GB3TD and Secretary’s Report May 2008
GB3TD
The repeater has been operating with few outages during the past 12 months since the installation of the refurbished Storno 9000 equipment and the new logic and cavity filters.
Earlier this year the repeater experienced a fall off in output power to around 4 watts and as a result we have changed to our standby unit .Another issue in the last year has been interference from a piece of commercial equipment which is co sited with GB3TD.
Fortunately Andy, G0BEQ was able to negotiate with the new user of the site and the offending antenna was lowered further away from our antenna. This has limited the effect on our equipment.
Echolink has been available on a part time attended only basis and provided by Tony G8KWC. Some interesting QSO’s have been experienced and whilst Tony and Glenys were on their travels in Australia and New Zealand they were able to keep in touch using a small handy.
As I am the reserve Echolink NOV holder we were able to keep the link operating.
I also had a number of pleasant Echolink QSO’s from the Island of Rhodes (SV5) using their R2 VHF repeater back to GB3TD.
The disappointing thing this past year for myself has been the fall in usage, however, this is probably no different to some other repeaters.
The old clichés of “Use it or loose it” comes into use here!
Lets hope it’s not the latter.
I believe the pressure on the group in the coming years is going to be increasing site fees resulting from changes in site management. The RRG is constantly looking out for other sites in case this situation escalates.
I would like to thanks the committee for their continued support and a special thanks to the following:-
Martin for his work with the finances, Paul G8YMM for the newsletters, Tony his work on the Echolink, Gary, M3GDW and team for the work at GB7NW & Paul G7MTX for his GB3TD work despite his other commitments.
Finally, I would like to express my thanks to our Chairman, Andy G0BEQ for his support and guidance.
Thank all for your support keeping our repeaters on the air.