On 8/30/2010 7:01 PM, Paul Plack wrote:
I already know I'd love to have a MII, and the bulk won't be an issue
getting it home or storing it, but the proposed site is on a rooftop.
That part could get interesting. I may need to devise a truss...and
something to hoist the repeater, too! (Rimshot.)
LOL!
Especially if you're using the MASTR II power supply. Be aware that the
M2 PS will draw quite a bit of current even at idle... if you're paying
the power bill, or care about someone who does... I have one on in my
basement for a link all the time, and live with it... :-)
This unit is very unlikely to be a modded station...it was originally
spec'd for, and has been in, repeater service for years on a mountain
top by the original owner. It is said to be spectacularly clean inside
and out, and has never had an outage. (I know...two attributes which
oddly seem to go together.)
If in Amateur service, he probably already pulled all the cards out,
etc... ours run with nothing but a 10V regulator card in them, and if we
were lucky enough to find a station with a "metering kit" in it, the meter.
Kinda nice for quick checks on tuning, etc... but most of the time we
know better than to "golden screwdriver" a working repeater, and even if
it has a metering kit, we leave it alone.
The ham repeater's purpose will be to support emergency prep nets and
related ops in a couple of suburbs, and a high central point will be
available, so a preamp may not be warranted. It may also get used in a
crossband scheme during calmer times, and for other experiments in
which the widest possible coverage would actually have some downside.
Makes sense. All of ours are on mountain-tops quite a distance from the
intended coverage areas.
Right now, one of them is "QRP" with the exciter temporarily jumpered to
the antenna while the PA is being worked on.
Yup... the math shows that after the hybrid combiner we're pushing a
whopping 60mW to the 8-bay VHF antenna at 11,440' MSL, and we've had
reports that the repeater is "S7 and a little fluttery mobile"... in the
normal coverage area.
I'm sure it isn't being heard halfway to Kansas right now, though... nor
probably in Cheyenne, WY which it usually reaches just fine.
I love our ridiculous HAAT! :-)
So anyway, you see why we need the pre-amp. Heh. Hearing a 50W mobile
from downtown Cheyenne, WY is kinda a stretch. But it works in the
hot-spots/hill-topping. Haha.
Even freakier, the UHF works even better up there. (Lower site noise.)
Talked to someone on top of the hill East of Laramie, WY on it one night
who had a 50W mobile. Me in my living room on an HT in South Denver, he
in his big rig, with a very large UHF gain antenna on the mirror mount
on the South side of the Westbound truck. That was cool.
(Especially since we'd just put it up and wondered how well it would
work in the "real world" after bench-testing the snot out of it.)
Controller will very likely be my S-Com 7K.
That's what all of ours use, but we're rollin' over slowly to the 7330...
Nate
