THE FALLBROOK AMATEUR RADIO CLUB RELOCATES TO THE CDF TOWER

FOLLOW-UP WORK PARTY OF OCTOBER 23, 2004

Wayne Dewey (WD6AHX), hot off the tower, and Bob Gonsett (W6VR), coping with low temperatures inside the equipment vault, discuss FARC's repeater installation. Behind them is microwave equipment for UCSD's HPWREN high speed wireless Internet project. Read about that exciting project at http://hpwren.ucsd.edu/.

These three photos by Ken Dickson (WØPSM).

Ron Patten (KG6HSQ) manicures the repeater installation.

Daniel Spears (AJ7SK) locates an improved 12 VDC point for powering the 2-meter receiver's GaAsFET preamplifier.

The top and bottom of each FARC antenna were rigidly clamped to the tower platforms on September 18. Soon after, there was some concern that the antennas could be literally torn apart during a winter storm when the platforms swayed. To solve this problem, the top clamps were loosened by WD6AHX during the October 23 work party, and insulated (non-metallic) "slip sleeves" were inserted between the clamps and the antenna masts. The sleeve for the 2-meter antenna is shown here. Now, each antenna can move freely up and down inside its sleeve. Not even thermal expansion will bother us. Thanks Wayne!

Front view of FARC's repeater equipment consisting almost entirely of used gear. The left rack holds the cavity filters, the right rack holds the repeaters.

Rear view of FARC's repeater equipment. Each repeater has its own power supply, so one failure will not take the whole system down. AC power is provided by SDG&E, but the building has an emergency power generator and FARC is wired into the circuit.

FARC's two antennas are depicted in this photo. The antennas are obviously well elevated, but their heights above sea level are comparable to the heights used earlier at the ATC site. The ATC site is at the very top of the hill. The CDF site is a bit lower, but the tall CDF tower makes up the difference.

Flashback to September 18: The first snow of the season has just fallen on San Gorgonio Mountain, 53 miles NNE of Red Mountain. Lucky our crew got any work done that day with such a magnificent view!

Thanks for visiting our picture pages!

Original Repeater

10 Year on Red Mtn. Presentation, PDF File

NC Fire Site

Views From Red Mountain

Red Mt. Camera

Home