Arch Cape Repeater Visit March 5, 2006

This trip up was to investigate why the repeater was for all practical purposes off the air. Due to recent high winds the suspicion was that the antenna was down. On the trip was Jay, W7FBM, Frank, NM7R, and Dale, K7FW.

I tried to bring up the repeater with a hand held running 300 milliwatts on the drive up when probably within a half mile of the site and could not bring it up. When we arrived at the site I tried again and from 20 feet away I could "kerchunk" the repeater. We did find the commercial fiberglass enclosed antenna standing properly. A SWR check coming out of the cavities showed 20 watts forward power. So far so good. A check of reverse power also gave a reading of 20 watts. Not so good!

The problem was damaged coax. As the coax coming out of the antenna is an integral part of the antenna we put up a temporary antenna and some new feed line. It was 39 degrees at the site, with little bits of snow still showing, and really windy.  With the wind it was quite cold and uncomfortable, so these repairs will hold us until we get some better weather in order to get the old antenna back on the air with some new feed line.

Jay inspects the wet coax. Jay inspects the hard line below the antenna and finds water at the connector. The short section of coax below the antenna was clearly damaged. The extent of damage to the hard line is presently unknown.

Frank retrieves wattmeter from shack. Frank retrieves the watt meter from the shack. Having measured identical forward and reverse power at the cavities the next step was to see how things were up on the tower.

Frank brings the wattmeter to Jay. Despite the blue sky it was 39 degrees at the repeater site and very windy.


Jay chcecks SWR on the tower. Jay checks the SWR between antenna and feed line. The antenna was clearly bad but we had some concern about the hard line so replaced it as well.

Frank gives Jay the temporary antenna. Frank gives Jay the temporary antenna.

Temporary antenna install. Jay completes installation of the temporary antenna.

View to southwest. The view from repeater site to the southwest looking into Arch Cape.

View to northwest. The view from the repeater site to the northwest looking into Cannon Beach.

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