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January 29, 2007
Just when you think things are going well....
Steve, N8XSF, reported this weekend that he and Dwight installed the rack and repeaters at the Linwood site but when they tried to get the 440 repeater back on the air with the existing feed line and antenna the signal they put out while registering 100 watts was only broadcasting to an area no further than a half mile. Additionally it could not hear beyond that distance as well. A lot of scratching of heads and a few tests bought us to the conclusion that that antenna was not connected and possibly a small dummy load was attached to the other end of the feedline. That would explain why we had a good SWR reading and was able to put 100 watt load with no fold back of power. That is unless someone can explain how this can happen.
Not wanting to risk having to climb the tower twice we decided that in addition to putting up a new 2 meter antenna we'd purchase a new 440 as well and install them both at the same time.
Still waiting to hear from the Sheriff's office on whether or not we can supply our own climber.
Posted by at 1:18 PM
January 27, 2007
440 Repeater May be Back on the air soon!
Thanks to a little good luck and the help of N8XSF we may soon have the 443.5125 repeater back on the air as soon as January 27th. As it turn out the UHF antenna alreay installed on the Linwood tower and offered to us by the Wood County Sheriff's office tunes in our frequency. Testing shows an SWR of 1.2 to 1. A near perfect match. N8XSF says he may be able to install the 440 rack and repeater as soon as this afternoon. This is really good news and our thanks go out to Steve.
Posted by at 11:41 AM