Oct. 22, 2009

PSRRG recently applied for a club station callsign. After being issued KF7EIT, we applied for Barry's callsign, WA7HJR. The FCC issued this as a vanity callsign. On Thursday evening, Bob, WA7HTJ, changed the repeater identifier to our new club call. We feel it is a fitting tribute to Barry and all the work he did over the years to keep the repeater on the air. Jack, W7HNH, updated our Echolink callsign as well.

In the near future, the club members and any new applicants will be able to meet and form the workings of the club. Stay tuned for a meeting time and place.

Jack and Bob have spent many hours on the repeater site this past summer improving the DC power connections to all the Internet equipment and a hardwire reset mode for the computer on site. The HF antenna has been lengthened, but will soon be turned into a delta loop when we can employ a tree climber to install pulleys in a couple of trees at the 50 foot level.

Mike Reid, N7NEW assisted in August, with the installation of a 1KVA isolation transformer on the generator input feed. This prevents the accidental tripping of the GFI where the AC power is provided by Action Communication's generator during power outages.

May 7, 2009

The past couple of years have been pretty harsh weather wise. We've had late snowfall and I think this year was a record for snow as late as April. The estimated accumulation in just a few days during the first of April was in excess of 3 feet. That means we aren't always able to make it up to the repeater site to take care of system problems. Even snowmobiles can't get through that much wet snow.

The access road normally used to reach the site, washed out and the DNR (dept. of Natural Resources) doesn't plan to repair it. We have been forced  to use a secondary road that adds an extra mile to the route.

The passing of our good friend and repeater owner, Barry, left a number of projects on hold. Jack, W7HNH and Bob, WA7HTJ, are all that are left of the repeater management. It falls on them to get the bulk of the work finished. However, we do receive generous cash donations and have other repeater users who volunteer to assist in some of the larger projects.

One such project was the installation of a 4th remote receiver on Gold Mt. near Bremerton. This location enhances our coverage to the south and certainly the Kitsap peninsula area. Both Barry, WA7HJR and John, WA7NLD, were key in the installation.

Equipment installed on Gold Mt.

New projects on the horizon include an HF transceiver controllable from the repeater, a new voter and repeater controller. Stay tuned for updates.

Bob, WA7HTJ.

May 6, 2006

A work party was planned for Saturday and we were scheduled to meet at the gate at 9 am for the trip up the hill but just about everybody without exception was ahead of schedule.  There were ten participants as follows:  Ray Fletcher, KB7VMS; Ray McCaw, KB7OPQ (licensed electrician); Mike Reid, N7NEW; Kirk Reid with son Austin Reid (Mike & Kirk - Track hoe Operators); Bob Amos, WA7HTJ; John Hokenson, WA7NLD (in charge of food & cooking) ; Lee Dully, KD7WGN; Mark Hagestad, K7RZ;  and Barry Simpson, WA7HJR.

We had marked the estimated route of the problem cable with a borrowed cable tracer, followed up by a trip last Thursday with the professional cable locator (from “Call Before You Dig Folks”)  We had a previous TDR reading indicating the problem was likely 142 feet out from our service panel so that is where we started the digging.  Very shortly after the digging began one of the hydraulic lines on Kirk's Track Hoe sprung a leak making a bit of a mess with hydraulic fluid catching a couple people by surprise!  He was able to solve this problem by robbing a hose from a part of the machine that was not being used on this job.  The repairs probably took about 30 minutes to perform.  When we got down to the wires we did not find a problem there but moved about 6 feet to the plus side of that mark and did locate a previous wire repair where a short section of wire had been added in and there was a splice on each end of the added wire.  This was likely where our cable had been dug up by a backhoe  20+ years ago and then patched.  We ended up cutting a 6 foot section out on all three lines.  We performed an autopsy on the cut out wire and the six splices and determined that there was no problem in this area!  Ray (OPQ) and Ray (VMS) did some continuity and resistance checks on the remaining buried wire and determine the problem was still down the line somewhere.

It was decided to continue digging following the wire path heading towards our building.  Approx. 30 feet towards our building from where the original mark (142 feet) was and the digging had begun the problem was found.  As the dirt in that area was being removed one of the wires kind of popped up when the weight of the dirt was taken off of it.  Further investigation by hand with a small shovel revealed there was another severed wire and also a slight bit of jacket damage to one of three wires for another site that shared the same ditch.  The two severed wires were our two hot wires and our neutral wire was ok.  It appeared a rock had damaged the jacket on the cables and probably the wire itself and allowed the corrosion process to begin and things deteriorated from there.

