COLORADO CONNECTION
NEWS
OCTOBER 27,,2007
By:
Paul Shackelford WBØQMR
Your Board of Directors Top Left
to bottom right: Paul (WB0QMR), Linda (N0UQF)
Bill (KB0NWM), Dave (N0PEO) and John (N5EHP)
***** COLORADO CONNECTION
NEWS *****
COLORADO CONNECTION NEWS
COLORADO CONNECTION NEWS 05.23.2009
The spring season is off to a roaring start here at The Connection. We have already had our first repeater trip of the season and it was to Colorado Springs to move the repeater to a better location on the mountain. There were many volunteers that donated lots of hours of hard work but also some expensive hardware to get this job done. Thanks very much to all of you. It’s people like you that keep The Connection running. Following is a report from Jim Patton (N0WGQ) and Nate Duehr (WYØX) on how the trips went and a list of most of the helpers on the project.
Summary of COS work (Saturday, May 2) -- Jim Patton N0WGQ:
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On Saturday, three Colorado Connection volunteers (David Bosley KDØDHK,
Ryan Gardner KB0CTR, & Jim Patton N0WGQ) went to the mountain to start
the work of moving the Connection's repeater to the new building.
Work completed:
- Removed UHF dual-beam yagi antenna system from side of building
(had to move about 4-5' of snow to gain access to the antennas).
- Removed the 4-bay folded dipole VHF antenna from old tower
- Took down and coiled the old VHF 1/2" hardline feed
- Disassembled the repeater for transport (removed the duplexer
system and the main power supply from the repeater cabinet).
- Transported all of the Connection's equipment, feed line, etc.
from the old site to the new building.
- Swept and cleaned up the the old building
- Reassembled the repeater cabinet in the new building - ready for
the new feed line and antennas to be installed the next day.
Jim (N0WGQ)
Summary of COS work today:
(If I missed anything,
please reply to all! I'm definitely way
overdue for bed, but wanted to get this
out. I also talked to Dave Novotny on
the phoneand he's up to date on all
of the information below.)
We had 12 people at Colorado
Springs today.
Crew (in no particular
order):
KB0NWM Bill Jacobsen
N0WBW John Maxwell
W0IG John Thomson
KD0BSY George Knight
KC0RBT Jim Wilson
N0IX Doug Gentges
N0WGQ Jim Patton
KC0FHN Bill Miller
N3KQX John Grumling
KC0SUL Dennis Severns
W0KU Scott Burkhardt
WY0X Nate Duehr
(Hopefully I got all those
right, and thanks for bearing with me while I "wrote" them down
in the snow/rain mix, guys!)
Work is not complete, but we
made a huge dent in the hardest parts of the tower move.
Things that are completed:
- 2 new Sinclair 2-bay VHF
antennas mounted, one Colorado Connection at the
80' level, and one CRA at
the 60' level.
- 1 dual-yagi UHF phased
array for the Connection's link to Mt. Thorodin
mounted on the left side at
80'.
- 2 X runs of 7/8"
hardline to the 80' level for the Connection, and 1 X
7/8" and 1 X 1/2"
hardline run to the 60' level for CRA.
- All tower side hardline
connectors in place on the hardline.
Colorado
Connection's hardline
attached to both of their antennas. CRA
1/2"
hardline attached to VHF
antenna.
- 7/8 "stubs"
cleaned out of all the hangers in the tower cable tray and
removed from the site.
- "Electrical"
hangers cleaned off the Unistrut and stored inside the
building, for the moment.
- Colorado Connection's
cabinet moved into new building.
Powered up and
connected to polyphaser
panel via RG-400 jumpers.
- General site cleanup
including removing ALL cut wires and other debris
from the ice bridge and the
multiple bare copper wires that were run from
tower to the building via
the ice bridge.
Things not completed: (Weather chased us off the tower... ice
pellets and
rain after 4PM)
- All hardline is NOT in the
cable tray on the tower with hangers.
It's
temporarily lashed to the
tower with tie wraps. Once it's
properly placed
in the hangers, the
Connection's already terminated hardline may be a bit
too long. A follow-up cleanup trip may be necessary to
shorten their
hardline by a few feet as
the hardline has some minor "s-turns" in it as it
comes across the ice bridge
right now. The Commscope smooth wall
connectors
can be removed and re-used
without damage.
- CRA 7/8" hardline is
not in final position and is temporarily
weatherproofed and pulled up
to the height needed and tied off. A large loop
of 7/8" extends behind
the tower for final positioning. Both
7/8"
and 1/2" are
unterminated inside the building so length can be determined
prior to cutting.
- Grounding is somewhat
"iffy" at the tower base.
Today's plan included
doing a cadweld shot to
attach the ice bridge ground system to the tower and
the ground rod, but no one
had proper grinding tools to properly clean the
connections for a
cadweld. There is a piece of #2 around
a nut at the
bottom of the tower tied
into the old ground rod and ice bridge as a
temporary ground for the
moment.
- Connection's old VHF
antenna from the previous tower is temporarily stored
underneath the building at
the new site.
- CRA link antenna is still
on the old tower. Link yagi will be
moving
over, and the VHF will
return to Denver. I didn't get to see
the other site
personally but there may
also be hardline removal and cleanup (certainly for
CRA, not sure how much
cleanup work the Connection crew got done on
Saturday).
