Report on Trip to Farnsworth Peak to work on KF6RAL D-Star repeaters

[John Lloyd]

All,

I Went up to Farnsworth Peak again on Tuesday with Pat, N6VLU. We have
the 448.075 repeater working through the gateway. I actually went up to
Farnsworth last Saturday with my Son Brian, KD7BAY and we installed a
new Gateway server and get it running. The old Gateway server had a
failed power supply and Brian was able to supply a newer and smaller
rack mount server. We were able to get it talking through the internet
on Monday after a switch was replaced at the KSL end.

I purchased 4 new batteries and replaced them in the APC 1500 UPS that
had failed on the old Gateway computer.

We then spent time on the 1.2 GHz DV and DD radios. The programming
shows that they are programmed to the correct frequencies but we tried
Pat's ID-1 talking to the repeater and the repeater did not activate.
We swapping ethernet cables between the 448.075 and 1.2 GHz radios and
the 1.2 GHz radio still does not work. I connected a scope on the rx
data output of the 1.2 GHz DV radio and saw no data coming out of it
when transmitting from Pat's ID-1.

I also tried looking for data coming out of the DD radio and saw nothing.

Yes, both 1.2 GHz radios were powered up from the RP2C controller.

I suspect that we have dead 1.2 GHZ radios. They are still up in the
rack and I probably should have removed them and brought them down.

I also looked at the 2 Mtr 145.125 radio and measured 10 DB of site
noise with the 2 Mtr antenna connected and then measured another 10 db
of desense when the repeater transmitter is on. This makes this radio
almost useless.

This radio is also intermittent in transmitting. Sometimes it works and
sometimes it does not.

I looked at the Data coming out of the repeater and it looks somewhat
different that what I see from the 448.075 radio.

I removed the 145.125 radio to bring it down that mountain and will
probably send it back to ICOM for repair.

I measured the site noise on the 448.075 repeater and it is 10 dB. I
cannot measure any desense when the transmitter is on so this is working
as good as it can in this configuration.

That's the latest update and thanks again for your offer to help.

John Lloyd, K7JL
Brian Lloyd, KD7BAY

[Ben C]

John and Joe,

I recently pulled out the APRS gear to tinker after a 4 month hiatus.  I noticed that the KF6RAL Digi on Farnsworth is no longer digipeating APRS data.  Just curious if it was taken down to accommodate the DSTAR equipment or if something else happened to it.  I would be interested in providing financial support to bring the APRS digi back online if it is possible.  Let me know.

Thanks!

Ben

KF7GNV

email is callsign at gmail dot com