9am Saturday 11th January Jim ZL3ND, Bruce ZL3TDF, Mike ZL3TMB, and Craig CH5311 (I’m twisting his arm to get a real call-sign) met at the clubrooms to load up with gear, ready for the trip to Mt Herbert. We spent some time making some new battery cables for the install at the club. We finally heading off for the trip to Diamond Harbour about 10am, in two 4WDs a Safari and a Landcruiser.
After signing our lives away with the required Health and Safety paper work at the start of the Farmer’s track we headed on up the hill. The trip up to the peak was rather uneventful once Jim ZL3ND got the Landcruiser into 4WD for the tough bit, just after the two tanks. To say the gorse is taking over up there is an understatement, there is only a truck width gap along the walking track. So if you’re planning to take your shiny truck up the hill, expect a few gorse scratches along the way to the peak.
The weather on Saturday was windy to put it politely, so making sure anything loose was secured before we entered the hut was the first order of business.
The two 1998 vintage 100Ahr batteries that literally fell of the back of a truck were upgraded with a pair of shiny new ones.While Craig CH5311 and Mike ZL3TMB changed the batteries.
Bruce ZL3TDF and Jim ZL3ND were gathering ideas and measurements to add another couple of solar panels to the site. Did I mention the wind? Holding pencil paper and a tape measure was quite a task in itself while not being blown off the ladder! For those that have not been to site, there are two buildings, a tank very much the same as the Marleys Hill. Plus a newer DOC insulated hut. We use the Tank as a storage shed for the ladder and generator (Generator was stolen some years ago) But, as you can see from the photos below
we need some serious maintenance with a paint brush. Also a new vent lid, although Bruce ZL3TDF did find the remains of the old one down the hill. Richard ZL4FZ suggested we take the spectrum analyser for the trip and do a quick antenna return loss measurement. The resulting measurement had me questioning my use of the gear, so a quick check of the DOC antenna. Revealed a rather sad picture the first reading was why some people have said it’s deaf lately!!!!!
With the circulator in circuit we don’t see the bad VSWR from the repeater management console 6:1 VSWR is not ideal……..
A quick look in the cable junction box revealed more work that is required up there, the DC feed line from the solar panel had exposed wires that required insulation. There is a pile of old dead feeders that need to be removed.
Future work required up the hill:
- Antenna replacement
- Install low voltage cut out, same as Marleys Hill
- Replace the solar regulator with a MPPT modern version
- Build brackets to hold additional panels and galvanize them
- Install the new brackets and panels
- Replace tank vent cover
- Paint the tank & rust proof the door & paint
- Fix tank lock mounts, buy new padlocks
- Tidy up and remove all old feeders
- Run new cable for solar panels
- Redesign the old solar panel mount to remove chain clamps
- Remove the old solar controller box
- Consider pole testing as this has not been done in decades