We contacted George, KD7LXB who was able to contact the other site owner for us to advise him of this damaged jacket on his neutral wire.  The site owner of the other site drove up and met us and looked over the damage to his wire and was going to make arrangements to have it repaired.  We would have performed the repair had we been able to acquire the right size crimp slices, a few feet of the right size wire which was different than ours, and the proper heat-shrink tubing.  The only damage to his wire was the fact the jacket was breached and allowed moisture to get in there and possibly start some corrosion, etc.  The ditch is this area was left unfilled and covered up with logs until he is able to have it repaired probably in a few days.

Once the broken wires were located a new 40 ft section of the original wire was spliced in replacing all three wires.  This process actually reduced our splice count by three due to the way it was done.  The original 2-3 foot added in section was eliminated.  Our temporary power line was shut down and the original wires in our service panel were re-terminated and power was then restored.  Everything checked out with the two hot legs measuring 121.5 - 122 volts each.  All systems were turned back on and we were back in business.

The overall length of the actual digging was probably about 50 feet or so.  Approx. 1/3 of the length from the transformer vault to our building so it could have easily been a lot more work.

There was plenty of food available throughout the day beginning with morning coffee or hot chocolate and several varieties of pastries / cookies, and then on to Hot Dogs and Hamburgers with all the trimmings, numerous varieties of chips, sodas and water.  We probably could have gone another whole day and not run short on anything!

The cost of this repair operation was about $750.00.  We had already obtained most of the supplies needed for this repair for the previous work party but did have to acquire a few additional additional items.

In the photo's below left to right: (1) Bob Amos, WA7HTJ; Ray Fletcher, KB7VMS; Austin Reed, Kirk Reed, Mark Hagestad, K7RZ; Ray McCaw, KB7OPQ; John Hokenson, WA7NLD; and Mike Reid. N7NEW  (2) John Hokenson, WA7NLD/Chef (3) Monty dog (owner Lee Dully) guarding the area (4) Ray Fletcher, KB7VMS; Lee Dully, KD7WGN; Monty dog.

Second Row: (1) Austin Reid, Kirk Reid (2) Mike Reid, N7NEW; John Hokenson, WA7NLD/Chef; Ray McCaw, KB7OPQ; Lee Dully, KD7WGN; Mark Hagestad, K7RZ; Ray Fletcher KB7VMS- (in ditch; Kirk Reid, Bob Amos, WA7HTJ); Austin Reid (3) Ray McCaw, KB7OPQ; Ray Fletcher, KB7VMS; Bob Amos, WA7HTJ; Mark Hagestad, K7RZ; Kirk Reid, Mike Reid, N7NEW; John Hokenson, WA7NLD/Chef; Lee Dully, KD7WGN. (4) Ray McCaw, KB7OPQ; Bob Amos, WA7HTJ; John Hokenson, WA7NLD/Chef; Mike Reid, N7NEW; Lee Dully, KD7WGN.

Third Row: (1) Ray Fletcher, KB7VMS; (front); Ray McCaw, KB7OPQ; (back) (2) Mike Reid, N7NEW; Ray McCaw.KB7OPQ; (3) (back) Kirk Reid, Mike Reid, N7NEW; Mark Hagestad, K7RZ; John Hokenson, WA7NLD/Chef; Lee Dully, KD7WGN; Ray McCaw, KB7OPQ;  (front) Bob Amos, WA7HTJ; Ray Fletcher, KB7VMS; (4) Ray Fletcher, KB7VMS; Bob Amos, WA7HTJ; Mike Reid, N7NEW.

Fourth Row: (1) Overall area after fill in (2) John's kitchen & lunch area (3) wire end (4) wire end

Fifth Row: (1) wire end; (2) Splice Area; (3) Splice Area; (4) Mark Hagestad, K7RZ; Ray Fletcher, KB7VMS;  Bob Amos, WA7HTJ (in ditch); Kirk Reid (in Track Hoe)[This photo by Lee Dully, KD7WGN].

