Current Repeater Bulletins

7/30/2011 - The WB4IUY 10m repeater on 29.620- is down at the moment. A recent electrical storm took out the receiver, and it is now on the bench being repaired. The damage is minor, and should be back up and running very quickly.

7/10/2011 - The WB4IUY 10m repeater on 29.620- is running on driver power only, about 10 watts. The PA will be repaired and have it back up to full smoke very soon.

9/23/2010 - The WB4IUY 440 repeater on 442.400- has lost it's PA. It is running at VERY low power, around 100mw, at this time.

11/21/2009 - The WB4IUY 10 meter repeater on 29.620- is now back on the air and running well. It could use a more lofty TX location, but it's running and making contacts again.

3/23/2008 - Some pics and info about the Zebulon site updates are now online. Click HERE to have a look!

3/17/2008 - The new circulator in the 442.40+ repeater has now failed, and was replaced. The problem was traced to a low level transmitter stage that was generating harmonics. The increased current in the circulator was desoldering components. The low level amp stage was replaced and all now seems to be well.

3/16/2008 - The circulator was found to be defective in the 442.40+ repeater, and was replaced.

3/15/2008 - The K4RTP-7 SEDAN node on 145.77, and the W4RAL-7 Packet BBS nodes were re-installed at the new Zebulon site. They are combined into a single antenna with a 6 cavity repeater duplexer and are running nicely.

3/14/2008 - The 442.40+ repeater receive interference problem has worsened. All plug-in boards were removed and replaced, as the problem seems to be associate with vibration. No _real_ repair was found.

3/11/2008 - The 442.40+ repeater has developed a problem with interference when transmitting. An additional pass cavity was installed on the transmitter.

3/7/2008 - An intermittant receive problem on 442.40+ repeater was traced down to bad duplexer jumper cable.

2/25/2008 - The 442.40+ repeater was installed at the new Zebulon site. On-air testing is underway...

2/24/2008 - The new Zebulon repeater site was finally completed and ready for re-installation of the Zebulon repeaters.

6/5/2007 - The new Zebulon repeater site was approved, and is now being assembled and readied for re-installation of the Zebulon repeaters. Much work has to be done, including installation of a concrete pad & weatherproof cabinet, power, cables, paint, etc.

3/5/2007 - The Zebulon repeater site was dismantled, prior to removal of the water tower. We are now in search of a new site for the 10m, 6m, 220, & 440 repeaters, in addition to the packet nodes. Bummer...

1/14/2003 - After 9 months of negotiations, frequency studies, meetings, writing letters, providing insurance info, ate....the management at the prospective repeater site for 147.30 in Wilson has changed hands. New management declined our ability to install the repeater at the new site. 147.30 has been returned to the frequency pool with SERA and the Wilson repeater retired with no ETA for re-installation.

6/8/2002 - More tower work was done at the Clayton tower site today. Click HERE to have a look!

6/2/2002 - The K4RTP-7 SEDAN node in Zebulon was updated to K-net protocol by a WA4MJF chip replacement, and the callsign is now K4RTP-8 to avoid an interference situation when the system drops to emergency power.

6/2/2002 - Several more days of work have been done at the Clayton 147.39 repeater site, including installing lightning protection on the AC power circuits and all antenna feedlines. We're beginning to feel a bit more safe about this new installation, and trying to take as many precautions as possible to avoid another serious strike (if that's possible!).

5/26/2002 - A new 145.01 W4RAL-4 packet BBS node was installed at the site in Clayton, and we still have a bit more work to do on it.

5/23/2002 - The 442.400 is back on the air from a test antenna at the WB4IUY shop. Most of the serious repairs have been completed, and only minor controller work remains.

5/21/2002 - WooHoooo!!! The new 147.39 repeater is now back online. The site was refurbished, a new repeater cabinet was fabricated, new cavities were assembled, a new repeater was constructed, and all is now back as it should be.

5/21/2002 - BULLETIN! New 147.39 repeater is now completed and on the air in Clayton. While it was being constructed to replace the repeater described on the TEARA repeater page, we documented some of it. Want to see pictures of the bulletin described herein? Click =>HERE<= to see it while it was under construction!

5/3/2002 - Man, the Clayton site took a lightning hit last night, and took out the W4RAL-4 packet BBS node, power supply, amplifier, TNC, and did a bit of damage to the antenna system. Someone tell Zeuss to quit picking on us!!

5/2/2002 - A new site has been secured for the 147.30 repeater in Wilson. Decent sites are hard to come by, and we're surely thankful for this one. Lots of stuff had to be done to determine compatability, including an intermod study involving a wide range of frequencies. More on this site will be posted later.

4/26/2002 - The old 147.30 repeater, duplexers, antennas, and assiciated hardware were removed from the Wilson site and returned to the WB4IUY shop for repairs/updates, prior to relocating to a new site. Whew, that thing is HEAVY!!!

