Salinas Valley Repeater Group - W6DXW

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)

To better support the Soberanes fire, and the users of this repeater system, The SVRG Linked system will be configured as stated below.

3 Repeaters will be dedicated to the fire Tac net. (As of right now some user traffic is aloud if adequate spacing is provided between transmissions.)

146.940 – 94.8 KI6PAU Big Sur. (Fire Tac Link)
147.270 + 94.8 WB6ECE Mt. Toro. (Fire Tac Link)
442.750 + 110.9 W6DXW Empire Grade. (Fire Tac Link)

The Rest of the system will be linked and on the air for normal rag chew traffic.

147.180 + PL 94.8 Hz – W6WLS, Santa Cruz.
147.300 + PL 94.8 Hz – W6DXW, Fresno.
147.735 + PL 110.9 Hz – W6DXW, Monterey.
440.125 + PL 110.9 Hz – N6WZ, Fresno.
440.450 + PL 110.9 Hz – W6DXW, Monterey.
442.625 + PL 110.9 Hz – N6WZ Fresno (lower)
442.775 + PL 110.9 Hz – W6DXW, Prunedale. 
443.575 + PL 110.9 Hz – KE6STH, San Jose.
443.600 + PL 110.9 Hz – W6MOW, Hollister.
1287.200 – PL 88.5 Hz – KE6STH, San Jose.

Thank you for your understanding and on going support.

This change will take place at 14:30.

Do to the Soberanes Fire burning in Garrapata State Park, Monterey County ARES has called upon our system for use in communications should amateur radio assistance be requested. I ask that all operators to be mind full in the event the system has to be reallocated for tactical use, there traffic is priority.
http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_details_info?incident_id=1348

We have been talking about a group BBQ for some time now. After mulling over a few possibilities, I have spoken to Scott WA6LIE and John W6UQZ from LPRC. They have generously invited us to join them for there annual club BBQ & Potluck!

The date is Sunday August 14 at Mt. Madonna Park, setup starts at 10 AM, BBQ 12-5. There will be a raffle, transmitter hunt, BBQ,
beer and more! It costs about $10 to enter the park and a meal ticket is $15. 
If you are interested in helping LRPC keep there repeater located at one of the best mountain top locations on the central coast, there membership includes a free meal, beer, raffle ticket … all the goodies. Please see John W6UYZ at the BBQ for membership information or a meal ticket.

I strongly encourage all of you to join us with our fellow Loma Pioneer Repeater Club BBQ. Please RSVP by August 7 if you are going to be attending by sending an email to Kilo Golf 6 November Romeo India  @ gmail.com. Please let me know if you have potluck items you would like bring!
Address: 7850 Pole Line Rd, Watsonville, CA 95076

The W6DXW 440.450 repeater has been repaired and is back on the air with a new PA!

Looks like the PA is having issues again on W6DXW 440.450 in Monterey. I will be looking into getting this fixed in the next week. 

The WB6ECE 147.270 + 94.8 repeater is back the on air. The Astron 30 amp regulated power supply was the failure. We moved the repeater to the other Astron power supply that is now powering both WB6ECE UHF and VHF repeaters. In turn that caused a high pitched tone on the repeaters TX so we also installed an 11 AMP ICT power supply to run the repeater controller to avoid that problem.

147.270 WB6ECE on Mt. Toro is down. We think the issue is a power supply or repeater controller failure. No ETA on restoration at this time.

I’m pleased to announce the antenna system work was very successful yesterday at our Meadows Lakes tower site. First I would like to thank everyone who came out to the site yesterday, our tower climbers AI6MS, W6KWF, the ground crew consisting of KE6STH, N6WZ, K6ZWA, and our local Telewave engineer WA6PKY. With out their help I don’t think we could have pulled this off.

Yesterday we found the UHF antenna system had water in the jumper between the antenna and the 7/8 heliax , the helical resonators in the UHF repeater where about 5-6 DB down from the peak of the pass response. Probably due to the original tuning that was centered on our new RX frequency of 447.625.

On to the good stuff!
A 4-bay UHF Dipole was installed at the top of the 80 Ft tower fed with 7/8 heliax. The UHF bandpass filter was re-tuned for 3 DB insertion loss to aid in protecting the front end of the 18 DB gain pre-amp that was installed yesterday. This has greatly improved coverage. Testing on my way home last night from Fresno I had full HT coverage on the UHF system from Fresno to Pacheco Pass even going thru Los Banos!

The VHF system also has seen a major improvement with the Installation of a 2-bay VHF dipole at 60 Ft on the tower and is now working in locations that it could not be heard at all before.This system also has a run of 7/8 heliax run up to the antenna.
I would like to thank all who donated to making the VHF antenna possible. The hours of hard work are starting to pay off.

I’d like to ask everyone to please give these systems a try over the next few weeks so we can get a more accurate idea of what coverage is like.

System Update:

The link to Meadow Lakes has been restored, and the W6DXW & N6WZ Repeaters are now back on the network as of 3:55PM PST.