24 July 2002

The Mount Royal Repeater Association had a great annual meeting at
the Glacier Waterton Hamfest this past weekend.

We reported on the work that had taken place and what needed to be
done. The following work/expenditures were approved:

- We will be replacing the feed line on the 450 link antenna to SARA
and replacing the 12VDC power supply on the control reciever. This will
be completed yet this fall.

- There was general interest in placing an APRS wide area digi on the mountain.
The current roadblock to doing this is that there is no 220 MHz shutdown
in the Mount Royal Building. Expenditures were approved to buy an
additional 220 RX and control board. Our options for this receiver include
buying a Hamtronics Kit or a commercial 220 mobile transceiver. My own
bias is to go with the Hamtronics receiver due to better stability and bulletproof
front end. If you have opinions one way or the other, drop me a note.

We will be examining different strategies for wide area linking the
repeater, including IRLP or other in-state links.

The repeater has been working great. I checked into the SARA net
today and worked stations in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

73's for now..

Tim KD7JZ

The .64 machine had been turned on a couple of weeks ago, to see
what condition the RCA repeater was in. It worked fine, with no indication
of the noise that had been the reason it was turned off originally. The other
problem with the RCA machine is that the ID programmed into its ID'er
belonged to an individual who no longer appears to live in the area or has
gone inactive.

It was my first trip to the top of the hill and the drive is everything
I had heard it was and more. The last couple of hundred yards is
loose shale straight up a 30 - 40 degree incline. It was beautiful however,
and we did see one buck elk and 4 doe.
 

Work completed on Thursday, 3 July.

We took the RCA off the air to be brought off the mountain.
The Motorola was placed in service. The UHF link to the SARA
system was placed in service and tested, as well as the 220 control
link.

SARA link commands:
602*   link on
603*   link off
To learn more about the SARA system, see their web site.

To be completed:
There is some additional work to be done. In order to power the
220 control receiver from a separate 12v supply, we had to use a
supply of questionable quality, and it should be replaced. I will
propose at the Association meeting at Glacier, that we buy a heavy
Astron supply to run the repeater from and use the existing smaller
Astron to power the control receiver.
The antennas all appeared in pretty good condition, however, the
feedline for the UHF link to SARA needs to be replaced. We were
fortunate not to have been damaged by June's storm. The large
commercial installation to the east of us on the top, had a telephone
pole snapped at the ground and hanging by the feedline. Someone
will have some serious work replacing it!

We will be scheduling another trip in August to complete this work.

What to do with the Association's building? The actual .64 machine
is housed in Rocky Mountain Microwave's building. We own a small
sheet metal building that needs some work inside to be cleaned
up and made mouse proof. In the past that had been where the
packet digipeaters were located.

I would invite anyone with a proposal for uses for this building
to contact me. Here are some ideas:
An APRS digipeater
A 10 meter repeater

Other issues to discuss are future hardware requirements, and
linking to other systems.

If you have questions, suggestions, or ideas please drop me a line at:

 

73's de Tim KD7JZ

visit my home page at www.mtintouch.net/~7twh!!