Snow Peak Service Trip

Snow Peak Repair Trip

On Saturday March 8th, 2008 a trip was made to see if I could make it to Snow Peak to determine why the repeater was performing so poorly. Alan (KI6DFA) and I decided to see how far we could get up the hill in the trucks. Needless to say, it wasn't very far (about 1.5 MI. up from Banning canyon).

We decided to see how far we could hike it and actually made it to the site! It was a good 7 mi. hike (one way) through some very deep snow but good exercise and majestic views!

The repeater will be temporarily off the air due to severe damage to the antenna structure. The mast was knocked off the building by some other antennas that came loose. The link yagi was STUCK TRANSMITTING DOWN IN THE SNOW ! It's a miracle the repeater was still part of the system in this condition and that the antennas were not severely damaged (main antenna was unharmed and I was able to bend the yagi back into shape). The other antennas that knocked our mast off are still hanging precariously over our antennas, threatening to take them out at any moment. Around the site I found 6-7 antennas from other people's systems also knocked off and lying on the building roof or ground so there was some SERIOUS weather up there.

I figured it would be bad practice to leave our link on, transmitting into the ground. Then it seems silly to have a stand alone repeater with the antenna lying horizontally on the ground. It also seemed unproductive to leave things like they were and wait for the gust of wind to knock the other structures down on ours. With no other place to mount the repeater antennas I took the repeater off the air and took the antennas off the mast and secured them to the rack inside the building. I was able to get Gary's 800MHz antennas back up. He was receiving complaints from a customer on the system and I decided to help him out while I was there.

To fix the problem I may be able to re-mount the vertical structure holding up the mast with anchors and a rock drill. Even so, I have plans to better secure this later on. If I get the energy in a few weeks I may hike up there again with the drill and try to fix it. If not, we have a good 6-8 weeks before the snow melts enough to get a 4WD to the site.

Anyway, enjoy the photos of the trip...

This is where wheeled vehicles stop and Snow-Cat country begins.

We got to a fork in the road and were not sure which way to go!

Even the Snow-Cat had trouble here... I am glad I wasn't in that Cat here..!

The road to Snow Peak is under there (somewhere).
We could not find the Snow Peak Communications gate, as it was buried.

We did find the lower gate though!

One of many trees down across the road.

Humm, THIS doesn't look good!

Gerry, when did you move the HUB to the INSIDE of the mountain?
No wonder the link was sounding so good!
That Yagi is pointing right at the HUB AND holding the mast up at the same time!

The antennas that knocked our mast off the building

The force ripped the mounts right out of the concrete brick.

And they are about to fall off onto our antennas!

One of many antennas knocked off the tower this winter.

The ladder was buried, so I just walked up this snowdrift onto the roof!
What a mess of coax!

Me at the door to the building.
(The thing on my leg was to thwart any plans the
local critters may have had to make us into dinner!)
Oh, and yes...IT"S COLD!

The hike kicked out butts, but the scenery was awesome!
I'll let you guys know when I plan on going back up to try to
get the repeater back on the air.

73
Aaron
KD6MHO