- CRA's cabinets and
equipment are still in the old building.
- Connection's repeater is
on-air, but something's wrong with both receive
and transmit. Connection will be returning to
troubleshoot.
- Antenna aiming was
problematic due to cloud cover. Both
groups may wish
to re-aim things better with
better visibility. Jim's help here
(since he
had been up the tower
previously) was much appreciated. The
site's
crossarms aren't
"square" with anything and magnetic compasses are generally
useless in the high EM
environment up there!
- Later in the summer, Dave
Novotny would appreciate people for a crew to
move the generator from the
old building to the new building. He'll
keep in
touch regarding this
need. This will (continue) to provide
reliable backup
power for all of the
repeaters, and is important for everyone on the site.
As you can see, Connection
is quite a bit "ahead" of CRA at this point
-- this was partly
on-purpose to keep the number of people in the building
and on-site down to a
manageable number today, but the hardline and antenna
work was called off when we
lost our weather window late this afternoon.
I'm planning on returning to
the site next weekend (which particular day is
undetermined at this point
in time, or both?) to continue the CRA move.
If
I can find additional
climbing help again, we'll work on hanging the CRA
link yagi, attaching it to
the 7/8", and then getting all the hardline in
the hangers all the way down
the tower. If I can't find climbing
help,
we'll work on moving the
cabinet and duplexers, etc.
I also have Thursday off this week if anyone's really REALLY bored
on
Thursday, and I may do some
work on unracking and moving gear if I can find
a small amount of help for
that during the week. Playing it by
ear, right
now. COS is a long drive for a "solo"
run, and working alone due to
wildlife is never 100% safe
on Cheyenne Mtn, unless indoors with the door
shut.
John Thomson is planning on
returning to troubleshoot the Connection's
system in the very near
future also.
Still plenty of work to be
done, but HUGE thank you's for all who helped
today. The really hard part of getting the antennas
(other than a
lightweight link yagi for
UHF) for the two groups up the tower and mounted,
and the hardline up the
tower and almost into final position for all (darn
weather!) is a huge load off
of everyone's mind. There's at least
one more
day of climbing needed for
these two groups, and Dave Novotny at CMRG also
mentioned he's more than
interested in any help they can get hanging their
hardline and gear up on the
100' level later on, also. If anyone
feels the
need to help out, Dave would
sure appreciate it since CMRG is our "site
contact" and our
general ham "hosts" at the site.
There are so many people who
had roles in the work done so far that simply
wouldn't have gotten done,
if they weren't there and willing to help out
with various pieces of this
puzzle, that it'd be unfair not to say thank you
to all, but some special
thanks to our climbers, KC0SUL Dennis, and W0KU
Scott for their skill and
cold-endurance toward the end of the day, John and
Jim for running a tight (and
safe) ship, John & RMHAM for providing
THOUSANDS of dollars worth
of hardline via their connections (and the ham
2-way business owner who
donated it to John and Scott), and EVERYONE for
working SAFELY -- everyone
came home with all appendages intact, and with no
injuries. At the end of the day, that's always the best
part.
Other notable items
today:
Sheriff visited the site
twice. The first time was obviously as
a
"courtesy" and to
make sure we weren't a band of copper thieves... a serious
problem at all
communications sites in the last few years.
The second time,
he asked if we had heard his
siren -- he was scaring off a mountain lion for
us! Thanks to the Sheriff for his patrols and
his
action to thwart off
potentially dangerous animals. Radio
sites may
look like they're
"populated areas" with all the buildings and gear, but
I've already had one
experience with a momma black bear and cub at Cheyenne
Mtn, and I'm sure it won't
be the last time I see wildlife up there!
One of the Connection's
BRAND NEW Polyphasers was bad, right out of the box.
This is not encouraging as a
sign of "quality control" on the part of
Polyphaser. They're excellent devices, but having a dead
one straight out
of the new box and plastic
wrapper sure had us nervous until we tested
around it.
Thank you all... see you in
Colorado Springs again soon! Great job
so far,
everyone! Thanks again!
Nate WY0X
President, CRA
There will be one more work party at that site coming up to move the generator up to the new site. A bulletin regarding the details of where and when will be forwarded when all is firm.
The coverage on from the new location is said to be much better in Colorado Springs and elsewhere. We would really like to hear from you if you see any change in coverage or are now able to access the repeater (145.13) when you were not able in the past. Please forward all reports to Jim (NØWGQ) at jim@jpatton.com
See the new coverage map for Colorado Springs on the REPEATERS page of this web site. It is compliments of Chuck Kimball (NØNHI)
We know times are tough these days and the same can be said for The Connection. For this reason We are asking that if you have any Good Working Gear or Cash or can volunteer in any way we can especially use your help this year. Please donate from the Pay Pal link on our website www.colcon.org or mail to P.O. Box 22134 Denver, Co 80222 or contact John (WØIG) at Ham Radio Outlet in Denver 1-800-444-9476. Any help will be appreciated.
Remember our Net on Thursday Nights at 20:00 Mountain time on all Connection Repeaters.
Paul WBØQMR
73
From The Colorado Connection Board Of Directors
N5EHP John
NØUQF Linda
KBØNWM Bill
NØPEO Dave
WBØQMR Paul
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