November 29 - December 23, 2005

On November 29, 2005 at 10:45 pm. we lost the AC power to our building unexpectedly.  We made a trip up to Tiger Mtn to investigate on Wednesday, 11/30/05 and discovered we had no AC power in our electrical service panel.  At this point we reported the outage to Puget Sound Energy and with some negotiation managed to get their crew up there later that day in a 4 wheel drive vehicle.  They opened up the transformer vault and verified that there was power on our wires which meant that we had a break in our lines somewhere underground in the approx. 200 foot run.  Indications are that all three wires are affected.  There was 8" of snow at the top making things a little difficult.

On Friday, December 2, 2005 we made another trip to Tiger Mtn to troubleshoot and see if we could detect anything on or around the lines using a cable tracer that we borrowed on Thursday.  We were unsuccessful making any determination along these lines.  We were also unsuccessful in finding anybody with a TDR to help us locate the underground fault.  Between Wednesday and Friday another 8" of snow had fallen for a total of 16" at the top.

On Monday, December 5, 2005 we made another trip to Tiger Mtn in the afternoon for a photo and planning session to see what would be needed to install a temporary power line.  A trip to Olympia was made in the morning to obtain keys for the recon trip.

A work party for Saturday, December 10, 2005 was tentatively planned at this point and we began to gather the materials needed for this installation.  In addition we gathered materials required for underground splicing in the event we were able to find the underground fault.  We also had lined up a TDR (Time Domain Reflectometer) and an operator to assist in locating the fault.  December 6-9 was used to obtain materials required.  Another trip to Olympia was made to obtain the wire for a temporary installation.  A rush hour trip to Kent was made to obtain crimp splices for the 1/0 wire in case we located the fault.  A circuit breaker had to be shipped via next day air from back east for this temporary installation.

On Saturday morning, December 10th, the nine work party participants met at the lower gate of Tiger Mtn at 8am to install chains on all four wheels of the four vehicles that were going to make the trip to the top.  Three of the four vehicles made it to the top with one being left near the upper gate area due to technical problems with the four wheel drive system.

Work party participants were Bob Amos, WA7HTJ; Barry Simpson, WA7HJR; John Hokenson, WA7NLD; Mike Reid, N7NEW; Hal Goodell, N7NW;  Scott Cortesi, KD7YQT; Mike Sterba, KG7HQ; Ralph Javins, N7KGA; and Lee Dully, KD7WGN.

When we got to the top several jobs were started at the same time.  Mike Sterba, KG7HQ hooked up his Tektronix TDR to the defective wiring and proceeded to determine where the fault was located.  At the same time,  ground was being broken for installation of a temporary underground power line to a nearby building, etc.  Mike Sterba, KG7HQ was able to determine a fault area (an open) and there was a lot of discussion on how much off one way or another the exact location might be and the amount of time required to dig down to a live set of wires (there is another site owners' wires in the same trench,  and ours are probably live up until the break, etc) since extra care has to be taken.  It was decided the best sure thing solution was to proceed with the temporary wire installation for now and make plans to correct the fault at a later date when the weather gets better and we can get a backhoe up there.

By the end of the day we were able to get a temporary power line installed and connected at both ends and power restored.  All repeater and link systems in the building were back in operation.

You can see by the rocks in the one photo (photo without snow was taken on 12/23/05) why it might have been a problem to hand dig down 30-36" trying to locate the fault and what we would have been in for if the location was off by three or four feet, etc.

There is still a little cleanup work needed on several items in this temporary installation to get through the winter.  This work is currently planned for 12/28/05.

We want to thank all the work party participants for their hard work during the day.  It was approx. 9 hours or so and a very cooperative effort on everyone's' part.  We especially want to thank Lee Dully, KD7WGN who spent the entire day at the bottom by himself guarding everyone's' vehicles so they did not have to worry about any vandalism or thefts, etc.  We also want to thank the nearby site owner that helped us out with the temporary power.

We believe with a little cleanup work on 12/28/05 that we should be in a position to get through the worst part of the winter until the weather starts to improve enough to move on to the next phase.  That will require us to get a backhoe up there and attempt to locate and repair the fault.

So far the cost of this operation has been $825.90 not including the cost of making the trips to Tiger Mtn and other places to obtain the needed materials.  We are aware of $187.00 worth of gasoline use.  We are roughly estimating it might be in the $600.00 range for backhoe work later on but that could go either way depending on the circumstances discovered.