4/19/2002 - A problem arose in the messaging system on the 147.39 repeater and was corrected.

4/12/2002 - The last of the 147.39+ cavity cabling was completed to allow cohabitation of the site with a packet node on 145.01. Sometimes, things that seem simple on the surface....well, you know :-)

3/30/2002 - Testing was performed at a possible site for an east-bound packet BBS node today. Much site noise proved the site unusable, but a plan was assembled to hopefully work around this...

3/25/2002 - The W4RAL-7 bbs Packet Node on 147.54 developed a transmit power amp problem. Radios were swapped out, and an additional outboard PA was installed.

3/6/2002 - The 10 meter repeater's transmit site seems to have developed an an intermittant antenna problem. As a result, UHF noise is generated that blocks the link rx. An additional low pass filter was installed on the 10m tx, and that seemed to be a reasonable 'patch' for the time being (until we can get up the tower and locate the antenna problem).

2/23/2002 - The 10 meter repeater's receive site controller thumbed it's nose up at me today, and required the replacement of a timer chip. All is once again well with 29.620-.

2/19/2002 - The 10 meter repeater's transmit site power supply is showing it's behind. It was revamped today, and all seems to be well again.

2/14/2002 - The 10 meter repeater is having some aches and pains after being off of the air for some time. A bit of trouble arose in the amplifier, but that was repaired today and everthing is running again.

2/10/2002 - The 224.80 220 mhz repeater is getting a synthesizer overhaul. Much work is yet to be done, as this repeater was also a fatality when the 10m repeater was struck by lightning.

1/4/2002 - Now that it's cold outside, I've slowed down with other activities and am back on the repeater projects... Many things are underway, including new packet nodes, repeater repairs, etc. The 10 meter repeater is now back online, the 442.40 and 224.8 repeaters are getting a facelift, a new BBS packet nodes are under way for Rocky Mount and Clayton on 145.01, a new SEDAN node is underway for Clayton on 145.77, and the 147.30 repeater will be undergoing a move before warmer weather returns....

The following activities occurred on April 6 and 9-11, 2001....

Once the Repeater's PA problems were corrected, Steve and I set out to begin completion of the control system. Part of the control system is built from a refurbished S-Com 6k repeater controller. The original 6k, in use 2 repeaters ago (what a way to measure time!) in Clayton, was almost completely destroyed by lightning in 1996. I tossed it to the side and almost wrote it off for trash....until I ran across a ham on the internet who had another 6k with problems. After purchasing it, I was able to build one working unit from the two failed controllers. These are fairly expensive units, costing over $600 when new...so I felt it was worth the effort to repair (if possible).

Two Digital Voice recorders were pulled from salvage and repaired for storing the longer messages planned for the repeater. These messages will inform users of VE Session info, describe the TEARA repeater network, remind users of the Nets and Meetings, etc.

DC Blowers were added to the repeater to additionally cool the Power Amplifier, Voltage regulators for the power control circuitry, and power rectifier assembly. These are areas where we've had heat related failures in the past, so we thought we'd be a bit ahead of the game to add additional cooling. DC blowers were chosen, to provide cooling protection during periods of time when the repeater may be operating on DC backup power (no AC power).

Backup batteries were purchased and installed on the Digital Voice Recorders, to retain the voice messages during power outtages. In the past, volatile memory was used in this aplication, and consequently caused me to make a lot of unnecessary trips to Clayton to reprogram things.

The audio interfaces from the DVR's were completed, as well as all of the associated controller interfacing. These messages will play at predetermined intervals, including the initial ID period. A control unit is being designed and fabricated as of this typing, that will sequence various messages to the transmitter, and provide an interface for a digital voice clock (for time of day announcements) and the UHF link radio.

A Radio Shack talking clock is being gutted and modified to provide remote time of day announcements over the repeater. The repeater will automatically 'speak' the time of day at the top of the hour. In addition, users will have an access code allowing the time of day announcement to be requested at will. Another talking function being interfaced to the repeater is the initial ID'r. The initial ID is usually the first message to be played when the repeater is 'awakened' from sleep. This is being built from the electronics originally used in a talking greeting card by Hallmark.

Click =>HERE<= to see pictures associated with work done on April 6 and 9-11.

The following activities occurred on April 4/5, 2001....

This is another "heads up" on another large amount of work completed on the 147.39 repeater... on Wednesday night, 4/5 (also early AM and lunchtime 4/5!), another major leap towards the completion of 147.39 was made. In recent days, I've been testing the rx sensitivity of the repeater's receiver when in "repeat" mode. The receiver is very sensitive, but would often become desensitized when the transmitter was online. Lots of testing was performed on the duplexers, transmitter, exciter, etc, in an effort to isolate the problem. Finally, it became apparent that the transmitter was intermittently generating wide band noise and exhibiting some instability in tuning.

