Maintenance on the cloud service used to connect some of our repeaters to various networks has been completed, and the technical team thinks we’ve found and temporarily repaired the issue that caused our Ham network to be unstable over the past week.
The microwave dish that provides primary Internet access to the system has the microwave radio mounted to the dish itself, and is fed with Ethernet cable that runs from the radio room up the tower to the dish. In 2017 that dish took a lightning strike and had to be replaced, but at the time we didn’t examine the cable and connectors that feed that dish. Today some of those connections were examined and a slightly burnt, moist, and corroded RJ-45 Ethernet connector was found along with a matching connector on the Ethernet surge protector’s connector. The current working theory is that this corrosion, along with freeze/thaw and the recent extreme cold caused moisture to freeze and make the connection intermittent.
That connector has been cleaned and put back in service until a more permanent fix is performed. The network appears stable again as a result.
This ham network supports Internet connectivity to these repeaters so they can access Allstar, Echolink, DMR, DSTAR, and YSF services and also be remotely controlled and managed. The repeaters shown in bold/italics were affected by this connector :
- 147.390 W8WKY
- 442.275 W8WKY
- 53.17 N8XPK
- 444.2 N8XPK
- 444.5125 WB8AVD (KA8OAD) (Copley DMR)
- 442.5125 KE8LDH
- 442.7375 KE8LDG
- 442.375 WW8TF
Some upgrades and changes are planned for the network over the next couple of months that will make the network more resilient when problems like these occur. We’ll share updates as they happen!