Were sorry to report
that there is a failure in the link somewhere which has downed our system.
We have good reason to believe that the problem exists with the Internet
supplier who are changing cables and equipment in their network, this
may be also associated with a vandalism attack on their equipment in the
city centre, on Monday 12th.
We are aware that our camera and weather station went down at 00:07BST on Monday 12th April 2021, at time of writing We have no news at all, of when we can expect a re-connection. GB7MT will operate as normal as it uses a Microwave RF link to GB7PO.
G4MYS
Were pleased to say were back!
Our logging kit records we returned at 1354Local Wednesday afternoon.
S.H.R.G.
FT 70D RAFFLE
Due to Covid restrictions we were unable to do the raffle on the date
last year at The Southampton ARC Meeting.
We followed FULL Government Guidelines and held
the Prize Draw on the Southampton ARC Zoom Meeting.
Well done to the winners
of the prizes and thank you to you who purchased a ticket. The profits
made go in to the running of our repeaters.
1st Prize - FT70D (Ticket 356) G8XIX Cheryl
2nd Prize - Alpha Tronix Power Supply (Ticket 351) G7NKZ Keith
3rd Prize - High Power Glass Insulators (Ticket 377) M0VBD Rob
4th Prize - Ceramic Insulators (Ticket 3) G8IPG Alan
Thank you for your support.
The Committee
GB7IV UNDER TESTS D-Star / C4FM / FM
Behavioral Tests were made on Saturday 6th March to establish if our "Sinclair" Canadian built duplexers would work successfully on the 2M band.
These test followed others where the D Star repeater would not behave and We were seeking a second test to try theory's out.
We tried with an Icom Repeater "GB7IV ", between 0800 & 1130 also Yaesu DR2 " fusion" type repeater, from around 1200 to 1800L and a pair of Tait TM 8110 mobiles which will form a complete standby GB3SH. from 1800 to 1845L
The tests used in D star, C4FM and FM this allowed different modes to be tested and with FM other non digital users could try it should they have wanted.
The tests consisted around attempting to run the transmitters at different power levels, with in the licence limit, to establish if the transmitter was happy and also importantly if any De sence was happeing, in other words if the transmitter was deafening the receiver, It difficult to establish this with the D star repeater as it wont run FM and neither does it have an S or RSSI meter. But what We did find out was that even at 17 watts our limit the D star repeater was happy.
After lunch it was the go of the Yaesu DR2, We put this in to dual mode, and found out how it operates in dual mode configuration. For the record it only sends its CWID on FM, and it will wait for the end of an over to CWID in FM, however when its time to CWID and its idle, even if the previous QSO was in C4FM, it still goes over to FM and sends the CWID. One or two may of had the surprise then of hearing " GB7IV " as a CWID and may of wondered wat's that?! This is when We started to note the desencing issue, while We were playing on FM.
In the evening We tried the Two Taits bearing in mind : We have had them at the repeater site on air behaving impeccably at 17 watts as GB3SH in to the SH duplexers without a hint of problems for several hours.
These Taits also played up when used on the IV channel and the IV duplexers, curiously it was beaconing as " GB3SH" of course,.. and anyone puzzled by finding a "GB7IV" in the afternoon must of wondered how GB3SH had QSYed! and perhaps even better why there was now two of them!
So the conclusion
is........
As three different repeaters from 3 different manufacturer's played up
shows that the Sinclair duplexers are not up to the job currently.
What to do about it is of course being pondered as We of course do not
want to be restricted to 3 watts from the transmitter !
As for why the D-star repeater played up previously, it is just possible
that as the twin screened RG214 cables were a very precise 319mm long,
this precise measurement is the length of coax links fitted to 145Mhz
duplexer cans, it is possible that this alone caused the problem as during
tests with the D-star repeater again today it did not misbehave.
So were glad We tried off site as it is more easy to fathom out what is happening when not working in the restrictions, of the repeater site be that the COVID Threat, The cold, it struggled to get above +5C today! And of the dragging all the kit to site in the first place.
We gratefully thank:
2E0TGE 2E0ZBE G4MYS G6DLJ G7AFN G8IPG & M1PVF for working through and help test the repeater system.
Thanks to: ICOM Yaesu and TAIT for some rather good radios to play with!
The Yaesu DR 2 from the tail connections note "callsign" GB7MT on the repeater, and "GB7IV" on the duplexers. The DR2's are dual band so it was no problems to reprogram GB7MT to become GB7IV!
The almost complete standby "GB3SH" on GB7IV channel just before its "go", sitting on top of the on air DR2, the top unit is the monitoring unit showing volts and current drawn, also holds the RSSI or S meter and a convenient " tx test inhibit and normal" switch on the front panel, and the electronics to enable the operating "On Battery " ident to be transmitted. Also fitted a thermal probe on the transmitter heat sink, with its display on the panel, this curiously worked from two 1.5 volt button cells in parallel !
SPARE REPEATER & DUPLEXERS
New 145Mhz duplexers
work very well !!
New build GB3SH repeater functions well !
We are pleased to say our desire to have a fully spare working VHF FM repeater ( cold standby ) has been built with Tait TM8100 mobiles, built in New Zealand, it's been soak tested in to a dummy load for several days, for thermal reasons, and tested on air, with the logic, a brand new design by M0XIX to our specifications with some features for ease of use and information. For instance when running on battery back up, a special tone will replace the end of over "Beat". This repeater has been tested with our brand new old stock Sinclair Canadian built Duplexer which was aligned to R7, 145.775 Mhz by Richard G4WFR.
