DStar KS1R Dash
DStar Reflector 39C
If you didn’t read the last post about repairing the Duplexers for the DStar repeater and would like to you can find it here:
Duplexer Repair
Well it seems the repair was a pretty big success, at least so far. Here is a recent heard list from the repeater. It shows stations that have worked the repeater locally using RF.
The initial testing was a very quick road test down toward Popham Beach state park. All went well but this was a long way from a thorough test. In the following days as I did whatever it is I do when I do what I do, I kept testing. A trip to my son’s house went well. I could hear the repeater and can get into it. That is an improvement. Then came a trip to Portland for work. Another success. I’m not saying you can work the repeater easily all the way to my office in Portland but in most places its usable. For me the hardest part seemed to be hearing the repeater. If I could hear it, I was into it.
Soon Louise KB1IEF and myself did a walk on Popham Beach. I brought along my handheld but forgot to charge it. The battery was showing low. Past experience tells me I need to run high power so that is what I do. While walking I get a call from Cory KU1U. After the first transmission my battery is showing critical so I drop the power down to 1 Watt. Cory reports no change in signal. This is another really good sign.
Cory KU1U was excited about the apparent success and started contacting people he knew had DStar to do some testing. Soon there are several others on the repeater trying from all over the place with better then expected success.
I had an old IC-91AD and dropped it off with Bruce W1ZE. He was on the air in no time. Next was N1MA Mike. Seems he has the IC-705 but hadn’t used it on DStar yet. In no time at all he had it programmed and on the air.
Reflector 39 Charlie has been set as the Maine Statewide D-Star reflector. I tend to keep our repeater connected to it. The reflector serves as a way to do Internet linking of repeaters. Another way in, is using a DStar access point or hotspot. With an AP or hotspot you can either connect directly to our repeater or more common is to connect to the reflector. We have had many others including Terry KA8SCP, Andrew N1MRE, W1DLO, and some from the Caribou DStar repeater joining in.
Probably the best report we have had so far is when Cory KU1U was working the repeater from a handheld radio while walking on Old Orchard Beach. In the world of digital communications you are either in or not. In this case Cory was in.
Audio clip of KU1U from OOB.
All this recent activity has me using our KS1R DStar repeater more then any others. Soon there will be another DStar radio on Streaked Mountain that is expected to have a very large RF footprint. DStar in general is an easy mode as there isn’t much radio programming that needs to be done beyond your call and the repeater you want to work. I hope to see even more traffic on our D-Star system in the coming days.
More information about all the Clubs repeaters can be found here:
KS1R Repeaters
When I first heard of Joe’s W1SK plan to put D-Star on Streaked Mtn I was pretty excited to help. I happened to be going to the Deerfield, NH hamfest so while there I found these gems. Joe then purchased them for his project.
I told Joe I could get them tuned in for him. I can’t say I felt 100% confident due to my lack of experience but was pretty sure I could get the job done. Once the frequencies were finalized I started tuning. One of the 4 cavities I had a real hard time with. I would tune and tighten the lock nut only to have the tuning off again. I could tap the side of the can with a screw driver and the tuning would be all over the place. After fighting this battle for a long time I gave up and took the duplexer apart to see what was going on inside.
I found that the internal parts were covered with oxidation so I cleaned them up and re-assembled. After this process tuning went perfectly. I had this feeling I needed to take the rest of them apart but chose not to. I didn’t have enough rivets, the other cavities were tuning just fine so I called it good enough. This was a mistake.
So the duplexers made the trip to Streaked Mtn where they performed very badly. The duplexers being the problem wasn’t immediately known so it caused lots of frustration and speculation. It also cost time and money. Eventually the equipment had to be removed for troubleshooting.
Cory KU1U delivered them to Randy K1XI who is a pro. He determined the duplexers, one cavity in particular, was bad. Once I got this word I felt responsible. I had a brand new TX/RX duplexers that had just arrived here for the KS1R D-Star repeater and I insisted they take them in exchange. The new duplexers were delivered to K1XI for a professional tuning, which was successful, and they are waiting to be put into service.
I asked for the duplexers back so I could try and repair them a second time. I also asked if the duplexer that was indicated as bad was the one I had attempted to repair but nobody knew that. My repair had gone very smooth and it was tough to tell. Once I had them in my hands I found that the one marked bad was NOT the one I had been inside and cleaned. This was good news and seemed to me to indicate I could clean the rest and have a working set of duplexers. Time to try.
It seems important that the connection between the copper plunger and the little copper fingers be as perfect as possible.
Here is a before and after picture showing just how much I was able to clean these things up.
Now you want to talk about a pain in the $%^@&)@. Getting the bottoms off of a couple of these made me think I was not going to be successful. It required a lot of pounding and prying, drilling, etc. I even had to wait for KB1IEF the XYL to get home to help.
They have now been reassembled, tuned, and installed. They seem to be working fine. Tuning went very quick and easy. I believe this to be a very good sign but I’m not calling success until more testing has been done and some time has passed. After putting them into service on our KS1R D-Star repeater I did a quick road trip and all went well.
When dealing with a repeater, especially one that will be in a difficult to reach location, it has to be perfect. The price of less then perfect in anxiety, time, money, etc is just too high. I am happy with how this repair went but not sure I would want to see these duplexers headed for a difficult to reach repeater site. I would want someone in the business, like K1XI to have a look first.
]]>Post hamfest QCWA meeting at Happy China Buffet in Bangor.