It is almost 2 years since the fire that destroyed most of the telecommunication infrastructure at the Marley’s Hill site including the Christchurch Amateur Radio Club site housing local 2m repeater 705, National System links to Blue Duck and Mt Studholme, APRS digipeater, a PRS repeater and a D band repeater.
The fire burnt one pole through completely, left the other in a charred state and completely destroyed all of the feeder cables and antennas. The equipment inside the hut was not damaged, but it all needed to be removed for checking. Even the mains power supply connection was lost as the hut was fed from another site that was destroyed.
It has been a long journey to re-establish the site starting with trying to get an insurance settlement sorted, and getting mains supply re-established.
The club has been very fortunate to have been able to take advantage of the work being done by other organisations on site. Corey Weir (ZL3CJW) of Canterbury Communications put us in touch with the contractor erecting replacement poles so that our poles could be erected in the same job-lot – a significant cost saving on getting equipment and the poles to site.
Antenna redesign work, drawings and parts list were pulled together by the Repeater Trustees, and antennas eventually ordered after approval from the committee. LDF4-50A coaxial cable was donated to Branch 05 from Martin Balch (ZL4JH) from a broadcast studio rebuild in the city. Mounting hardware was built and galvanised by Rory (Zl3HB) and Rob (ZL3RX) and a new UHF power divider built and tuned by Rob (ZL3RX) and Richard (ZL4FZ).
The antenna rework required the use of a several people capable of climbing the poles and familiar with working at heights, and preferably a cherry picker. James O’Hare, Adam Campbell and Carl Garner from Ashley Communications volunteered to work with us travelling from Dunedin and Timaru as needed. However, we had a very wet winter with much of the rain in weekends or heavy rain in the days immediately beforehand delaying possible weekends that were suitable.
With summer arriving, and Christmas New Year holidays, a date was set for the 29th and 30th December 2025.
On Monday 29th the team consisting of Carl Garner (ZL3CRG), Adam Campbell (ZL4ASC), James O’Hare (ZL3JH), Corey Weir (ZL3CJW), Roger Corbie (ZL3RC), Andy Gardner (ZL3AG), Nathan Porter (ZL3FOX) and Richard Smart (ZL4FZ) assembled on site to start the outdoor installation work.
Over the next two days (around 70 to 80 manhours) 3 VHF dipoles, 6 UHF dipoles, 2 yagi antennas, 12 LDF4-50A feeders, and 2 external earth bars were installed.
Andy (3AG) and Nathan (3FOX) extending the feeder trench to the base of the east pole
Refreshments were provided in the form of Reuben ZL3RAH (from St John) in the form of fired chicken.
Adam (4ASC) in the basket, Carl (3CRG), Richard (4FZ) & James (3JH) & Corey (3CJW) resolving an implementation problem.
By the end of Tuesday 30th, all the antennas and feeders (including 2 sets of electrically matched feeder pairs) were fitted to the poles and run to the hut. The feeder earth connections on the east pole were completed and everything tidied away before the weather finally gave in and brought work to an end.
During the 2nd week of January Blair (ZL3TOY) painted the inside of the hut while the equipment was absent
The weeks after the antenna build, Roger (3RC) with some assistance from Rob (3RX) and Richard (4FZ) has been leading the hut fitout, completing feeder terminations to new feeder earth bars, final feeder terminations, relocating filters and batteries and installing new filters for APRS. Matching phasing cables were cut and terminated for 705 and the National System Local node power dividers.
On Monday 12 January we were able to fit the 705 repeater equipment into the rack and connect the duplexer and power divider to the antennas. 705 was put back into service at around 1700 hours on 12 January 2026 on mains power only at this stage.
The morning of the 13th January 705 was off-air again due to a planned power outage, but was back on again later in the morning.
There is still a lot of work to complete to have everything back into service as it was. We are waiting for more connectors (we bought everything Hi-Tec Aerials had of RG214 N-connectors) and there is more work required to complete equipment installation and DC builds.
The repeater trustees wish to extend their grateful thanks to the team from Ashley Communications (Carl, James and Adam) and Canterbury Communications (Corey) for their help with the December pole rigging and assistance and advice in earlier stages. We would also like to extend our thanks to other members of Branch 05 that have been working to see the project come to completion.
East pole with National System Link yagis and PRS dipoles
West pole – antenna pipes being fitted.
West pole with (from Top Left) APRS and 705 pair and (Top Right) Nat Sys Local Node, D band and Control repeater.
Roger (3RC) fitting the APRS filter below the 705 duplexer.
Fitting 705 (Tait TB-8100 repeater) to the rack.
