Mt Royal Repeater" also.
The trip started when we got to the Thompson ranch, the jumping off point from the road. Doug Demerest, whose land we cross with a paid easement, met us to inspect our vehicle and give us instructions regarding gates, etc.
Doug would not allow us to take my Toyota 4Runner as we had planned, due to the fact that it has a catalytic converter and, in his opinion, not enough ground clearence. This creates a fire hazard. Fortunately, George had brought his Dodge Ram diesel 4WD pickup. So, we transferred all the gear, and took off up the hill.
THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT POINT: Doug Demerest takes access across his property very seriously. Anyone considering a trip to Mt. Royal on behalf of the Association MUST coordinate with George VE6HTO or Don Herman from Havre. George has a very good working relationship with Doug and knows how to 'grease the skids'. Likewise, Don has experience with Demerest from working with Bresnan.
We had originally planned to drive most of the way to the top, stopping before the last worst piece. It turned out we couldn't get past the 2nd to last switchback. So, we packed it all in, about 40 pounds of radios, tools, etc.
We got to the site, and here is how things went:
- The antenna is in good shape, with a totally flat SWR.
- We couldn't identify any noisy parts of antenna or feedline.
- I tightened up the squelch (hopefully not too much).
- I was unable to make the serial control port talk on the controller. I have seen this condition before, and to correct it would have meant resetting the controller to factory default and reprogramming. I didn't feel like taking a chance on taking the system off the air and not getting it back on.
- Because I couldn't manage the controller, I did not add the PL decoder.
- The biggest issue we have is that Bresnan's new dishes block the bottom half of our 2M antenna from the southwest through southeast. I recommend a new 6db vertical at the top of the mast.
- APRS. We put up a new antenna on our building for the APRS station. We had a complete new station (digi and radio) that we hoped to put on-line, but found that it had zero power output. We brought it back for diagnosis.
That was a full day.
73 Tim KD7JZ