ALERT Network Santiago Repeater ALERT Repeater Building Upgrades - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

ALERT Network Santiago Repeater

ALERT Repeater Building Upgrades and Lessons Learned

ALERT Network

• 65 gauges in cooperation with CVWD
• 4 smart repeaters
• Santiago is our busiest repeater
• Transmits south to NWS and back to the

base station at the office

Repeater Backbone

Shared Repeater Building

• Rented space can be very expensive
• Many different visitors
• Have to keep equipment locked
• Lucky to find FREE space
• Land leases and new buildings expensive
• Towers another added cost
• Long term maintenance

Santiago Building

• Forest Service building
• 6 other government users
• 60+ year old building
• Updated 120’ tower (very nice)
• Ice protected cable way
• Building is at capacity
• Lucky to find FREE space

Repeater Building

Repeater Tower

Building Agreement

• Equipment in building compact
• Mounted on wall
• Room on tower leg facing east
• Open spot on cableways
• Open spot in cableport
• Dedicated AC circuit
• Forest service was glad to do less

paperwork

2014 A Year of Good Fortune

• One of the agencies decided to do

some upgrades to the building

• This was for their benefit, but would of

course help all tenants

• Was told they would be working at the

site but did not know the extent

New AC Drop and Panel

New Air conditioning

The Old Saying “Never Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth”!

• Unless mysteriously your ALERT gauges

sporadically start going out.

• I was unaware of all upgrades and

changes until I visited in July

• In May we lost contact with some fringe

sites

• Assumed it was a bad antenna since we

had seen same behavior before

July Visit

• Bird watt meter showed a return loss of

50%

• No visible problems
• Without a tower crew I couldn’t perform

any more than a visual Inspection

August Visit

• Tower crew $1000
• Bird watt meter still showed a return loss
• f 50%
• Anritsu showed a short on the line
• The frequency range of the antenna

appeared off indicating could be bad

• After removing antenna and connectors on

both ends cable still showed a short

Coax Inspection

2nd Visit Summary

• No visible problems with antenna
• Heliax on tower appeared to be shorted

(bad)

• Would require a 3rd visit
• Replacement of 8 year old 150’ of Heliax

and possibly the antenna

3rd Visit

• Different tower crew
• Ready to replace Heliax from building to

antenna on tower ($3000)

• I explained I still wanted to diagnose the

issue

• They did a really thorough cable

inspection and tracing

• Then I heard it, “Hey that cable you say is

yours goes to a different antenna” ?

The Problem

Moral of The Story

• Even the FBI makes mistakes
• Assume the unimaginable will happen
• Make things fool proof
• Mark ALL your cables on both sides of

connectors and at terminations

Questions & Discussion

Thank You