WA7ARC Radio Club

Installed a new system-wide controller today, providing greater speed and agility.

I replaced the master controller for the repeater system today, in anticipation of the arrival and installation of our new repeater on Nielton Point.  The new controller runs from a dedicated dual-processor AMD with 1 Gb RAM and is flash-based, reducing power consumption and increasing reliability.  Running from battery power, the system should operate properly during power outages, although we now have a fail-safe backup in the event of power loss.  Since I've written much of the software for the controller, this system provides us with new tools to automatically update information relevant to the coverage area and will provide better analysis and reporting of mountain/hill-top events related to repeater operation and maintenance in the future.

We are, however, in test-mode with the new controller and I've noticed we have a ground-loop that I'll be addressing (resulting in the lovely 60 cycle hum you hear during ID and other controller events).

Update as of 5/29/2008

I've resolved a few issues with the controller over the winter - the ground-loop issue has been fixed and the programming has finally been completed to my satisfaction.  Next step, the EAS/Earthquake alert system...