Welcome to NORAC The North Okanagan Radio Amateur Club

Summary:

Jesse Lloyd VE7LYD provided NORAC with an exceptional donation of service this weekend. He had recently been able to repair and reprogram the RLC-4 controller that had previously died in our arms. Jesse took this Sunday afternoon to drive up to SilverStar from Kelowna and help us with re-installation of the controller and the re-tuning the UHF duplexer for the SIRG hub. This effectively brings VE7RSS, VE7RVN and the LIME link back online.

Unfortunately, testing with the external high-power amplifier for VE7RSS outlined an issue that will need to be investigated and sorted out on a future visit. So, we will likely run VE7RSS for the time being on the low-power amplifier that is integrated in the Daniels repeater.

Attendees:

Jesse VE7LYD, Terry VE7TRZ, Mike VE7KPZ

Access:

As this was a Sunday and the main office on the third floor of the building that houses the rental shop was closed, Mike VE7KPZ tracked down the lead operations staff member and they graciously opened the gate lock for us and informed SilverStar security of our presence. We drove the usual Pinnacles run to the top but did not have to call at each km because there was nobody else on the hill. On our return, Jesse VE7LYD contacted SilverStar security directly to re-open the gate for us and check us out.

We are very thankful for SilverStar's continued support for our efforts to get these repeaters back on the air in proper form. The mountain had effectively closed all vehicular access to the summit but they made an exception today for which we thank them graciously. Of course, we did have the Unimog for transport so there was no question as to whether we would make it to the top with the now 20+ cm of snow.

VE7RSS - Notes

The temporary Yaesu DR-1X was powered down and removed from the rack.  Terry VE7TRZ will take the DR-1X back to his QTH for storage until we make a trip to its normal home on the Commonage hopefully next week.

Jesse VE7LYD then re-installed the repaired RLC-4 controller and did some final tweaks to ensure proper operation and interfacing with the other repeaters (SIRG and LIME) it controls.

Jesse also tested the power output after the duplexer/before the feedline. The Daniels low-power amp puts out approx 15 watts into the feed line. The high power amp puts out approx 56 watts into the feed line. Jesse indicated that the duplexer has an insertion loss of approx 1.9 dB which is good considering the amount of filtering it does.

Lastly, Jesse provided Terry with the macro programming script for the RLC-4 controller. So, the NORAC technical committee will now be a second keeper of that config and will know all of the commands to toggle controller options, etc.

One additional observation of note: when the VE7RSS high-power amp is enabled, there is occasionally some "motorboating" at the end of a transmission. At first we thought this was due to us testing with a HT near the site, but once down the mountain and back in the village, both Jesse and Terry observed the same phenomenon via mobile transceivers. Ted VE7UIH, our tester down in Vernon, first observed the phenomenon and commented on its presence. So, in the short term, we will simply utilize the Daniels lower-power amp, although it still puts out a couple more watts than the temporary stand-in DR-1X did (15 watts vs 12 watts).

VE7RVN - SIRG Hub - Notes

Jesse tuned up the duplexer for the SIRG hub with his Communications Service Monitor. The repaired RLC-4 controller brings this repeater back online.

LIME Link - Notes

The repaired RLC-4 controller brings this link back online.

Outstanding

1. Sort out the "motorboating" issue with VE7RSS' high-power amplifier. Terry VE7TRZ will confer with the technical committee on what might be the possible cause and solution. 

FYI,
Mike VE7KPZ