So, You Want to Own a Repeater?

Or: It all Started With a Thunderstorm in November

Thursday 11/11/04: Our first indication of trouble was that the repeaters were down, although we didn’t realize at the time that it was lightning caused. “Not to worry,” Monty said: “it's probably just a blown fuse like the last time; I'll be up there tomorrow on a job, so I'll just drop by the site and change it.” Famous last words...

I got a call from him that evening: “the 2 meter antenna took a lightning strike and the top couple of feet are missing, the link radio, UHF repeater and the controller are down.” Do you want to go up with me and help out?”

“Sure.” It can’t all that cold, I thought.

Saturday 11/13/04: Monty was able to borrow a snow cat so we could go up to the site. The day turned out clear but cold, with a light breeze. Glad it wasn’t snowing. It turned out the road was in great shape all the way up to the turnoff to the site, but that last 1/2 mile was virtually impassable due to snow. So we untrailered the Sno-Cat and headed up. When we opened the door, we were greeted by the odor of burned electronics.

While Monty was dismantling the link radio, I took a look at the controller. Connecting my Laptop to it, I found (even though the LED indicators on the outside appeared normal) that the controller wouldn’t talk. Inside, I found one LED on the main board that was blinking. “A watchdog timer,” I thought? I reset the controller, then initialized it a couple of times to no avail. Monty suggested pulling port cards to see if it helps. “I was just about to think of that,” I thought, grinning. After pulling three or four cards, the controller woke up and started talking to my laptop, so we tested the cards and found several that appeared good, and put them in. I reprogrammed the controller, and it seemed to be operating normally.

In the meantime Monty was replacing burned boards on the link radio. It still didn’t work, so the damage was much more extensive than anticipated. Setting it aside, he took a close look at the UHF repeater, but determined that we didn’t bring nearly enough parts to repair it either.

When we arrived, the temperature was 23 degrees and nearly calm. When we decided to pack it up, the temp had dropped to about 14 degrees, with a stiff breeze. It was definitely colder than a well digger’s ass. Since we were much too cold to do any more work, we loaded up the link radio, UHF repeater, along with all our tools and test equipment and got in the nice warm snow cat for the trip back to our vehicles (yes, I drove my little red car!).

Despite the damaged antenna, the 2m repeater was up and operating, with the circulator dissipating the reflected power from the antenna. It will be replaced this spring when the weather is warmer.

During the following week Monty went back up with a newly repaired link radio. He got it installed and set the levels close enough to be useable before being forced to head back down the hill due to the extreme cold and wind. 

Saturday 11/20/04: We both went up with the fully functional UHF repeater (just about everything except the PA was blown and had to be replaced). The temperature at the site was somewhat warmer that the previous visits, but there was a breeze blowing. Anticipating this, we brought an electric heater, hoping it would warm the interior enough to make it easier to work. We got the repeater installed and Monty began to set the levels. No go. The repeater was working, but there was no audio at the controller. Turned out the controller main board slot for port one was bad. So we moved the repeater over to port four and, while Monty was setting the levels, I got busy on my laptop rewriting the macro file for the controller, moving port one functions to port four (as my fingers became more and more stiff from the cold). I finished up, sent the file and checked the controller functions (all working, fortunately, as my fingers were too stiff from the cold to do any more!). Then we did a final check on all the levels, unplugged the heater (which was laboring to bring the inside temperature up to 28 degrees), jumped in the truck and headed back down the hill.

The Peavine 147.06/444.800 was back on the air.

Saturday 12/18/04: Link radio on Peavine had partially died a day or two earlier. The receiver was working fine, but it would not transmit to Eagle Ridge, so once again we headed back up Peavine. Got up to the turnoff without much trouble, but thirty feet up the access road, the left front and left rear wheels dropped through a couple of feet of hard snow. So here we were, buried up to the axles and no shovel. Luckily there was a man nearby who gave us a hand digging out. Anyway, we got unstuck, parked the truck on a level and safe spot and walked into the site. The road was pretty bad with a lot of very thick ice and other fun stuff, not drivable except with a sno-cat.

Got to the site, swapped out the PA (no transmit = bad PA, right?). Well, most of the time, but not this one. Turned out the exciter was bad, but didn’t bring one with us, as it would have meant lugging a service monitor along. So, we trudged back to the truck with link radio in hand.

Monty repaired the link radio at his house and went back up Sunday (I couldn’t make it that day) and reinstalled it. It worked perfectly; I could hear it at my house, but Eagle Ridge couldn’t. So Monty drove down off Peavine, and headed to Eagle Ridge to fix the receiver on the link radio there. Now the link is better than ever.

Once again, the 147.06/444.800 repeater system is fully functional.

--Richard Nehrbass, N7TGB