For those of you who have not seen the latest picture of the new Okanagan Mountain installation of the former Crystal can (a 20' shipping container), well here it is:
This was taken late this afternoon, September 30, 2019 by Fred VA7UN, who has been the main push behind this project for the last 3 plus years and who has done an yeoman's job on the whole project. Numerous other OCARC club members have aided in getting to this stage, including the painting of the can, the pre-move preparation, the physical move, the blocking of the can on permanent blocks and the installation of much hardware.
This picture is taken from a position looking generally NW. A solar panel has been mounted on each of the south facing doors of the can. Some of the antennas are in temporary location due to various reasons at this time.
A 20 amp service has been made to the can from the TELUS facility to the left out of the picture.
While much work has been done there is considerable work left to be done on site, some of which we may be able to do this fall, weather permitting.
For now, you can test out the amateur VHF repeater at this site. It's a Yaesu DR-2X running 20 watts output power on 147.000 MHz +600 with an 88.5 Hz tone on the analog-side and group id 00 on the C4FM-side.
Hope you find this of interest,
Gord VE7GFH
Update at 2019/10/12 from Fred VA7UN: we have a second repeater on the air at 145.490 -600 with an 88.5 Hz tone on the analog-side and group id 00 on the C4FM-side. We also have a camera online at the site, which you can view here. Check out sunrises and sunsets - very pretty.