To break some of the solitude about staying in I accepted an invitation to go help with a remote amateur radio repeater “revival”. Let me state up front the revival was not successful due to our limited amount of resources and finding more errors than originally perceived.
A short explanation on how I got into this would be in order. I have been licensed for many years and I have done a lot of various things in the hobby, including working on repeaters (ground level only) and building a few digital units. I recently had tried to move my access on Dstar from a Florida repeater system, that was available online 6 years ago, to the nearest repeater that allows registration. To use the Dstar system you must be registered. I had lost access to the system in Florida and could not make any changes to my profile there and wanted to get access in Colorado where I sometimes can get into the Dstar repeaters. In that request I ended up being included in several system updates and emails about the systems the local club maintains. Guess I should pay some dues now? To that end and my being retired and available to help, I was asked if I would go along on this small adventure. I accepted thinking it would just be fun to get on top of a mountain or pass and see the equipment and take some pictures. It turned into a bit more than that. Doesn’t it always? To make the run to Raton Pass I had to get up at 6am, go pick up another club member that was the software expert for the system and load all the excess parts and tools we thought we might need and then meet up with another club member that has more tools and off we went from Colorado Springs at 8 am.
It is a good distance down to Raton Pass from Palmer Ridge but we did make it by 11am to meet the site owner. The owner now is the son of the original owner and they had bought this site to put in FM radio stations, 3 of them and then also rented out space to others. So there is a lot going on up on the hill. As you can surmise the road up is not a well maintained road but I had been on a lot worse and this one is pretty short from the highway up to the top of the pass. Once on top they crew started to review the issues.
Some of those issues were the removal of a non-working repeater from the shack to the right as the owner has a wore out generator that has toe be removed as well in that same shack. Since it was not the mane radio building it, to say the least , was a dump of broken and non-working stuff and trash. Our job there was to remove the old repeater , load it in that pickup so it could be repaired or replaced at a spot more convenient to repair work.
From on top of that ridge you can see a good distance in almost all directions. The mountains to the west and open to the north and south but there is a higher ridge to the east.
To the south left of center lies Raton, NM. It is below that ridge line.
To the NW are the Spanish Peaks.
Non closeup of the peaks, we are a ways to the south of them and the line of mountains in the distance running to the left are the Sangre de Cristos.
Over that ridge is Trinidad, Colo.
A little more to the right, if you look close you can see a fence line, maybe 200 yards out? that is the state line between NM and CO. and those ridges in the picture are the future state park Fisher’s Peak.
Laying off the east of the radio area was this old piece of equipment. As a kid going over the pas in years past and even up to some time in the 70’s I can remember there was a chair lift on that pass aptly called the Raton Pass chairlift. According to the link the equipment was still pretty much there into the 90’s but due to a serious accident in the 60’s it was shut down and left to waste. Anyway there are several parts till there but much of it has gone and I think the radio site now occupies that upper end of that lift.
Looking back from the “big wheel” is the site.
Off to the SW was this higher protrusion. Amazing that all this was formed by volcanic flows.
Hear is a close up of the Colorado side looking into the new state park area.
I am not sure but suppose that to be Fisher Peak in a close up. appears to be a difficult plateau to gain access to.
Well back to the reason we were there. to be in this building working on broken equipment.
Once in we found , of course, mouse/rats nests in the bottom of the repeater that had to be dug out. come general cleaning done around the repeater and we had to move a large nitrogen bottle out of the way so we could get access to our equipment. We found that it had been moved probably 4 years ago as the review of the computer drives in the server showed a date in 2016 that it lost connection to the outside world. The network lines had not been reconnected and some of the other lines appear to have been mashed, cut, or generally made un-useable. So we got that sorted out as well but still not go with the repeater.
The dust and rat ‘stuff” were a bit offensive in there so those guys put on the masks… I stayed out of the way and outside most of the time. In that building are 3 FM radio stations and 2 ‘HUGE” original stations that are not used now and are left because there is not where else to put them. so the space is a bit cramped. At this point Dave in front, is talking to the IP providers and trying to figure out which, what and where our connections should be and of course it took some time to get it back on to proper links but that is when they find that the other things are not working, like controller for the TX radio and the server may be dead, and , and and… so we gather up what we can and load it to be looked at and at some point they will schedule a return with the right stuff to make it work again… we hope.
Also in the process, maybe why I went, is they need muscle to get that old repeater out of the back building. It is one of the old 5 ft. cabinets built of heavy steel an has a lot of stuff in it. Dave pulled out what he could to lighten the load and then we “muscled” it out of the building where the door would not fully open and then into the back of his pickup.
Well it is loaded in the pickup and then we load up the various spare parts, although that set of duplexors went in the other building so they would not be damages when the generator is pulled or stolen…
Another view that shows it is a DAMN HEAVY piece of stuff.
We left the site at 2:30 or a bit after that and got back by 6pm and I had to get gas as it took a full tank to go down and back, about 350 miles or so total.
It was a fun day, I hope I get invited back but hope we don’t have too many more HEAVY things to muscle around.
So that was a portion of my past week.
WD0AJG