Oct 7th, 2019 Timberline Repeater update:

Huge thanks to our friends at Timberline Lodge, who today provided ARRG Tech team members a quick Snowcat ride up to the 147.120/444.225 repeater site.

Both 147.120 and the recently iffy 444.225 are fixed, linked back together and working great!

It took 3 trips to Timberline, but it’s back working. Big special thanks goes out to Paul Nyland, K7PN, Dale Justice, K7WW, Warren Winner. W7JDT, Yuuki Saki, K7SAK, Aaron Scheiss, K7ASJ and Marc Peterson, W7PM for all their help in upgrading and getting both repeaters back up and running.

73,
ARRG, Inc.

09/26 2016 Timberline Technical Work Update:

On Thursday, the ARRG Tech Team made a trip up to Timberline to work on the 147.120 repeater. We checked out the duplexer, feedline and antenna system.

We checked each coax jumper and found two slightly loose N connections; most likely due to years of high temperatures during the day and very cold temperatures at night.

We also found evidence that mice had been urinating on top of the individual 120 cavities.

While the cavities are factory sealed, the tuning stubs and the coax ‘tee’ ports feeding each can are not able to be fully sealed, and any liquid dripping down into these areas could temporarily cause desense or scratch on the incoming signal.

We brought up some tight fitting tarps and were able to wrap up the duplexers and other important gear with double layers.

Hopefully our efforts will keep all the gear dry this winter.

We also brought up and deployed a bunch of Decon to help control the mice..

We are pleased to report that the 147.120 is operating back at full power and now that everything is all tightened back up, we were showing a nice low VSWR, so we connected 147.120 to the higher gain Vhf panel antennas.

73,
W7PM

April 29, 2019 at 7:19:07 PM PDT

Re: The ARRG Tech Team has gone up to Timberline twice this past month to work on 147.120.

The current 147.120 signal is down because it’s operating on a newly installed temporary single antenna now, not the dual panel mounted wall antennas, which on Friday were showing a pretty high SWR.

The temp antenna we installed has much lower gain.

Users should consider using high power for the time being or consider utilizing the 444.225 + 100Hz side of the system, which is still working great.

What we’ve done thus far:
1- In August, we replaced both the transmitter and receiver of the 147.120 MSR-2000 repeater.
2- On Sept. 20th, 2019 , we installed a temporary test antenna which is facing West into Portland. We are getting a bit of desense in the system.

Our next step is to replace the duplexers, only because on Friday, inspecting the cans really closely, it appears that the mice have been urinating on the top of the cans and our tuning shafts were yucky.

Unfortunately, we are running out of good days to drive up to the site, so please be patient with us, we are working on it as fast as we can.

73,
Marc W7PM

K7RPT Repeater Updates

Their UHF repeater at the Sylvan LLC tower site will have a new frequency.

After April 27th, 2019, the new frequency will be 443.750 MHz  + (100Hz). The repeater will stay System Fusion capable, but will normally run in FM analog mode.  

A new 442.225 + 100Hz repeater, will be installed in Sandy at a 1,000 foot elevation site later this summer.