W7BU’s third repeater is the ’74, operating on a frequency
of 146.740 MHz, with an offset of -.600 MHz, and a PL tone of
118.8. It is located on Asbury Ridge, approximately 2400 feet above
the coastal town of Arch Cape, Oregon
Recently, a major winter storm in December, 2007, later classified
as a Full Class 3 Hurricane (the first time such a classification
has ever been made of a Pacific Ocean spawned storm which hit our
coast), with winds recorded up to 159 MPH before anemometers
failed, caused heavy damage to two of our repeaters, even though
they continued to operate - which surprised us all (that they
operated, not that they were damaged)! Here are some pictures of
the trip that Jay Shepherd [W7FBM], Allen Fenton [NM7Q],and Ken
Lucke [WA7PIX] (the photographer) to repair the antenna. In the
first photo (left), you can see the broken antenna swinging in the
breeze - even though broken, it had still operated at reduced
capacity until manually shut down. Fortunately, there wasn’t even a
scratch on the solar panels.
The trip up was not without its surprises - despite being several
weeks since the storm, several rather large spruce trees were still
down across the logging road up to the repeater site overlooking
Arch Cape. Unfortunately, no one in the repair party had remembered
to bring a chain saw, so they had to use a Sawz-All to cut the
trees out of the way - and the batteries ran down quickly.
Here you see Jay [W7FBM] & Allen [NM7Q] wrestling with the tree
(Ken [WA7PIX] helped, of course, but also had to take pictures),
and the vehicle(s) squeaking by after the tree trimming. Both
vehicles taken that day sustained some minor damage and paint
scratching from the road conditions, but it was shrugged off by
both owners as incidental.
Once the repeater site was finally obtained, the destruction was
impressive - solid, commercially built fiber-reinforced fiberglass
antennas snapped like toothpicks and laying on the ground, and the
antenna wire dangling from the broken mast.
The antenna wire was apparently being tangled and untangled into
the UHF link antenna by the wind, which accounted for its reduced
and spotty operation. Luckily, none of the transmitter’s circuits
were damaged as a result.
The interior of the shack was intact with no damage from the storm,
other than a little dampness. Someone
had tried to force
the door open at some time since the last visit, however. Here you
see the whole operation, and a closeup of the repeater itself.
Here’s Jay [W7FBM] in his tower-climbing mode, taking down the
broken stub of the antenna, in preparation for replacing it with
the new antenna.
The final picture shows the repaired and once-again fully
functional repeater as it was left it that day. A stubbier antenna
was left in place of the taller one, to hopefully avoid creating
quite as much wind load in the future so that similar trips are not
necessary.
For a more complete photographic record of that trip, please
click here.
