Salinas Valley Repeater Group - W6DXW

11/1/2016|

We’ve had a few issues over the last week, first the microwave link has been intermittent to the WB6ECE 147.270 repeater on Mt.Toro. The W6DXW 442.750 had a few issues as well, causing its performance to degrade after the rain.

First the router that connects Mt. Toro to the rest of the world has had problems causing connection drops, Matthew went to the Mt. Umunhum site to correct the issue, I’m happy to say the link is back up now.
With the rains over the past week, we got water in the 7/8 hard line that was replaced during our most recent tower climb for the W6DXW 442.750 repeater on Empire grade. Water entered into the hard line, thankfully it was the lower 7/8 connector, this caused a 5.2-1 SWR at the duplexer. The Motorola Quantar detected the high SWR and faulted lowering the systems transmitter power to 2 watts. Zac K6ZWA and I went to the site today to correct the issue by reinstalling and sealing the connector again, The SWR is back to 1.2-1. Hopefully it stays that way.

We have also moved the Asterisk computer used for linking the repeaters at that site, over to a raspberry Pi correcting yet another issue we had, previously when the power failed at the site the former Intel atom computer would not power back up when AC was restored.

I would like to thank K6ZWA for going to the site with me to repair the hard line connector and swap computers, KE6STH for all his continued hard work on our Asterisk system that makes our linked repeater system possible, KE6SQG for the repeater sites and microwave network he provides and graciously lets the Salinas Valley Repeater Group utilize. I’d also like to thank the countless others that have volunteered there time and hard work and equipment that make our repeater system what it is today.

This afternoon I went up to the Empire Grade site and did even more work to the W6DXW 442.750 Repeater. I installed an SCOM 7330 Repeater controller and configured P25 to finally function correctly. In the past if users keyed on P25 it would tie the linked system up with dead air. I’m happy to say that no longer happens, users can talk on P25 with out affecting the linked system. 
Any link system traffic takes priority of P25. If there is no traffic on the system, users can access the digital side of that system with $NAC 293.

Sunday we had a very successful tower climb, The 442.750 W6DXW Repeater had very poor performance, due to having water in the 7/8. The WB6ECE 441.3 repeater had a few discrepancies in the feed line as well, Both runs of coax have been swapped, increasing the performance of both repeaters significantly. 
I would like to thank our tower climbers Marcel Stieber AI6MS and Kenneth Finnegan Finnegan W6KWF for their continued hard work on our repeaters antenna system. We would not be ‘In the air everywhere’ with out these guys climbing the towers, doing a clean and professional job installing and maintaining our antenna systems. 
I would also like to thank our ground crew, Dave N0YES, Sione Ragle KE6STH, Zac K6ZWA, Nick K6CQX, Mike W6WLS, Matthew Kaufman KE6SQG, for volunteering their time, energy and expertise. With out everyone’s support as a community, SVRG would just be static in the air.

Photo credit goes to Arianne KK6QFQ thanks for taking photos all day!

The KI6PAU 146.940 Repeater in Big Sur is now back on the air! 
The system outage was caused by the PA failing in the Kenwood TKR-750. The Repeater has been swapped out restored to normal operation thanks to Jeff KG6UYZ and his hard work on this repeater system.

This Wednesday at 8 PM is our first official Salinas Valley Repeater Group net! I would like to invite you all to check in.
Our First Topic of Discussion will the upcoming BBQ October 1st!

The KI6PAU 146.940 Repeater in Big Sur is OFF AIR. Possibly caused by a PA failure but is unknown at this time.

442.775 + PL 110.9 Hz, W6DXW Prunedale/Salinas is back on the air! The repeaters AC power cord was slightly unpluged from the outlet due to a box of stuff being set on the cord. 
I also swapped out the repeater controller, the Link Comm RLC 1+ that was running the site is in need of some TLC.

442.775 + PL 110.9 Hz, W6DXW Prunedale/Salinas is off air. I will be assessing the cause on Monday.  

I have received word that amateur communications is no longer needed for the Soberanes Fire in Big Sur. With that being said I have linked the 3 repeaters set aside for fire only traffic back to the main system. 
146.940 – 94.8 (KI6PAU)
147.270 + 94.8 (WB6ECE)
442.750 + 110.9 (W6DXW)
Are back to normal use!

Tomorrow Saturday 7/30/2016, SVRG will be supporting the Santa Cruz Mountains Challenge from 0600 to 1800. They will be running an open net on the system.

They will be using the frequencies listed below for their primary traffic.

147.180 + 94.8 W6WLS

147.735 – 110.9 W6DXW

440.450 + 110.9 W6DXW

444.000 + 94.8 W6KHZ.

At this time I do not plan to Isolate this off the main link, unless there is have heavy traffic.

I ask all of you to keep in mind that any traffic pertaining to the Santa Cruz Mountains Challenge will have priority on the system.

This event will not effect the repeaters set aside for the Soberanes fire tactical net, as they are dedicated to fire traffic for the duration of the Soberanes wild fire. Those frequencies are listed below.

146.940 – 94.8 (KI6PAU)

147.270 + 94.8 (WB6ECE)

442.750 + 110.9 (W6DXW)