VEHAR moves to new communications building

On March 19^th., 2010 the VE1HAR repeater was moved into its new building at Harmony Heights, which is just a little south east of Truro, N.S.

The repeater had started its life with the call sign VE1II, but was changed to VE1HAR when it was first moved from the QTH of Bruce, VE1II to Harmony Heights which is a location that provides much better coverage.

The original VHF repeater was a converted Motorola MITREK which was changed to a Motorola MSR-2000 repeater during the summer of 2009. The repeater provides linking possibilities using either the Provincial MAVCOM linking system, the IRLP system or the EchoLink system.

Because the old repeater building was just barely large enough to house the existing equipment and because additional equipment will be installed at the site, a new building was built and delivered to the site a few weeks before day of the move..

On March 19^th all hands were scheduled to arrive at 9 am to begin moving the equipment from the old building and into the new building This included fire service equipment and broadband internet equipment and also the radio equipment associated with the VE1HAR repeater.

Feedlines had to be moved from where they entered the old building and into the new building.

New cabling had to be made to connect all of the various pieces of equipment also AC wiring had to be installed at each of the rack positions in the building.

Teams of people representing Nova Scotia Transportation and Infrastructure, Oldham Engineering Inc., Westower Communications, Nova Communications, McGregor's Construction, and Seaside Communications as well as members of the Nova Scotia Amateur Radio Association were all on hand to do their part in the changeover.

As you can imagine, with that many different agencies working on a project there has to be a lot of cooperation and I was very pleased to see how well everyone worked together to see the move occurring so well. Everything seemed to be happening just as it was planned and by supper time everything was pretty well completed with only a very few loose ends to tidy up later.

The new building was the first of a new design that will gradually replace aging buildings at Provincial sites around the Province.

I would especially like to thank the following amateur radio operators who were there and who made sure the VE1HAR move went without a hitch.

Bill Elliott, VE1MR

Tom Cohoon, VE1TA

Raymond Weatherbee, VE1RVW

and Matt Boyle, VE1BSG, who was representing Nova Scotia Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal

The accompaning pictures were taken by Matthew Boyle, VE1BSG, Mike Harvey, VE1MBH and Bruce Harvey, VE1II

Be sure to listen on 147.135 + MHz and see if you can work the VE1HAR repeater.