February
The new year has brought its own set of challenges. We have had snow and ice, with ice being the bigger problem. We had power outages which included the 88 repeater for a while. It is on a battery backup, yet one of the key pieces of equipment was not on the backup. We were able to use the 150 repeater in the meantime. Power is back up at the site and all is working well.
Repeater Sites:
There has been a lot of work to update the internet connectivity and networking at both sites. Users connecting to Allstar and Echolink may have noticed some improvements with overall quality of connection. The two repeater sites are in the process of getting linked.
The 88 site is going to get an extra set of duplexers for a total of 6. We had a problem over a year ago with the repeater, we got it narrowed down to interference from the amplifier making it back into the system. The extra two duplexers will give us a higher decibel of separation. One thing with a club is there are members with different experiences willing to help out with various things. We are grateful to have a member with equipment to re-tune all the cans of the duplexers, as well as some other great ideas that will help the site work to the best potential that it can. At the very top of the list of work (literally) is a new antenna!
Winter Field Day:
We had a successful winter field day. It was quite cold and we did find that one heater doesn't do as much when it's close to the teens out! We didn't operate the whole time, although we had a very successful run without any troubleshooting needed. The bands were quite open with a nice pileup on different bands.
That's it for this newsletter. We got more exciting things coming.
Sometimes simple is more.
Happy Holidays from LCARA. Stay safe, travel safe, and get to your destination safely.
Thank you Cincinnati Hamfest
