[K4RY] iGate and Digipeater up and running for K4RY

[John Klingelhoeffer]

I'm not sure who thought the APRS digipeater and K4RY repeaters were 'co-located', but they are not.  


So, there is absolutely no need for cavities on the digipeater.  


The repeaters have been on for years with little or no maintenance through many, many storms.  They use DB-224 antennas on top of Haley side mounted on the 'penthouses' up there.  The RF equipment is pretty close to the antennas.  


I am fairly certain the commercial dual-band antenna we have on Broun is DC grounded.  The 'building administration' had increased grounding discussed with it several years ago, and seemed disinterested in any improvements, so the AUARC took it no further.  The operational approach is to disconnect what antennas can be disconnected and depart the operations room.  


Similarly, we have operated 2m equipment from Broun for many years while operating HF from the same location with no interaction.  Kyle, W4GNU, told me recently that he had seen the HF antenna being moved around by the wind.  Not sure if this is a rotator brake problem or a clamp problem.  It was a clamp problem several years ago.  


On the 2 meter repeater, we have seen some intermittent connections in the duplexer harness, but Dr. Hung and I 'shook' things several years ago and 'fixed' that for a while, anyway.  I had not heard of any problems with the 440 repeater, but with the minimal maintenance it has had, I would not be surprised.  I would be more surprised by unintentional disturbance of the system by B&G personnel, but electrical problems are certainly possible after this long.  


The HAAT for either repeater isn't great, despite being on Haley Center, which is in a hole.  The coverage for both repeaters with the antennas currently being used is as good as can be expected, and attempting to increase coverage is not worth the effort.  It is a case of diminishing returns.  I've done the plots and we are getting as good a coverage as we can.  On two meters, that's about Camp Hill to the north and Tigertown to the west.  How far it goes south and west, I've not tested.  


The intent for the K4RY repeaters is to have repeaters on campus for the students to use, not to be wide area repeaters for the general public.  The repeaters were paid for with grants from the campus student organizations fund for majority use by students, faculty and staff, although they are not 'closed' repeaters.  There are several wide area repeaters in the Auburn - Opelika - Beauregard area, so having one on campus doesn't accomplish much.  


73


John...
WB4LNM



-----Original Message-----
From: John Hung <HUNGJOH at auburn.edu>
To: Kris Kirby <kris.kirby at gmail.com>
Cc: <k4ry at eng.auburn.edu> <k4ry at eng.auburn.edu>
Sent: Thu, Jul 31, 2014 3:33 pm
Subject: Re: [K4RY] iGate and Digipeater up and running for K4RY


The repeater is 10 W. 


John Hung


On Jul 30, 2014, at 12:43 PM, Kris Kirby wrote:


It really should be equipped with a bandpass cavity if it's colocated with the repeater. The repeater's duplexers will protect it (if it's BpBr), but running a ham rig with a broad RX (and they are all broad) without a duplexer in a high-RF environment isn't a good idea. The repeater is what, 50W? Into a DB-224? Is heliax in use for the repeater and the APRS node?




On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 12:27 PM, Kyle Owen <kylevowen at gmail.com> wrote:


On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 12:22 PM, Kris Kirby <kris.kirby at gmail.com> wrote:

What kind of radio are you using? 




An ICOM IC-207H.


http://wiki.eng.auburn.edu/k4ry/doku.php?id=wiki:vhf_transceiver_-_icom



73,


Kyle
W4GNU 


_______________________________________________
K4RY mailing list
K4RY at mailman.eng.auburn.edu
http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/k4ry
https://auburn.collegiatelink.net/organization/auarc




-- 
Kris Kirby, KE4AHR  <kris.kirby at gmail.com> 
_______________________________________________
K4RY mailing list
K4RY at mailman.eng.auburn.edu
http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/k4ry
https://auburn.collegiatelink.net/organization/auarc




_______________________________________________
K4RY mailing list
K4RY at mailman.eng.auburn.edu
http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/k4ry
https://auburn.collegiatelink.net/organization/auarc

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/pipermail/k4ry/attachments/20140731/8ae710aa/attachment-0001.htm