The next thing to
do is take them to site and air test both of them on our aerials. A date
for this has yet to be decided as with everything its COVID dependent.
While the repeater is intended to be a fully spare GB3SH, that we can
take over to the site and remove the fitted unit and fit this one with,
it will be tested as GB7IV on the IV channel. This will enable us r to
find out if We can run two VHF repeaters on the same site at the same
time. GB7IV will of course be a data repeater, We want to try both Fusion
( C4FM ) and D-Star, it is however more easy for us to test with FM, and
even We have plenty of FM handhelds which are easy to test with!
We will let you know when We do these tests as we will need as many as
possible to engage in QSO's to ensure equipment compatibility with out
resorting to using even more filters.
CLICK IMAGE TO OPEN IN FULL
GB7IV DUPLEXERS GB7SU DMR
After around five
years of trying to get a set of working duplexers for GB7IV, a brand new
set has been successfully obtained privately.
This gives us the desired opportunity to run a digital repeater on VHF.
Once our engineers can get access to the repeater site, due to COVID restrictions,
We will take one of the spare FM GB3SH repeaters and set it up as GB7IV
on the GB7IV channel of R7:- 145.775MHz, and basically see if we can get
two repeaters to function on one site without problems!
We will need your
help with this experiment.
The experiment will use the aerials which we intend to use, as they are
already fitted!
We Will of course let you know as to when We will run these tests, as
those tests can only go on for a few hours at best, due to licensing,
and We will want QSOs to go through both the repeaters at the same time!
You will not need
special equipment, for these tests, just a FM transceiver on either the
usual GB3SH channel, or a transceiver on 145.775MHz FM, the old GB3PC
channel with CTCSS on 71.9 Hz. on transmit.
GB7IV will have CWID with the callsign GB7IV for legal reasons, and your
interest, as normally of course GB7 callsigns are only assigned to the
digital service. If you would like to help with the purchase of these
filters please contact: GB3SHSU@gmail.com on info on how to help with
this privately funded project.
GB7SU
In addition We are pleased to announce that Richard G4WFR, the keeper
of GB7SU and his digital DMR repeater station, which was close to Southampton
docks, has joined the SHRG with his repeater:- GB7SU which is currently
in West Southampton. The opportunity will be taken, to test to find out
how we can successfully run the DMR repeater on our site! Once again We
have the capacity aerial wise, and duplexer / filter wise, to run GB7SU
from our repeater site hopefully, without interference with a much improved
coverage for the DMR users.
We will on our link pages put information on how you too can get operational
on DMR, the kit to use, where to get equipment from, and to avoid how
to get the radio programmed,and how to obtain the needed "Digital
ID" for which a pdf of your Amateur licence is required
In the meantime keep
a watch on this site for more information
SOUTHAMPTON AMATEUR RADIO CLUB & REPEATER GROUP CLUB NIGHTS ON ZOOM
Since the Covid outbreak
the Southampton ARC holds now a regular get together on Wednesday Evenings
at 19:30 on Zoom Meeting.
Very informal chat at times has gone on to almost midnight. But you can
come and go as you please. You can hear about the latest repeater news
GB3SH, GB3SU, GB7MT & GB7IV
Topics range from
projects sharing of information, to subject not radio related but a good
chat always!!
Everyone is welcome from Licence to SWL and those interested to take on
the courses to become licenced.
Feel free to join us at anytime on a Wednesday evening, You dont have
to be in Southampton some of our regular visitors log in from all over
UK.... Maybe overseas soon?
For the Zoom access code e-mail Andy G4MYS at GB3SHSU@gmail.com
BROADCASTIFY
We are pleased to
announce that our GB3SU & GB7MT Broadcastify links are back on and
connected up. The GB3SU link has been back on for around 6 days.
They were moved due the pending loss of the needed internet connection
at their previous location. The new location is in a high signal area,
hopefully this will improve the recovered audio especially on GB3SU, and
reduce the QRM on 70cM.
Changes will be made to the aerials used over the next few days, which
may interrupt the service for a while esp on GB3SU. Reports are welcome,
esp on audio quality which we know is not BBC radio 4 quality to: GB3SHSU@gmail.com
WEATHER STATIO0N UPDATE
The weather station
returned online today at 16:00. The Weather Cam is still off line and
should return in the next 24 hours
WEATHER
STATION & CAMERA
Update: An engineer is on the way today to fix problem in West Southampton
We have lost our Video camera and Weather feed thanks to a fault on internet
provider network which occurred at 1101AM on Monday 28th of December,
which affected the Millbrook, Maybush and Shirley areas of Southampton.
While the fault in the network has been cleared, it has the effect of this has knocked out our connection to the internet. This fault is a variation on a theme on around 50% of the reason's as to why we lose connection, some of the faults are to do with the linking equipment, all of this as such is is all out of our control. Due to the COVID restrictions We can't go to our site to make our standby alternative arrangements work - frustratingly.
Unfortunately as this is late December, and many are on leave, We seem
to have little hope of any any improvement and a return to service of
the weather station or a viewable camera until Monday the 4th or later
on in the week. However We are pleased to say our internet free link to
GB7PO works fine, and this is the reason why we dont use the internet
for this link!