On Sunday, May 17th, a team comprising of Peter VK5BE, Colin VK5DK, Andrew VK5VKC, and Andrew VK5MAS fully dismantled the 70cm repeater from the Crouch Street North water tower site in Mount Gambier.
This included the repeater and link equipment rack, all coax feeders and power cables, antennas, and solar panels.
As a result, the VK5ROH repeater will be off the air until further notice, for hopefully only a week or so.
The 70cm repeater will now be re-built using mains power in lieu of solar power, plus will no longer be linked to the 2m repeater VK5RSE at Mount Graham, once it is re-installed in our new facility at The Bluff.
Improved IRLP and Echo-Link facilities will also be added later.
Initially we’ll retain the off air feed from the clubrooms but a wifi link is highly likely. WiFi will be a significant upgrade by allowing us to put the IRLP/Echolink node at The Bluff. We await some work to be done at the Gambier Electronics site.
VK5RSE at Mount Graham still remains on air as a stand alone 2m repeater.
Report by Peter VK5BE on behalf of the repeater committee