Current Events
Recovering
From a Forest Fire
The end of April and first part of May 2011 turned into one of the
worst ever due to fires in West Texas. The contents of our steel
shelter at Longfellow mountain were incinerated. Miraculously, a
newer shelter, constructed during the previous year survived. The
power line was thoroughly toasted. Our solar panels were heavily
sprinkled with fire retardant liquid. Fire denuded the sparse
vegetation on the mountain side.
We immediately began
construction of a 2-link plus repeater relay station. We purchased
A new 350' power feed line: 3 x #10 wire with tough insulation,
intended for laying on the ground in oil fields.
The new station was assembled in our standard fashion. First, a
used steel cabinet was patched up and painted. This one mounted a
roof-mounted 10" fan, which we replaced along with a thermostat We
wired the cabinet with quad duplex outlets, lights and switch.
Later, we installed 12 vdc wiring with Maxifuses™ for wire
protection. A heat sink mounts a pair of Schottky diodes for
auto-switching emergency power.,
Our basic
stations consist of a controller and 3 radios: a repeater and 2
link radios. Using a design evolved from the 70's, we mount link
receivers in an aluminum box. A BNC coaxial connector and a
handful of feed-thru capacitors attached to DB-9 connectors
accommodate incoming and outgoing control, audio and RF signals.
We construct our link transmitters similarly. Repeaters are
commercial mobile transceivers converted for duplex use. All
in-cabinet wiring is 100% shielded. External RF connections pass
through bulkhead mount lightning arrestors.
Solar panels, mounted on poles cemented into rock, feed electricity to a pair of deep cycle 100 amp hr batteries. We built a Bryce solar controller (Bryce M. The FET charge controller: QST 1992 (Jan) 45-49). The batteries and solar controller live in a separate ventiated steel box, also mounted on a pipe cemented into the rock.
We are proud
of our grounding system. We utilized bentonite slurry, poured over
a ground rod laid in a shallow trench chiseled in solid rock. This
is a surprisingly effective system, as proven by actual
measurements. We have published the details:( Higgins LS Jankowski
J. Connecting wires to rocks. CQ
VHF 2006; 9(1) 12-13,76-77). Our completed station is
now back on the air. It provides a link in our trans-Texas
backbone between Pandale and Ft. Stockton.
Bentonite Grounding
System
New Shack Receives Door Surgery
Working (?) Crew
Our New Relay Station (Controller Not Shown)
