Roger Bly

We headed up Santiago Peak for 435 repeater maintenance — our first trip since the fire. The weather was perfect: 60°F, clear skies, no wind, and incredible visibility.
The best conditions I’ve seen in 11 years of visiting.

Road Conditions
Silverado/Maple Springs road was in great shape—freshly graded with new culverts. Santiago is still off-limits to the public, but I have a Forest Service key and post-fire permit for access. The only other person up there was an Edison guy tending to the generators.

Fire Damage
It was green at the base, but when the truck trail turned to face Modjeska and Santiago Peaks, it was shocking! Everything in sight was blackened and it was the same for the last 30 minutes of the climb.

Pulling in, we noticed the metal parking railing was laying on the ground because the wood posts holding it had burned to charcoal. This was about 30 feet from the shelter door.

Small manzanita shrubs near our shelter wall had burned. The 435 Heliax antenna cables (fire retardant grade) weren’t damaged. We only saw one burned cable on the west side. The manzanita plants were showing early signs of new green sprouts at their base. Live goes on.

Power
Three Edison diesel generators were powering the entire site.
The new steel power poles and lines are in place, but final hilltop underground connections are still pending.

Work completed

• GE repeater re-tuned for 2.5 dB receive improvement.
• 220 & 440 inputs — switched from DPL to 103.5 PL
• CW identifier volume reduced and pitch increased to be less intrusive. 
• “Drip” courtesy tone added to 220 & 440 inputs.
• 440 Motorola CDM radio reprogramed with additional remotely steerable frequencies in the  lower end of the band.
• 440 input frequency changed to 431.450 after analysis and listening for a quieter frequency.
• 440 cavity returned to 431.450
• Dell Debian replacement server racked and added to the IP stack.
• Assessment for future antenna moves — RX/TX improvement.
• Extensive still and drone video photography of the repeater site, tower and sounding area.
• Controller “smoke breaks” — consulted the owner/designer of our RLC club Deluxe controller. We believe this has been fixed. Apparently due to the RS-232 connection between the failed Dell server and the RLC controller (ACK flooding?).

Backlog (planned, prioritized, kitted with playbook. Didn’t make time cut)

• Decided not to remove the 103.5 output PL, but may remove or change in the future.
• Reinstall Battery backup – new batteries — Amp shedding coax relay cabling.
• Replace shelter webcam with new ReoLink.
• Install larger Ethernet switch.
• Relocate 2m and 220/440 antennas on tower for better RX/TX.
• General rack cleanup, moving stuff around, cable management, labeling, documentation, and removal of cobwebs 😉
• Cisco firewall changes (can be done remotely)
• Server configuration for Asterisk/Allstar VoIP (can be done remotely)

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