October 2021

Shaie K5JDX shares:

Some of our leaders doing a little testing and tuning Saturday the 16th on the North repeater 146.940

Descriptions of the North Repeater antenna project photos — 1/29-31/2020

01: Jeremy (tower crew supervisor) assembling the new 20′ repeater antenna prior to it being hoisted up the tower (Wednesday 1/29).

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02: The southwest side of the KVII transmitter site with the 1600′ tower in the background. Each red or white tower section is 100′ high. Two climbers can be seen halfway up the first (red) section at 50′. It takes nearly an hour for them to climb to the 650′ position and required three rest breaks on the way up.

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03: The entire tower with the nearly 100′ TV transmitter antenna on top (1700′ feet from the top of the antenna to the ground). You should be able to zoom in for more detail.

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04: Close-up of the two climbers at 650′. An old PRPC antenna has been removed and is being lowered to the ground by a rope from the right side of the tower. Note the stand-off (antenna mount) on the right side of the red section. This is where the antenna was mounted. We put our new antenna there, but discovered that the feed-line to that location was defective and had to move to the lower 550′ position.

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05: A climber is perched on the stand-off at the 550′ position. He’s preparing to remove the second PRPC antenna. Our new antenna will go here. Our old antenna was also at this height but on the east leg of the tower (not visible in this photo).

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06: A view of the Yaesu DR-2X repeater, band-pass filter (above the repeater), and the duplexer (below the repeater). All programming and settings are done through the touch sensitive screen on the front panel.

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07: The new antenna is in place at the 550′ location. One climber is visible midway up the white section and two more on the red section. The old antenna and one end of the inch and five eighths feed-line are attached to a rope on the left side of the tower where the white and red sections meet. Two cables (250′ of 7/8″ and 400′ of 1 1/4″) have already been lowered to the ground and rolled up by the ground crew (Thursday 1/30).

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08: Ground crew volunteers are dragging the 1 5/8″ cable away from the tower and building as it’s being lowered by the tower crew. This cable is more than 550′ long and weighs just under a pound per foot.

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09: The old antenna and cable are on the ground as the crew unties the rope. Notice the kink in the cable near the hanging piece of rope. The cable is damaged at this spot and apparently has been in this condition at least since the last time the tower was repainted (several years).

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10: Close-up of the damaged cable showing the exposed and partially painted copper shield. This spot is approximately 12′ from the antenna feed point.

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11: Danny (Trent’s son-in-law), Trent (K5XM), Dan (WA8YYE), and Ronnie (Trent’s friend) have just rolled up all 550 plus feet of the 1 5/8″ cable and loaded it onto the trailer. Jeremy expressed serious reservations that we’d be able to do this without cutting it, and asked for a photo if we succeeded. The tower crew usually disposes of the cable by cutting it into short pieces. Here you go! (Friday 1/31)

~ Submitted by Dan WA8YYE — 2/4/2020