In the photo's below: (left) shows Mike Sterba, KG7HQ on the left and Mike Reid, N7NEW on the right looking at the Tektronix TDR for fault location; (middle) shows from left to right, Hal Goodell, N7NW, Scott Cortesi, KD7YQT, Ralph Javins, N7KGA, John Hokenson, WA7NLD, Mike Reid, N7NEW, and Mike Sterba, KG7HQ; (right) shows the completed ditch across the road and the rocks left over about two weeks later when the snow had melted.

December 2004

After several months of working with a commercial repeater operator to eliminate interference to our repeater he was able to make another significant change by installing a new $600.00 notch cavity filter on his repeater system.  When frequencies are as close as these were it takes a very expensive notch filter to keep from eliminating ones own signals in the process.  This installation was a 100 percent success and resulted in actual measurements of 0 db of reduction in our receiver sensitivity as compared to 6db just a month ago after several attempts on both sides to reduce it previously.

The Safeco receiver died and a trip was required to check that out.  It turned out to be the link transmitter to Tiger Mtn not working which was due to a faulty solder joint in the final amplifier section.  The solder joint was repaired and this receiver is fully operational once again.

A trip to Tiger Mtn was made to confirm the interference problem was solved as mentioned above.  In addition a temporary repair was made to one of the link yagi antennas which was broken due to ice loading in the past.  We will be ordering a replacement for this in the near future.  A broken clamp was also replaced on another link antenna on the tower.

September 2004

Our portable 240V Dayton heater used at Tiger Mtn when we are there finally gave up so  we purchased a replacement at Grainger for $ 135.00 to be sure we could get through the winter.

August 2004

The interface box was installed for the connection to the Echolink system and the necessary audio adjustments were made.  Echolink access is now in operation.  The cost of this interface box was $82.00.

June 2004

We started experiencing interference to the repeater from a nearby commercial transmitter that was transmitting just above 450.5 mhz.  It took some time to discover which system was causing this interference and to track down the party responsible for this system.  We made several attempts to reduce the interference on our side of things by retuning cavity filters and we received excellent cooperation from the commercial repeater operator who tried numerous methods of interference reduction on his side.

May 2004

The broken upper gate on the East Tiger Mtn access road was repaired and primed in preparation for later painting.  The lock mechanism was cleaned up for more reliable operation.  The crew consisted of Mike Reid, N7NEW,  Kirk Reid,  Terry, N7JTA,  John, WA7NLD and Barry, WA7HJR.  Mike provided equipment to be able to lift the gate into place and provided a gasoline driven arc welder.  Mike and Kirk performed all of the cutting and welding operations and did a beautiful job of it.  John provided an AC generator for operation of a grinder and other power tools.  Cost of the materials not provided by Mike and John was $125.00.

April 2004

The auto patch was reconnected to the ACC repeater controller.  We removed the auto patch link equipment which had previously supplied our link to the original Ballard telephone line which was no longer available and installed a new rack cabinet.  We also installed an on-site computer system for implementation of the Echolink connection and for remote control access to the repeater controllers at the site.

March 2004

We installed a Motorola VoIP telephone interface and an on-site telephone, an Ethernet Router and Ethernet switch in preparation for reconnection of the auto patch system and connection of the repeater to the Echolink system.

December 2003

We discovered the upper gate on the access road to Tiger Mtn was broken and laying on the ground.  This was caused by a poor job of installing the hinge pin when the gate was originally constructed by a contractor and somebody leaving the gate open and a tree coming down directly on it with nothing to support it during a wind storm.

November 2003

We removed all of our auto patch link equipment and antennas from the Ballard location where it had been for 15+ years due to Bill, W7UZB selling his house and had the telephone line disconnected putting the AP out of business for a while.

September 2003

The upper gate had not been working for some time due to a broken cable attach point and misalignment of the latch pin and the hole that it went into in the gate itself.  These problems were repaired with some welding and installation of a new piece of steel where the latch pin drops into the gate.  The crew consisted of Mike Reid, N7NEW who did all the welding and cutting, and Bob, WA7HTJ,  John, WA7NLD and Barry, WA7HJR.

March 2003

Due to a lightening strike nearby we found two of our circuit breakers tripped and had to replace fuses in power supplies for the WA7HTJ repeater, the KB7CNN 1.2 GHz repeater and the Evergreen Intertie links.

