[K4RY] Fwd: 145.23 repeater status

[Lloyd Riggs]

Fantastic John,
Please continue to share pics.
Lloyd

From: k4ry-bounces at mailman.eng.auburn.edu [mailto:k4ry-bounces at mailman.eng.auburn.edu] On Behalf Of John Klingelhoeffer
Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2017 8:36 AM
To: K4RY at eng.auburn.edu
Subject: [K4RY] Fwd: 145.23 repeater status


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dan Gunter <kk4ice at kk4ice.com<mailto:kk4ice at kk4ice.com>>
Date: Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 1:49 AM
Subject: Re: 145.23 repeater status

Thought you guys might like a peek at just some of what's being done to the duplexers. Here are photos of the tuning piston from one of the six cavities, showing what it looks like AFTER a thorough cleaning and polishing, compared to the condition it was in when I disassembled the cavity for overhaul and refurbishing. This is how involved a duplexer refurb can (and should) be, and the meticulous attention to details that go into getting everything you can out of a set of duplexers. The way I see it, Lee has spent WAY too much time and money (and sleepless nights) on that repeater system to have it compromised in any way. Too often I see very expensive repeater systems fall short of their potential because of poorly performing duplexers. Given that many (most?) of the duplexers in use on ham repeaters are re-purposed sets which were pulled from commercial repeaters (often due to the very fact that they weren't working as well as they should be) it's usually worth the investment of time and money to do a complete overhaul on them. This set will take about a week of full time work to do right. But that's the only way to do it, if you ask me.

Here's the tuning plunger after I finished about an hour of cleaning and polishing.

[cid:image001.jpg at 01D285D0.B1101A40]

Here's what that same plunger/piston looked like when I disassembled the cavity. Yuck.

[cid:image002.jpg at 01D285D0.B1101A40]

It's a lot of work... but I love making a set of these things work like they're supposed to. When I finish refurbing a set of Decibel Products DB4060 or DB4062 duplexers, you can bet they're in BETTER condition than the day they left the factory, because I unfailingly find issues with the original manufacturing and assembly which -- in my opinion -- should not be present in a set of duplexer which sold for around $4K to $5K new.

I'll keep you guys posted. If any of you want to see more of the work being done on these, reply and say so and I'll be sure to share some updated pics as the overhaul progresses

73 guys,
Dan / KK4ICE
On February 11, 2017 at 11:28 AM Lee Stoker <stokehl at auburn.edu<mailto:stokehl at auburn.edu>> wrote:

The gold hill repeater is off the air due to maintenance. We thought it would be a quick fix, but since have discovered there is major issues with the duplexer system. (Static in the receive signals.)

Dan (kk4ice) is doing a complete rework of the duplexers. This will require disassembly, capacitor replacement, tuning pipe polishing, checking of the loop resonators. It’s open heart surgery for a set of cans. While we’re at it, we will order rg-214 cable and silver connectors and replace the connector cables with new ones cut to frequency. The current cables are chrome connector type and cut to a generic vhf length.  This process could take a week to ten days. I am sorry for the inconvenience, but we have decided to bite the bullet and do a major overhaul  to the cans. Thank you for understanding.



While the 145.23 is down, we are directing normal .23 traffic to the kk4ice repeater 442.175  123hrz tone. If you have not tried Dan’s repeater, it’s a very good wide area coverage repeater located at the top of the same tower.

 VHF only stations we can use the 147.150 repeater.

73 all. See you on the radio.



Feel free to pass this message along. Thanks

Lee, ke4col



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