New repeater site deployment.

[kayn1n32008]

OP: Club repeater room update

This is a continuation of my clubs modernization of our facilities and sites.

While this site is a new build, it replaces a site we lost access to a number years ago, and definitely fills a portable coverage hole in our city.
This is in a retired ATC tower that is being kept for historical purposes. This room held the ATC radios at one time and now holds our VHF drop repeater.

The front of our rack, locked up and the Ops crew was ready to leave for the day. This was a second trip to relocate the rack to its present location.

The rack, top to bottom:

- 6 cavity ResLok

- On the shelf is a cellular modem and wifi router, computer and GPSDO. The cellular modem and router allow us to remotely access the computer to be able to remotely program the 2x receivers and 2x transmitters. They are fed 10MHz reference from the GPSDO through a 4 port splitter that we attached to a Codan rack blank. Yes the GPSDO is not 'Carrier Grade', but we're not operating operating carrier class system. Also, the GPS antenna is mounted on the rack and works just fine.

Our lab rack, at our primary site, is also using an indoor antenna as well.

- Upper Codan/Daniels MT-4E holds, from L->R:
- CI-RC-4L LVSD repeater controller
- VT-4E VHF exciter
- VR-4E VHF receiver
- UT-4E UHF exciter
- UR-4E UHF receiver
- SM-3 system regulator
- 4 port splitter for the 10MHz reference

- Lower Codan/Daniels MT-4E holds the VHF 30w PA

- UHF 4 cavity ResLok

This site is a VHF drop, linked to our main site over UHF. The UHF link is transmitting at about 4 watts before the duplexer. We elected to not use a TR relay, simply because the Codan/Daniels System Monitor with TR relay uses a mechanical relay that has a finite lifespan so we used a duplexer. The CI-RC-4L on board receiver priority settings to ensure that the VHF receiver has priority over the UHF receiver. All other aspects, like repeater hang time are handled by the 2 exciters internal programming.

We were not able to install our own antennas on this structure, but are reusing a DB404 and an unknown VHF airband antenna. Regardless, 20w forward and 2.5w reflected for an out of band antenna is 'good enough'. We are hoping at some point, we will be able to place our own antenna on this site.

Hopefully this summer we visit our other two remote sites. Hopefully we will get some photos and I'll share those here as well.

 

[mmckenna]

That room certainly has that "government" look to it. Before you said it was ATC, I was going to ask what it was.

 

[Project25_MASTR]

What, no UIC-5? Slacking. Just kidding.

Have you ever considered a full duplex UHF link? I've seen the VHF conventional repeater with a UHF link pushing through the system relay but have done some fun stuff in the past (not with the MT's) using full duplex UHF links that were continuously transmitting and used CTCSS keying instead of conventional PTT keying.

 

[kayn1n32008]

That room certainly has that "government" look to it. Before you said it was ATC, I was going to ask what it was.

Its the former Blatchford Field AKA Edmonton City Centre Airport(CYXD). It dates back to the early days of air transport and was a training field for pilots serving in WW2. It was closed a number of years ago.

 

[kayn1n32008]

I forgot to add that it is powered by a single Daniels 20AH power supply in the bottom of the rack and is battery backed up. 12v @100AH. The battery can't been seen. It is behind the power supply.

 

[kayn1n32008]

What, no UIC-5? Slacking. Just kidding.

Have you priced a UIC-5?????? lol.

We have a really smart guy looking to do a 'ham' grade interface between the Daniels LVSD and DFSI protocol so we can 'do things' with it on a local, wide area IP back haul were planning and developing

Have you ever considered a full duplex UHF link? I've seen the VHF conventional repeater with a UHF link pushing through the system relay but have done some fun stuff in the past (not with the MT's) using full duplex UHF links that were continuously transmitting and used CTCSS keying instead of conventional PTT keying.

Thought about it? yes. however, it would require much more gear to implement, with 4 current remote sites, and possibly more in the future.

Possibly, if we can get access to some sites, we would like to explore a 3 or 4 site analgoue simulcast.