We have been listening to the repeater for a couple of weeks in the early mornings when the mountain is covered in a light fog to see if we could hear the same poor quality signal that we had on the 4th of July. There has been some noise but to the extent we heard on the 4th that forced us to go to simplex operation to support the parade. On 24 July 2025 John and I traveled up Black Mountain to the repeater site to verify proper operation of the repeater. When we arrived at the site, we found some weeds had grown up around the site (see photos below) and will need to be removed during the next visit to the site.
We unlocked the building and removed the panel covering the equipment and noticed the batteries were charging in the bulk mode, which is the maximum charge rate. This has been the charge mode since the batteries were installed. The charge rate does not seem to go into the float mod.
We inspected the solar panel on the roof and if was covered with a layer of dust. We washed the solar panel and noticed an improvement in the charging voltage and current. We also recorded the output of the batteries which were 13.8 volts and 1.2 amps. We disconnected the MESH system to see if the batteries will go into a float charge without the drain of the MESH being on 24/7. If the batteries do go into the float mode this would indicate that the batteries are not being fully charged while the MESH is operating and that we need extra solar panels to keep a full charge on the batteries with the MESH operating. We intend to reconnect the MESH system on our next trip to the site.
The repeater seemed to be operating properly, but we still had a slight noise on the output signal. We removed the antenna connector on top of the rack and noticed the center conductor had some slight corrosion on it. We scrapped off the corrosion and wiped down the connector. We then attached the antenna coax to a Bird SWR meter. The SWR was 0.12 at 144MHz and 0.2 at 146MHz. The figure below shows the plot of SWR. Trying to take a photo of the meter in a cramped space with poor lighting was a challenge.
The repeater seemed to be operating fine, with only a slight noise on the audio. We were not able to duplicate the high noise problem we had on the 4th of July.
While we were on site, we measured the diameter of the tower legs in case we need to mount the GMRS repeater on Black Mountain. The tower legs are 1.5 inches in diameter.
We returned to the repeater site on 29 July at 1400 to check the output of the solar panel at peak sun angle. It was about twice what we saw at 0900. The solar controller was in the float mode with the Mesh not connected. We reconnected the Mesh and will have to make another trip to the site during full sun to see if the controller transitions to float with the Mesh connected.