Late in the night of 4/4, I decided to replace the transmitter's PA (power amplifier) assembly. On 4/5, Steve KD4WIW and I met to formulate a plan and decide what we'd use for the PA. We were all set to pull the entire RCA transmitter (exciter) and PA, and replace it with a 100 watt Motorola Micor (requiring the modification of the Micor, a lot of hardware and electrical modifications, etc) when we were able to locate an exact replacement RCA Series 1000 power amplifier.

Steve, Tim, and I began work last night around 7pm, and by about 11:30pm, a new power amplifier was installed and tuned. The wide band noise problem is now non-existent, and the repeater rx/tx performance in "repeat mode" is what we were hoping for.

Now that the RF troubles seem to be resolved, we're moving forward to complete the interface of the various peripheral devices (the remaining voice messaging equipment, voice clock, weather radio, ac power detector, dc blowers for emergency power cooling, and UHF link transceiver).

The repeater is online at my shop for continued testing and work. Please use it as much as possible, to help me "shake out" any more bugs than may exist. The recent use has been invaluable to me, and was one reason the wide band noise became so apparent. Signal reports have come in from KB4ZMB, AC4UD, KQ4MS, KE4PUV, KD4UAI, K4CMH, N1GMV, KG4ENL, KD4WIW, WA4MJF, KE4VNX, WB4VOD, and others. Thanks for the help!

I've taken many photos of the ongoing work, and will post them on the website ASAP for your viewing enjoyment :-)

Click =>HERE<= to see pictures associated with work done on 4/4-5/01

The following activities occurred on April 2, 2001....

Lots more work was done to 147.39 today, in light of the scattered showers and such. Boy, this has been a busy weekend for repeater related work! Steve KD4WIW, Tom KE4NGH, Tim Richards (fellow Vulcan rider who is interested in ham radio), and I spent the day working on the repeater.

Modifications were made to the last voice message recorder, bracketry was fabricated for the message recorders and they were installed, permanent mounts for the controller were fabricated and installed, the receive preamp was mounted to the cabinet, lots more wiring was completed in the cabinet, rx and tx ports were installed through the cabinet, a new ac power distribution system and duplex receptacle installed inside of the cabinet, terminal strips were installed for various accessory connections, binding posts were installed for the battery backup connections, a new double shielded cable was fabricated and installed between the preamp and repeater rx, an audio delay board was installed in the controller, etc.... There is still a bit of work to do, but things are moving along pretty well.

I took some photos, to be posted on the website in a day or so. The repeater is running on a test antenna, a bit higher up now. Please have a check and see if you can hear it in your various locations.

Click =>HERE<= to see pictures associated with work done on 4/2/01

The following activities occurred on April 1, 2001....

4/1/2001 BULLETIN! Much new work was done at the Zebulon site in April of 2001. Wanna see it? Click =>HERE<= to check out part of the picture archives on this work.

Steve KD4WIW, Tom KE4NGH, Tim Richards (prospect for the amateur service!), Jay KQ4MS, and I were doing tower work all day today in Zebulon. We climbed up and down the Zebulon water tower waaayyy too many times to be fun, hehehe. I'm sure I'll be sore tommorrow! We climbed up to 150 feet, pulled up a lot of gear, swapped out a defective UHF antenna on the 442.400 repeater, removed a 220mhz antenna, rerouted a bunch of stuff for the KQ4MS-3 APRS node and W4RAL-7 Packet BBS node, eliminated a triplexer that was causing a little trouble, installed some new jumpers and replaced some leaky connectors and vapor seal, installed 2 new antennas (for the 29.620 and the 53.07 repeaters), about 400' of feedline, secured a bunch of cabling all over the tower (and I do mean ALL OVER!), cleaned up inside the repeater cabinet and pulled a bunch of needed service on the voice and digital systems (along with MUCH rewiring), and called it a day long after dark.

Things are progressing on the 147.39 repeater. I've gone through the duplexers and repaired/returned them (the lightning hit damaged one of the cavities). The receive preamp is rebuilt once again, and now installed. Much of the controller programming is now completed. 4 new voice messaging systems have been readied, and one if currently running on the repeater in test mode. I spent most of the day on Friday, working on a desense problem caused by wide band noise generated by the tx, but now have that corrected. Tim and I tracked down an intermittant problem with the tx on thursday night, and a good bit of mechanical work was done preparing and mounting hardware in the cabinet. The system is beginning to resemble a repeater, and is now very stable on frequency. Probably, Sunday night, it'll pop online from a higher "test" antenna at my qth.

Click =>HERE<= to see pictures associated with work done on 4/1/01