Hello all and Happy Holidays from Wade W5ERX
More questions have been raised as to the status of the donation for the 147.14 repeater. I addressed this issue not long ago but it was brought to my attention a couple of days ago that all of you may not have received this information. For this reason I am sending this to as many individuals as I have e-mail addresses for. If I have missed anyone please share this with them as soon as possible.
A few months ago Hill Country REACT received a check in the amount of $482.55 from Greg Lewis/ Unusual Suspects. This money was earmarked as a donation for the 147.14 repeater. This entire amount was placed into the REACT account to be held in trust for the repair on the repeater. Other funds were raised from other hams up thru the Austin Summerfest held in August 2008, bringing the total up to about $750 or so in donations.At that time it was the hope that the repair would done soon as the problems found were easily repairable. A short time later much bigger problems were found. The entire $482.55 (plus the other donated funds) is still being held in trust by REACT, to be given to San Antonio Repeater Organization when a repair option has been decided on. As for the repeater status update, SARO’s Don W5DK had this to say…
Howdy Wade,
Nothing has changed since we switched feed lines a few months ago. As a review the original air dielectric 7/8 line at 580 ft was gaining water faster than we had means to keep it dry so we switched to another newer foam heliax line that terms at 450ft with an existing antenna.
A commercial climber quoted us $1400 to replace the antenna and re-terminate the connector on the original line. That¢s figuring about 4-6 hours. To also have them try to find where the water is getting in it would probably take the same amount of time and money minimum. Another commercial climber quoted me twice those prices.
We were looking at investing around $3,000 plus, into the old feed line that we know from history will only get us down the road to more costly maintenance. It is also possible that we could find a non repairable bullet hole or something and have to ditch efforts on the line after paying to have it diagnosed. So we elected to search for a long term solution on a ham budget we could choke down.
Option A is to extend the 450ft line to the 580 ft mount and replace the antenna. A tail of 7/8 feed line 130 ft long and the needed connectors and proper jumpers/connectors can probably be found locally for free but we would have to pay the commercial climber to rig the tower on top of the original quote. I don¢t have a firm price but I¢m guessing this option would total around $3 to $5000. We know of a ham climber approved and insured to climb these type towers that is known to do work like this for free but we just have to wait for him to get to us.
Option B is to replace the complete feed line with an even larger diameter line (1 5/8) and have the ham friendly crew change it and the antenna out. A national communications company contact has been looking for the line for me since we started having water trouble. When the right tower has its feed lines replaced we are first in line for the surplus line.
I did a quick search and 7/8 heliax is about $3 a ft. So the 700ft we need would be $2100 without any shipping expenses added. $$$. No telling what larger cost. Of course these are just estimated costs. The actual cost will only be known after the work has been done.
So for now we are hanging tight on the stable, lower line/mount, with our fingers crossed that favors with come through. I understand some funds were collected from local users near the site and being held till we incur some expenses. This is a great thing, as for decades, SARO has footed the cost of this expensive site with little help from the users. Without the current local support and active repeater use I fear that SARO would be cautious to spend much on the site. Thanks for your efforts
73
Don W5DK
If anyone has any questions or concerns, I am asking you to contact me directly so that I may address them directly. Thank you for your time and Happy Holidays.
Wade Bolling,President
