Just to make it official: the antenna for the FWRC 146.94 repeater has been relocated to a slightly lower position in its home at Parkview Hospital’s Randallia campus. Due to the renovation of the Hospital, the antenna tower on top of the main core of the complex was considered too ugly, and the administration wants it to be removed. This meant that any antennas mounted on the tower structure had to be removed. Our 94 antenna was actually the second highest on the tower.
The antenna for the 94 is now on the edge of the main core’s roof, at about 120 feet above the ground. While up on the roof last week helping with the take down, it was clear from our view that we have a nice unobstructed view in all directions, so we believe that the range of the repeater will see little degradation. I simple test the other night with a mobile headed to Kendallville showed that coverage to the north was not seriously degraded. The tower itself is still up there, but will be dismantled shortly. (the original plan was to use a Helicopter to take down the tower. This was judged to be unacceptably risky, so it was decided to disassemble the tower in place)
This work was very difficult. We were asked by the tower crew that stripped the tower of its antennas to help out and identify our assets and get the repeater back on the air. We spent almost 8 hours on the roof in the cold and the rain, and were pretty exhausted when it was all done. When finished, we had the repeater operation restored, frequency was tweaked to about 10 Hz of nominal, and the output tone was changed to the co-ordinated tone of 97.4 Hz (no input tone required).
I want to thank the following people for their work on this project:
- WD9AVW, John Morton
- KA3OPA, Paul Prestia
- N3QKX, Bruce Dennis
- W9SAN, Steve Nardin
- Dave Duprey
Dave Duprey is my cousin from Waterbury, Connecticut, who was visiting with his wife for Christmas. I told him we might put him to work if he came, and we sure did!!
For our efforts, the club received a bunch of tower hardware, 3 standoffs for tower mounting of antennas, a bunch of heliax, and two VHF repeaters (GE), and assorted other bits and pieces.
Again, thank you to the folks that did this work. It was a fantastic effort, but the 94 is still on the air and working as good as always.
The December 2014 Issue of the Allen County HamNews newsletter is now available for download using the link below. This and previous issues are also available for download by clicking the “Files” link in the main menu and then clicking “Newsletters.”
Have we got a deal for you! This issue of the Foxhunt Chronicles will feature a description of the hi-jinks surrounding both the October 2014 AND the November 2014 contests. “Why am I so lucky?” you may ask. Well, it’s because I was out of town a lot right after the October hunt and didn’t have time to attend to writing up a report of what happened in October. So I combined the October and November foxhunt descriptions, and you get two for one.