On Nov 21, 2007, at 10:47 PM, Mark Stennett wrote: > You folks also have great ski runs. > > 73 de na6m
Heh, yeah... snow has been slow to arrive for the high-country this year, but it'll come... To keep this on-topic, plus you can get an idea of where our repeaters "sit" in relation to Denver... This site chronicles one of the tiny little ski areas, that sits about a 3/4 of a mile from the (long and impassable in winter) entrance "road" to our "high-site". (It's a Jeep trail, and while I've seen regular cars get up it, they're always damaged doing so. High ground clearance 4X4 -- is the smartest equipment for getting up there.) http://www.coloradoskihistory.com/areahistory/echomountain.html In this photo from the top of the ski run there, Denver is hiding past all those mountains, almost right behind that big hump on the top right. http://www.coloradoskihistory.com/images/echomtn_dec06_0003.jpg The ski area is slightly north of the repeater site, and lower. The repeater is just about 90 degrees to the RIGHT of that photo, and up quite a bit higher on top of a mountain. The Ski Area is below the main road, the repeater's well above it. The ski area is at 10,650' MSL. The repeater is at 11,440' MSL... This also shows it in relation to Denver pretty well... http://www.skiecho.com/images/co_map_lg.jpg (I like that map. It's cool.) The money shot... from the tower leg... at the repeater site. The tower is roughly 80' tall. http://www.natetech.com/images/DSCN0602.JPG Downtown Denver is that group of buildings over the ridge. 22 miles away. Of course an HT with 5W somewhere "down there" with a rubber duckie can usually get in... but not always. Not from their basement, anyway. (BIGGER GRIN) An HT with 5W to an outside antenna, is almost ALWAYS full-quieting. If we did our "repeater guy" part right, and they know how to solder a PL-259 properly... well, anyway... :-) Nice view, huh? I did a quick calculation the other day of the radio horizon from that site assuming flat terrain at 6000' MSL going away from the tower (obviously there's shadowing "close" in), it's 104.7 miles to the east. Up until some recent interference problems up there, our UHF up there has been known to hear mobiles traveling Interstate 80 through Wyoming... but unless they're going north through Denver and we ask them to "stay with us" to see how far they go, they'd never think to look up our repeaters when headed across Wyoming! http://www.laramie.org/facts/directions.htm#us287 From that map, we talked to a mobile who had a 35W UHF radio and a nice Diamond high-gain antenna from Castle Rock to 5 miles East of Laramie, WY -- via the I-25 north to I-80 route on our single UHF high- site repeater, with the only drop-out being down in the hole where Cheyenne, WY sits. Laramie is 140 miles away. http://www.laramie.org/facts/ (By the way... these two "facts" on that web page are inter-related... just for fun... since we're all computer geeks here... • Laramie is traversed by 2 nationwide fiber optic carriers & 1 digital microwave route • Union Pacific Railroad mainline operates over 55 freight trains on a daily basis through Laramie Guess where the fiber runs along?) He wasn't copyable for about 5 minutes, but he hung in there to see what the repeater would do. He was "hill-topping" as he climbed the pass out of Cheyenne with short drop-outs behind hills, as he traveled up into the forest and up to the top of the ridge above Laramie he got better and better, then he was gone... If I ever move away from here, I'm going to wonder what the heck is wrong with my VHF/UHF mobiles, if I end up somewhere in the flat- land. I'll think they're broken! -- Nate Duehr, WY0X [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Repeater-Builder/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Repeater-Builder/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
