May 2, 2010  VE1PAR Solar Repeater site visit. Brad VE1ZX & Lorne VE1BXK


West Solar Panel Array Panel:

Rewired West Solar Panel from series to parallel using #10 wire. During this process West Solar Panel #2 plus (+) terminal had a lug which showed excess current draw. See the photos on the terminal in question. This wire connected the remaining six solar panels to the feed through to West Solar Panel #1 and then to the regulator. I suspect the full complement of all eight of West Solar Panel Array was not being used, perhaps only two!

Solar panel #1 connection point had a lot of corrosion as show in the photos attached. This was the connection point for the entire West Solar Panel
Array Panel to the DC voltage regulator. Before the rewire this was cleaned up.

All connections lugs for the entire rewire of the West Solar Panel Array Panel made use of a solder connection instead of crimping. Crimping (in this case) did not pass the test as one can see in the photos of the questionable terminal lug.

Battery Building:

All batteries were disconnected and removed from the building for load - voltage testing. The entire building was cleaned up and there after the
batteries were re-installed and reconnected.

220 Link Radio Port 4 (TLC-4 controller)

The Icom IC-38A on port 4 was found to be fully functional except that for some reason the display was set for DUP (Duplex) instead of simplex.
A test on the link code and subsequent link to VE1AEH verified it was all ok. Not sure how the radio got selected to DUP?

Duplexer Change out:

The six filter VHF duplexer was changed out with a four filter VHF duplexer for testing after reported TX noise getting back into the receiver.

Conclusion:

Tested all " on air" links from the controller. There were no issues found except with the battery banks requiring additional charging for the next few
days.

73,
Lorne VE1BXK
Brad VE1ZX