November 2002

A Power-One DC-DC converter was installed in the Hall 4RV receiver voter cabinet to minimize voltage sensitivity that occurs when we are on battery power.  Additional fine tuning in the near future may be required for optimum performance  of this modification.  Cost of this upgrade was around $80.

July 2002

The factory repaired Cresend Technologies (formerly Vocom) 100 watt amplifier was received back from the factory and was re-installed.  Cost of this repair was $260.

May 2002

The Cresend Technologies 100 watt amplifier failed and was removed for factory repair.  The repeater ran on the 250 milliwatt exciter for a while until we could install a temporary 40 watt GE Mastr II amplifier while waiting for return of the repaired amplifier.

April 2002

Our IFR 1200 Service Monitor was in need of some repairs and had not been calibrated in some time so was sent out for these items to be taken care of.  Cost of this work was $828,  which included $110 for shipping the 53 lb. package to and from.

July 2001

All internal components of our Polyphaser IS-PM240-BP AC line lightening protector had to be replaced.  Cost of this repair about $125.00.

January 2001

We completed the installation of a new battery backup system.  The system consists of four 260 amp-hour Dyno deep cycle batteries, a Statpower Truecharge40 battery charger,  and a custom built contactor / isolation panel.  Cost of this upgrade was just over $1,000.

        Statpower Charger        Contactor Panel                                 Batteries

We also went to Kalama at the end of the month and assisted Dave, WB7DFV, (WA7HTJ's brother) the new owner of the 442.825 MHz. Kalama uhf repeater,  re-install the repeater,  antenna's,  and the Evergreen Intertie links at the same location they used to be but in a brand new building and new tower.  The installation team consisted of Dave, WB7DFV,  Bob, WA7HTJ,  Barry WA7HJR and Mike, KB7WUK.  The installation went well and everything is working.  This re-established not only the Kalama uhf repeater but the Evergreen Intertie connections to points south of Olympia.

                New Bldg & Tower          Bob & Dave Installing Ant's         Dave & System Rack

November 1998

Evergeen Intertie links put into service in the HTJ building by Jack, WA7HNH and Bob, WA7HTJ after link controller rebuild and repackaging of the system.

September 1998

Our old Singer FM-10C service monitor had been ailing for some time and finally got to the point it was unusable most of the time.  Since a service monitor is a key piece of equipment to keep things operating properly and very useful in facilitating repair we decided something had to be done.  We ended up purchasing a used IFR1200 service monitor and although we got a very good deal on the unit it was still a substantial expense.  Cost of this acquisition $3500.

July 1998

The Celwave Super Stationmaster antenna was removed from the tower for maintenance.  It was cleaned up, resealed, and repainted and then re-installed on the tower.  Cost of this maintenance was about $100.

September 1997

We installed a new 100 watt continuous duty power amplifier.  It is a Vocom (now Cresend Technologies, L.L.C.) UVC100-185MWRF with their "Megasink" which is an extremely large heat sink. The unit has been performing flawlessly since it's installation.  Cost of this upgrade was $1100.

As some of you know we had been experiencing major problems with the original GE Mastr II amplifier.  Between July of 1990 and September of 1997 when the new Vocom amp was installed,  18 trips to East Tiger Mtn had been made for repairs.  Quite a few of these trips were made during the worst winter weather conditions we have had on the mountain for years.  One trip required the use of snowmobiles and a number of them required hikes on foot averaging 1/4 mile.

When we first decided to purchase a new amplifier our first choice was a Henry C100D002R  100 watt continuous duty amplifier.  The unit arrived and a trip to the mountain was made for the installation.  Within a short period of time it was obvious the unit was unstable and not performing properly.  Another trip was made to remove the unit for return to Henry for repairs.  When it came back from Henry we re-installed it and discovered the unit was still very unstable so it was returned for a refund and we proceeded with the procurement of the Vocom (now Cresend Technologies, L.L.C.) amp.

We replaced the existing repeater power supply with an Astron RM-50M-BB power supply.  Cost of this upgrade was $266.

We replaced the power supply on the Ballard end of the auto patch link with an Astron RM-35M power supply.  Cost of this replacement $247.

There was an apparent lightening strike somewhere on the power line which took out all the internal parts of our Polyphaser AC line protector.  These parts were all replaced and the unit restored to operation again.  The good news is that no other equipment in the building suffered any damage so the unit did its job.  Cost of this repair $100.

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