Following various reports over the last six months of poor performance in some locations on the receive side various site visits were made from 24th August 2020 to 5th September 2020. This has resulted in an updated receive antenna and feeder arrangement. The cavities fitted have also been retuned. Performance is much improved and back to the original coverage that is expected from the site.
The notice of variation was updated on 3rd Jan 2020 and expires on 28th Feb 2023.
The equipment has been checked and continues to operate within specification.
The back up battery used on site for the back up supply in case of mains failure was replaced. The previous one had given several years of stirling service.
Mains power has been restored to site and the repeater is operational.
The mains supply to the repeater cabin has failed at around 21:00. This is likely to have been a trip switch that we don’t have access to.
Due to some supply issues on site the repeater was off air whilst mains power was restored. The cause is believed to be as we have had before where a further circuit breaker on the supply line (that we don’t have access to) had been triggered.
Following some reports of “chopping” on received analogue signals mainly on the edge of the coverage area the squelch settings have been adjusted. The squelch is set to its most sensitive level and a delay of 1 second with maximum hysteresis has been set. This should reduce the amount of clipping.
As a reminder at this time of the year there are a bank of trees that go into full leaf close to the site and this will reduce access to those to the south and south west of the site.
Members of the King’s Lynn Amateur Radio Club worked on servicing the tower and the coaxial cabling on the morning of the 12th June. The site was tidied up and the tower wound down. The wire cabling on the winch was checked for integrity and serviced. The coax was also re clipped to the mast and secured to the catenary support. This will hopefully stop some of the issues encountered during windy weather where there was noticeable crackling on signals where the cable was blowing around.
The matching on the cabling was also checked and both TX and RX aerials had a good match.
The tower also hosts a standby dual band aerial for Raynet use and this has subsequently been checked and matching is good for 2m and 70 cm.
The repeater was off air for just under a day whilst the Yaesu Repeater unit was returned to the supplier for a firmware update. This should solve the issue of the through audio being inhibited when the transmission is started whilst the CWID is happening. The update also allows the squelch hysteresis to be adjusted which should help with receiving weak stations and avoid the rather sudden drop off of signals.
The mains has been restored to the site and the repeater is back running. Root cause of circuit trip is being investigated but likely to be equipment in another area of the site.
GB3KY 