Investigation for a Portland repeater in our network

At the January business meeting, Peter VK5BE sought club support to investigate building a repeater at Portland to support our members there. The club agreed to the investigation.

Since then Peter and Col Vk5dk travelled to Mt Eckersley, just north of Heywood to see what might be possible.

While there they were able to access our Channel 6 repeater on The Bluff from ground level using a 1/4 wave antenna on the roof of Peter’s car. This gave the group some hope. The distance is 100km.

Col had brought along a yagi for 70cm and using that they were able to work the repeater via the UHF links at The Bluff. Signals were noise free and it should be understood that the UHF beams were pointing to Naracoorte and Mt Benson, not Mt Eckersley. So a link will not be a problem.

This gives strong hope that a repeater at Mt Eckersley would be a good proposition for both linking and providing coverage to the area. The view from the top was very impressive.

While there they spoke to the farmer and he was positive about hosting the repeater on his farm.

Further updates will be made when more progress is made. No final decision on proceeding with the project has been made, it’s investigations at this stage.

Current users’ tower on the other side of the fence, the boundary fence can be seen
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